Benzos4theteam

hey guys i just recently bought a 2001 c320 .

first let me tell you a bit about myself.

I'm from bimmerforums, I'm not spamming but my first car was a e34, alpine white.

im 17, turning 18 in july. got my e34 when i was 16. paid for half of it.

i bought my w203 all by myself, i work, did a couple things, i sold my e34 and managed to buy my w203.

i bought my w203 at the auction here in san antonio, texas. my "uncle" lets me and my father buy cars at the auction whenever we want. so we get them for less.

but anyways I'm not new to forums at all, i hope to learn a lot for you guys.

here is my car , 2001 c320, what does "elegance package mean"?

color is 891 Aspen Green Mica
which explains why it look a bit blue in one of the pics









even tho i i bought it at the auction it came with the original owners manual.



QUESTIONS,
if u have any comments or question feel free to post/ask

but i have some question for this forum.

first of all why so many stickys? not to be rude tho .

second the eurotuner is located in houston right? :o

and the factory alarm doesn't work on my car even though i already bought the correct new batteries for it.?

the rear sunshade is stuck, any diy fix?

but the bose sound system is great

i plan on lowering my car, getting a ecu performance upgrade, and some wheels, and whatnot.

samaritrey

well welcome to mbworld
first off "elegance package" is luxury model vs sport. The luxury model was really the only ones sold in 01 a 2001 sport is a rare thing in the USA. So you have the normal bumper and suspension. If you had the sport model you would have a better suspension and a way better looking bumper as well as a few other tweaks.

Secondly that green was always my favorite and is rare.
Third we have lots of stickys because of so many good threads we have a car that is old so almost every issue has been figured out by now so if you search on here you can find an answer to every question you can think of if you put the effort in to search.
Forth how did you test the alarm?
fifth The rear sunshade is a known issue I would get it down and unplug the motor and never use it again. Mine still works but if it ever stopped I would just never use it. You might have to remove lots of stuff to get full access to it so you can either replace it or get it folded up and put back to down position.
Sixth you can find lots of information on here about suspension and performance upgrades as well as wheel ideas. BTW are those things Chrome I hope someone did not chrome the ugliest wheels ever lol I use my original set for winter use. You will find that there is not much for performance besides the ecu upgrade I did one and love it but that is really about it unless you want to blow a few thousand.

So how many miles are on the clock and do you have any maintenance records. Theses cars can be expensive to keep going definitely if you neglect maintenance.

Benzos4theteam

hey there, thanks.

but what special thing does luxury model consist of? my doesn't even have headlight washers :/

its rare ?

how many did they make :o

well the alarm key has not worked at all, so i tought the batteries were old i went to radio shack bought the required batteries CR 2025.

followed a youtoube video on how to remove and replace the batteries correctly :


i installed both batteries correctly, pointed it at the cars door and nothing, even turned on the car and drove around to (resync) the system as i read, and still nothing.

, weather i point it at the doors or the car or anything really, it hasn't showed any sign of the alarm working.

and well my e34 only had like 170HP so this plus the ECU upgrade will be way better. i will be taking a trip to houston in the near future for that.

is there any meets in texas?

130k miles on speedometer, no records like i said the car is an auction car,

and one more thing , i hope people don't think i bought a lemon, but the car had a blown head gasket , i ordered the parts with one day shipping and my girlfriends father who is a mechanic from the filipines is fixing it at the moment.

all new gaskets all around.

and btw its not that big of a deal, he does it for free, he did the same thing for my e34 and it ran perfect after he fixed it.

but i think i need a new alternator, but other than that thats it .

ROLLNNN

welcome to the forum!

anonymousmoose

Very nice car for a young fella like yourself. Congratulations for choosing Mercedes Benz.

That Green is a rather unique colour, looks prestigious.

Although you will most likely go for a sports look in your 'upgrades/mods', may I suggest an alternative?; prestige? As yours is already the 'elegance' model, why not work your mods into an elegance style? A set of nice wheels will do about half the job for you. And the fact your is royal green completes the picture.

I've although the RIMS of this type made the w203 look very elegant and bigger.


But even if you do go sports, good on you! The w203 has been a great car for the last 8 months since I've owned one and I'm sure yours will too. There are plenty of people here who can inspire you with the mods.

PS
Mine is sports, I may sound a bit hypocritical saying go elegant, but mine actually came with pretty much all the factory sport upgrades when I purchased her.

anonymousmoose

I think the headlight washers were another upgrade. But I cant say for sure. Mine has them but its a 2006 model with factory upgrades. Either way, the amount of times I ever used my headlight washers... ZERO. Except for when I first tested them.

I wouldnt say rare , but the green colour does make it stand out from the norm. Here is mine is 'normal' Mercedes silver.


Mercedes made well over 1,000,000 of these cars.

It is also worth noting that in 2004/2005, the w203 got a facelift. So if you see some around with a different interior and a more modern look exterior, it will most likely be a facelift model.

phister

Eurocharged has a shop in Houston. They just recently moved to a new location. Hit up their site to see where its at now. Talk to Jerry about a tune.

Glyn M Ruck

Welcome. Trey will get you up to speed on 2001 C320,s

Tri-Star

elegance package is the non-sport bumper, etc ... I also have a c320 and it is a great car but service and mods could get expensive. You should know, nothing much different when prices of BMW

tommy

Don't know if you know this, but you can remotely tune your car with Jerry, or just send the ecu to them.

Benzos4theteam

Yeah I'm going to contact him soon. And @anonymousmoose u mean like VIP style? I wouldn't mind. Currently. I want
Black rims. Hid. Lower it. And ecu tune. :0 are these cars fast?

LILBENZ230

Best save your money for maintenance and repairs. That's not being mean, that's being honest.

Benzos4theteam

i am well aware of the cost of repairs and maintenance, like i said I'm getting all new gaskets and a new alternator put in currently , should be done in a couple of days. i get it all done for free bro. my girlfriend dad does it, and well since the 4 family member that live with him are nurses he doesn't need to charge me at all.

oh and he loves mercedes and bmw's so its a win - win situation any time i need anything he will fix it. just like he did with my e34.

what do you guys think about these :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/18-Mercedes-...ht_2980wt_1219

LILBENZ230

Well best of luck to you.

samaritrey

So do you mean the key fob does not unlock your car at all or the panic does not work? if that is the case you either have a bad key or your have a loose pad on the back window or if very bad a bad amp in the back window.

Benzos4theteam

Yes to both the panic button and the key fob doesn't unlock or lock my vehicle. At all :/ .

I wonder if it's and expensive fix

Peydidy

Just letting you know that hub bore on those wheels are 73.1mm mercedes wheels are 66.56mm. Make sure to look around for wheels for a while before jumping on a set. Iv been spending about 6 months searching for the right wheels for my car and still havent mounted a set on my car even though iv bought 3 sets. All of them I have ran into a issue and never gotten them on my car. You probably wont have as many issues as I did with wheels becasuse you doesnt have BBKs which was the main problem that I kept hitting. Good luck and welcome to the mercedes family

Benzos4theteam

so they won't fit at all no matter what? :o

they're cheap tho 388.00 for 4 18" wheels staggered and what not.

and all wheels are 5x112 right? offset between 35-45? right?

andand whats bbks?

phister

Bbk = big brake kit.
bolt pattern is 5x112 hub 66.6 offset I would go from +38 - +25. Tires you cant go more than 235 in front and 265 in rear.

phister

Also make sure you get the correct lug bolts or you'll damage the rear brakes.

Peydidy

Phister pretty much covered most of those questions, the price is good, but just spend some time looking around and making sure your positive thats what you want. I am not to sure about what u can do when the hubs are different sizes, I think there are hub rings you can get to make it fit but I am not positive; might want to look that up or ask someone else about that.

phister

You can purchase hub rings from any good tire and wheel shop.

TexFinn

Congrats on the purchase. Since it needed head gaskets, the price must have been very good.

But black wheels on a dark green car? To each his own, of course. Good luck with the mods. Hopefully the maintenance stuff won't frustrate you too down much down the road.

BlkBenz8

Welcome, congrats on the w203. Good to see someone come over from the darkside lol

FreshVibes

Wow, first I'm I've seen a w203 in that color. Welcome to the forums!