I just brought my '97 E320 in to the local dealer for some "minor" issues. These are what I would consider minor annoyances that I just didn't feel like contributing an entire Saturday to fixing myself

FIRST ISSUE: The spring that holds the driver side, side view mirror in place became unhooked. The mirror stays in place, loosely, in the current situation. I couldn't see where the spring attaches, so I thought this would be an easy fix for the dealer, just re-attach the spring, right, wrong!

DEALER RESPONSE: $550 to replace the entire workings of the mirror!!!!!! They told me the spring actually broke the connector and the entire mechanism needs to replace, all except for the color coded housing.

SECOND ISSUE: The light socket for the inboard park light, also on the driver side, will not stay connected to the back of the reflector. Upon examination, it looks like one of the tabs that hold the socket in place is broken. Easy fix, right, re-connect a new socket to the existing wiring, wrong!

DEALER RESPONSE: $380 to relpace the socket and all the wiring back to (through) the wiring harness.

I can not believe the dealer would expect any rational being to pay this amount for these minor issues. I told him no thanks - I'd figure something.

Has anyone out there had similar issues and how'd you fix them??

Also, it seems to me the overall hardware integrity of the E320 is signifancly worse than the older 300Es. I never had pieces break off my 300E!!!!!