I got home at 2:30 am Sunday morning after 1500+ miles in 21 hours and a 12 hour layover at my brothers in Chattannoga. I finally got out of the 80's and bought a '98 ML320 in Houston. It looks and drives real nice. Bought it on eBay and flew down on Friday.

I must extend a very hearty THANK-YOU to fellow board member Johnny, aka "the_good_fellow", for picking me up at the airport in his superb looking (and running) '87 300SDL. Attached is a photo of Johnny and his ride at the used car lot and one of the new addition at my brothers.

Johnny,

I owe you one. Next time I stay long anought to take you to lunch. BTW: it took 12 1/2 hours to get to Chattannoga including stops. I arrived at 6 am!

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__________________
Michael LaFleur

'05 E320 CDI - 86,000 miles
'86 300SDL - 360,000 miles
'85 300SD - 150,000 miles (sold)
'89 190D - 120,000 miles (sold)
'85 300SD - 317,000 miles (sold)
'98 ML320 - 270,000 miles (sold)
'75 300D - 170,000 miles (sold)
'83 Harley Davidson FLTC (Broken again) :-(
'61 Plymouth Valiant - 60k mikes
2004 Papillon (Oliver)
2005 Tzitzu (Griffon)
2009 Welsh Corgi (Buba)

Here's one of the ML320.

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__________________
Michael LaFleur

'05 E320 CDI - 86,000 miles
'86 300SDL - 360,000 miles
'85 300SD - 150,000 miles (sold)
'89 190D - 120,000 miles (sold)
'85 300SD - 317,000 miles (sold)
'98 ML320 - 270,000 miles (sold)
'75 300D - 170,000 miles (sold)
'83 Harley Davidson FLTC (Broken again) :-(
'61 Plymouth Valiant - 60k mikes
2004 Papillon (Oliver)
2005 Tzitzu (Griffon)
2009 Welsh Corgi (Buba)

Nice addition to your collection mpafleur.

I would recommend that you replace your crankshaft damper with a newer redesigned one if you still have the original one on your ML320.

My crankshaft damper went at 78K miles on my 98 E320 a few weeks back. I was fortunate that no major damage was done. The problem with the orginal designed crankshaft damper is that the rubber ring comes apart and could cause extensive damage from the drive belt and pulley being thrown around.

Do a search for crankshaft damper, harmonic balancer to see what I am talking about.

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Ray
1998 Mercedes E320, 200K Miles
2001 Acura 3.2TL, 178K Miles
1992 Chevy Astro, 205K Miles

Michael, you are welcome. wow! that's a lot of miles in two days. did you figure out what the MPG is? Nice SUV!

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BJ

09 GL320 Bluetec 65K+
07 E320 Bluetec 43k+
05 Nissan Frontier NISMO 4X4 72K+


07 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 5k+ gone
87 300SDL 158k+ gone
91 300D 113k+ gone
83 300SD 220K+ gone
89 300E sold
87 190E sold
83 380SEL sold
http://banners.wunderground.com/bann...TX/Houston.gif

Ray,

Thanks for the tip. I'll look into it.

Johnny,

The trip meter showed 23.2 mpg when I got home. My calulations not including the last couple hundred miles are a couple miles per gallon less.

Are these trip meters accurate?

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Michael LaFleur

'05 E320 CDI - 86,000 miles
'86 300SDL - 360,000 miles
'85 300SD - 150,000 miles (sold)
'89 190D - 120,000 miles (sold)
'85 300SD - 317,000 miles (sold)
'98 ML320 - 270,000 miles (sold)
'75 300D - 170,000 miles (sold)
'83 Harley Davidson FLTC (Broken again) :-(
'61 Plymouth Valiant - 60k mikes
2004 Papillon (Oliver)
2005 Tzitzu (Griffon)
2009 Welsh Corgi (Buba)

In the UK and possibly elsewhere I remember there was some issue with ML-class trip computers. Remarkably, I think they were reading kilometers, but displaying as miles, so MPG figures would be wrong. Not sure if they were recalled

Can't remember what the exact issue was, but I'm fairly sure it made the cars read lower MPG figures than you were actually getting (so not kms for miles, this would in fact give a higher reading)


later!

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190E's:
2.5-16v 1990 90,000m Astral Silver
2.0E 8v 1986 107,000m Black 2nd owner
http://www.maylane.demon.co.uk/190esmall.jpghttp://www.maylane.demon.co.uk/190esmall2.jpg