I have a 1989 300te...stock wheels. I want to pick up a set of wheels for my snow tires. I went to e-bay to see if I could find a set of used wheels. What size do I look for? What other model MB will be the exact fit for my car? I have a set of snows that are NOT on rims, but they were on my stock rims. SO, I must get a stock size to fit the ALREADY owned snows.

stamped or cast into the rim itself, as do all European cars of recent vintage. Unfortunately, M-B tends to put the info on the backside of the rim rather than the front where it is easily readable, as SAAB and BMW do. What you want to do is shop for the exact match in part number, which will automatically give you the correct width and offset, but on a M-B, you often have to remove a wheel to get access to all the numbers, unless you're sure your spare is a perfect match to the rest.

You can get fooled, though -- when my middle daughter first bought her '90 SAAB 900 (used), we discovered that one wheel was a 6" ET 33 from a 9000 model rather than a 5 1/2" ET 40 from a 900, which was why the tire rubbed just a little bit on the fender lip -- no one knows how or when the switch happened.