Hi there I have an S350, ’95 and the odometer shows 172.000 km’s (which I really don’t trust since I bought the car two years ago in Belgium from a fishy dealer.
W140 are great cars except for the model with the 3.5L diesel. So far I haven’t had too much trouble with it except that the AC blower regulator died($400).
Now there are some minor problems (If I can say so) that bother me.
A. The temperature of the engine is pretty high, usually 90-95 with AC on highway, and up to 110 C in city driving with AC on. What bothers me is that the two fans in front of the radiator grille wont turn on at all. What I do now (what a buddy taught me) is after starting the engine I open up the hood and pull off the a plug(!?) show on the picture as #1 and both fans engage and this continues until the engine is on and this keeps the temp 85-90. I would like to if possible to have the first fan to engage at 85(90) C and the second at 95(100). Any ideas or recommendations?? Note: this is what concern’s me the most.
B. When I first bought the car when I was putting the transmission in second the trans would shift in second at about 2500 rpm. Now it wont shift in second at all.
C. the VIN of my S350 is WDB1401341A200159 and when they checked this number on the computer at the DB service center the computer was showing that the car has a gasoline engine. Same when I check it online at www.mbnz.org/modelguide (used VIN Decoder) it shows that it’s a gasoline vehicle. On the other hand at the online catalog at the Fastlane at http://www.peachparts.com/catalog/index.php3 clearly shows that 140.134 (4-9 digit of the VIN) are diesel engines. I’m not sure if this is the engine number but on the engine block on the right side on metallic plate (0.5” by 1”) the following is written :
PES 6M 55C 320 RS 181
11 463 30 4 6 2 56
0 400 076 956
603 070 4701 ER 0045
[shown as #2 on the picture]

and on the place shown with #3 this number is written:

R 603 098 17 07 (mercedes sign) 2

Does anybody have any idea what's up with this car.

Sorry for making this post too long.
Greetings from Macedonia.

Attached Images

w140 s350.bmp (47.8 KB, 93 views)

Well, I have a neighbor who used to import M-Bs from Belgium to sell here in Costa Rica.

He told me that most of the cars he bought from also a fishy dealer, were mostly total losses from severe accidents.

Hence, many W124s he imported were the 50% front from one car while the 50% rear from ANOTHER car, welded together!!!

He also commented that most of the cars did NOT have the original engines on them. For example, a 300E will come with a 230E or viceversa.

I would not be surprised that in your case the engine was swapped from another car and mounted into an original gas engined chassis.

Lessons to be learned: never buy a car from Belgium, and never buy a used car from my neighbor.

__________________
A. Rosich
CL 500, 1998
S 500 L, 1998
E 320 T, 1995 [Sadly sold ]

Well I heard about that too.
But I hope mine it's not a fake.
But what I really need to figure out is how to fix the temperature issue(marked with A.on the original post).

I'm pretty sure the fans are wired in parallel so it would take some work to rewire them to turn on independently.

You might want to check the gauge and sensor to confirm that it's running too hot. If it's running hot at speed, check the thermostat and radiator before checking the fans. The fans don't flow more air than you get by driving 50km/h.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL