On the way from Charlotte to Asheville NC on Hwy 74 (a great road by the way), we hit a bear at 65 in our 89 300E. The front left corner was crushed back about 10 inches. Radiator is toast, left headlight assy. is gone, hood corner is fine oddly enough, and the grill has a nice new shape. The car has 205K on the clock, and some considerable work is to be done on the body. While it's apart, is their anything anyone would recommend to do service-wise. The trans. is starting to show its age- would switching to a better gear oil make a difference (Redline, etc)? Any advice on anything is well appreciated...

I switched my '88 300TE over to Redline Synthetic ATF when I bought it (it had 67k, and now has 145k) and the gain I felt most obviously was improved cold-weather shifting. Same story with my brother-in-law, who converted his '88 300TE at 100k, and it now has something like 250-260k. He noticed the same thing. Neither uses any fluid, and mine shifts as well as when I got it. Now, my bro-in-law's tranny appeared to be getting tired 150k ago, but the Redline seems to have at least slowed his trany's demise.

Hope this helps...good luck!

Michael

'92 500E
'88 300TE

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Now might be a good time to switch to European headlights. Talk to the repair shop.
BTW How's the bear?