I'm in the market for an E300 or TE300, and have looked at several of them both in the flesh and on the internet. I have a few questions about traction control.
1) How do you know if a car is equipped with traction control? Do they all have a button labeled "ARS" if it has traction control?
2) Is there something in the serial number sequence that will indicate if it's equipped with Traction Control?
3) What does ARS stand for?
4) Is there a way to test whether it is actually working. I've run into this trucks that had posi-traction, and the only simple way I ever figured out to see if it actually worked was to jack one rear wheel off the ground and put it on a block, and then put it in gear and engage the clutch. If it tried to drive itself off the block the posi-traction was working. The other method was to find a loose dirt road, and try to get some wheel-spin. Looking at the tire marks on the ground you could see if both tires started to scratch.

This was also a question once when buying a Plymouth Voyager van with AWD. There was nothing that indicated that the AWD system worked or not. Luckily it snowed, and I nosed it up to a barrier and had a friend give it a little power while I watched. The front tires spun on the snow a turn or two, and then the back joined in. So, it was working-about the only part of that car that worked reliably.ABS brakes were subject to a lifetime recall, and four-speed auto transmission required $1,000 worth of work every two years. It also displayed a very peculiar handling characteristic when fooling around on a snowy parking lot. When cornering, it would handle like a front wheel drive car, until you gave it enough throttle to make the front wheels spin. First the car would give you a moment of front-wheel drive plowing, then when the rear wheels kicked in the rear would come out. Zut Allors!!! as they say in northern Maine.

The best thing I could say about that car was that it got truly remarkable gas mileage. Previously we'd had an '89 Dodge Caravan with 4cyl engine and 5 speed; it got about 25-28 mpg. Then we got the Voyager with the long-wheelbase Grande Caravan body, AWD, Automatic, and a pushrod 3.8L V6 engine. I expected 20-22 mpg, but instead it got from 26 up to 32 on the road.

It is not ARS..it is ASR....Acceleration Slip Regulation

Turn the key On and you will see a ASR triangle in the middle of the speedo on the dash.

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A Dalton

I think you probably mean 300E or 300TE, pre-1994 would be letter in the rear. It's actually ASR - which stands for accelleration skid control or anti-slip regulation. I think it's a German acronym that doesn't translate perfectly. It was a fairly rare 124 option in the early 90s. Any car so equipped would have a snow chain button and an ASR warning light under the instruments. There's nothing in the VIN but enter the VIN on the Russian club web site and look for option code 471. Try a search above for "ASR" or "ASR light" -it has a colorful track record.

http://old.mbclub.ru/mb/vin/?lng=eng