From what I have been told, the airconditioning/evaporator on these cars are diabolically difficult and complex to access and to fix. I saw an early '90s W140 in for repairs at a Mercedes dealer and the whole dashboard was out and the front seats too.

The joke is that the whole evaporator was suspended from a string and the entire car was assembled around it! The dealer says it is a 30 hour job to recondition a bad one, and dealer labor is near to $100 ph so you do the math.

The '99 is the end of the model run, so most problems were sorted out, but it's a big chance you are taking to buy one, all that could go wrong. I'd keep a big budget in reserve for repairs. A bad one could be a real money pit.

That said, they have marvelous interiors, great seats, and are very solid smooth cruisers, really wonderful cars to drive.

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1991 560 SEC AMG, 199k <---- 300 hp 10:1 ECE euro HV ...

1995 E 420, 170k "The Red Plum" (sold)

2015 BMW 535i xdrive awd Stage 1 DINAN, 6k, <----364 hp

1967 Mercury Cougar, 49k

2013 Jaguar XF, 20k <----340 hp Supercharged, All Wheel Drive (sold)