I finally picked up the car over the weekend. Thanks for everyones input. The instrument cluster does need to be replaced. It looks just like the picture you provided. It was not the bulb being burned out as they had initially indicated. I got a $500 reduction in price. The dealer said if I decide to have it replace, they will replace for $600. I think I'll wait a while. The only thing that is illegible is the outside temp and part of the clock. I'm okay with that.

Other than that, the car is in pretty good shape mechanically. I also had a 20 point inpsection by another dealer. It checked out. After the inside/outside was detailed, it actually looked much better.

The things that I need to take care of are; new tires for the Chicago winter - The Michellins are horrible. I also replaced the battery over the weekend. The car died a couple of times while sitting out in the cold.

I do have a couple of follow up questions. I did a search and did not find the answer. I borrowed an OBD reader from Autozone (Actron) to see if there's any hidden codes. I've used this same tool on other cars before (Volvo, Lexus, VW) and it works well. It seems to support all the protocols. But, it gave me an "Link Error" when I used it on the E320. Does this model use a different unique (Mercedes only) protocol. I thought Mercedes uses the ISO protocol. Does anyone have any info on this one.

The other thing is that the "Express" function of the power windows for both up and down does not work. When I push the button past the click-point, the windo just stops . I reset it following the manual instruction when I changed the battery, but it doesn't seem to work.. I'm not sure if it was that way before I replaced the battery. Any ideas.

Thanks in advance. I will post these 2 question in a separate post.