love my 98 E300. No smoke unless you goose it all the way. FAST ! Incredibly responsive for a diesel. Also fairly quiet. Has been extremely reliable and always starts immediately even in cold weather. (just gotta wait on those plugs to warm her up) This is the inline 6 3.0L turbo. Only bad thing I've heard about MB Diesels was about the 3.5 turbo in the S350 TD. Be careful there.

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Barker