Thanks Ethan.

I have heard there was a way to drain oil from the dipstick, but I haven't looked into it yet. I don't think my mechanic replaced a gasket on the drain plug, and I don't know if there's one there either.

I don't want to hijack my own thread by getting into the endless MB Quality issue discussion. But to answer your question, I'll say that the Lexus has shown excellent quality and reliability. It has about 70K miles and has never needed anything but routine maintenance (tires, brakes, oil).

The E320 has good quality and reliability. For a Mercedes, I feel lucky. Outside of routine maintenance, the only things that I feel failed prematurely are the ball joints (dealer replaced while under warranty), tie rod bushings and mass air flow sensor. I also replaced the harmonic balancer as preventative maintenance. Unfortunately, my mechanic recently showed me that some aspect of the power steering pump/line and transmission coolant line are both slightly leaking. I'm not going to worry about either leaks for now.

Dave

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Dave

1998 E320
2001 SLK320
2000 Lexus RX300