What a POS!

https://www.fox9.com/news/two-dead-3-injured-following-crash-in-minneapolis

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You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows - Robert A. Zimmerman

NOTE TO SELF : Don't sell your various W123's just yet .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Hard side impact with power pole is typically not one of the testing criteria for the NHTSA as far as I know. Cars don't have seem to have much resistance to sideways shear force.

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Jim

Just so Jim .

These foolish kids learned the hard way that every action has a result .

An Auto Journo I know, Jack Baruth, slide his old Panther into a pole and nearly died ~ the car didn't rip in half but it didn't offer much side impact protection either .

Human bodies are designed (? evolved ?) to withstand the impact of running into a stationary object as fast as you can ~ beyond that you're on your own .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

hitting a pole like that might be more lethal if the car stayed in one piece and flattened out in the center.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Yep ;

In 197......9 (?) I was driving my pristine $250 1964 Chevelle sedan home late at night when I fell asleep, the road curved left and I jumped the curb doing about 35MPH and slammed into a light standard .

It went between the right front wheel and the (very peppy) 250CID i6 engine, shearing off the accessories as it went and stopped when the pole embedded itself into the firewall .

As the way things go, I was of course less than 1 mile from my house and a warm bed / safety .

Good thing I believe in seat belts, it had lap only , I hit my chest on the base horn button and broke the steering wheel in half , I had a black bruise and couldn't take a deep breath for close to a year .

The stupid things we do as kids ~ I was always the driver so everyone else would get home O.K. .

DUH .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I saw a picture of a car that was T-boned by a high-speed crotch rocket. The crotch rocket's engine and transmission were effectively incompressible objects and cut the car in half. The rider was very compressible, though.

Just so ~ babies have very flexible bones and often fall from windows and bounce .

Adults OTOH (me anyway) have far more brittle bones and don't tolerate impacts very well .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

I guess we could say the moment we slide behind the wheel and buckle up, our lives are at risk.

That is a W166 chassis. Early to mid 201x ML350.

You are looking at a clip job (salvage rebuild where 2 bodies butt welded together) and patched and repainted.

Butt welds are notoriously weak.

There is no transverse factory seam at that location in a 166 chassis.

The roof panel is one piece front to back and so is the floor pan. You can see it on EPC.

It wouldn’t split clean like that if it was one piece of steel, it would be completely deformed at the break.

I guarantee the embedded VINs don’t match front and back on this thing.

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The OM 642/722.9 powered family
Still going strong
2014 ML350 Bluetec (wife's DD)
2013 E350 Bluetec (my DD)

both my kids cars went to junkyard in 2023
2008 ML320 CDI (Older son’s DD) fatal transmission failure, water soaked/fried rear SAM, numerous other issues, just too far gone to save (165k miles)
2008 E320 Bluetec (Younger son's DD) injector failed open and diluted oil with diesel, spun main bearings (240k miles)

1998 E300DT sold to TimFreeh
1987 300TD sold to vstech

thank you jay bob for for sharing this valuable information. It is certainly something to be aware of when out shopping for a used car/SUV/truck, etc.

It's not an ML, if you watch the video there is a close-up of the rear hatch.

It's a GLK X204 chassis.

Very highly rated in crash test results. It could certainly be a grafted repair situation.

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98 Dodge-Cummins pickup (137K)
13 GLK250 (157k)
06 E320CDI (341K)
16 C300 (89K)
82 300GD Gelaendewagen (54K)

Curiously enough,
I have heard a lot of bad things about the ML350. Any comments from drivers/owners? It's an older car but my wife likes the style and wants me to find one, even though I thinks a turbo 300 CD might actually be more to her liking.

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Strelnik
Invest in America: Buy a Congressman!

1950 170SD
1951 Citroen 11BN
1953 Citroen 11BNF limo
1953 220a project
1959 180D
1960 190D
1960 Borgward Isabella TS 2dr
1983 240D daily driver
1983 380SL
1990 350SDL daily driver alt
3 x Citroen DS21M, down from 5
3 x Citroen 2CV, down from 6

You have a wife? Hard to imagine with all the car stuff you have lying about!

There is a young single mom up the hill with an older ML like that. I don't think she drives it much but it still looks like new.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I was not able to tell how "clean" it was cut through. I've seen other cars wreck where they slide sideways into a pole and it sliced right through it.

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Jim