How can this be possible?? Was I ripped off?
 

I have a 1995 E300D and the manual says it holds 18 gallons. I filled up for the first time and I put in 20.6 gallons of fuel. Was I just hosed by a Sunoco gas station that is not on the up and up? It was the first time I used this station because it was usually so much higher than any other station. However the past few weeks it has been selling diesel for $4.09. roughly .16 to .25 lower than the competition.

Was the fuel gauge showing empty or not really even close?

THe gauge was at empty

Sounds fishy to me too. I double-checked what you have in the manual, MB says the capacity is 70 liters, which is about 18.5 gallons, so close enough to what the manual says.
Would be nice to see if any owners of the same model can state that they have squeezed in more gallons than this.
Otherwise........well you could go in there with a 1 gallon fuel can and see how close it gets to filling it (checking yourself for a "short gallon"), or you can complain to whoever in your state is in chage of these things. In my state, the people in charge of this, just to try to compare with your own state, is called:
"Weights and Measures Unit, Wisconsin Division of Trade and Consumer Protection".

I can see if you are really really "running on fumes" to maybe take a little over 18 gallons, or if you had fuel "all the way to the top of the filler neck" plus you were running on fumes, OK 18.5 to 19 gallons, but over 20 seems impossible, and that's what I would tell the people in charge of checking the pumps in your state.
Oh and there should be a label of some kind on the pump saying when it was last checked.
Gilly

there was a story a while back about gas stations rigging their pumps to rip off customer. not sure how but the trick was to fool the weights and measures folks by getting the pump to dispense correctly for 1, 5 and 10 gallon amounts, figuring that is what the agencies would look at. worked for awhile

87-93 diesels have 18.5 gallon tanks. The '95 has a 24 gallon tank.

They decided to increase the fuel tank size for the last year of production???

BUT being an open minded guy, here look at this:
http://www.edmunds.com/mercedes-benz/e-class/1995/features-specs.html

The info I have I am now guessing is wrong, but I did recheck. And also curious why MB couldn't get the owners manual correct.
What I am seeing after looking this info over is the V8 cars had 90 liter tanks, I didn't see any diesel with anything other than a 70 liter tank. I did see a 124 extended chassis with a 72 liter tank?
Maybe MB thought they were going to have too many V8 fuel tanks left over so started jamming them in other 124's in the last year........

The 500E's, E500, & 95 E300D all used that larger tank!

Both of mine have it.

I show the other V8's (400E, E420) cars all having it as well, none of the Diesels I looked up showed anything other than the 70 liter, but maybe because it was 1 year only on the D's

They decided to install a completely redesigned engine without a turbo. An increased fuel tank would seem pretty minor compared to that. ;)

True dat. Oh and that was also carried over in to the 210 also, right? I think that's the 605 motor, which became the 606

OM606 with or without turbo.