Hey guys, been shopping for a car over the last month or so. Not for me, I'm pretty well set with my cars.




The car I picked up is for my wife, she had a four wheel drive as a mandatory option. It's replacing a 2005 A4 Avant that I really wanted to get to 200k miles, but it just isn't going to be cost effective to get it there. Sitting at about 180k and will need about $1800 to $2500 to pass inspection and fix a bunch of other issues. Figured it was time to use that money towards a car I could keep going for a while.

It's got about 48k miles at the moment, and I'm paying what I think is a fair price. Everyone has to make a living, and the car is very well optioned, missing only the Xenon headlights from the options list. It's got the AMG Sports Plus package which gives it an extra degree of rarity, and I liked the additional bolstering on the seats and the alcantara "look" gives it a little more an AMG edge.



The tires front and rear are from different manufacturers and are pretty crappy brands to begin with, not something I'd like to have my wife and kid use this winter. My initial thought was to get a set a good all season, but I wanted to check if I could throw some winter tires on an old set of rims I have for the old Audi. They're 17 x 7.5 ET45 which seem like they'd be a perfect match, I could throw a good set of 225/17 snows on them and just use them going forward.

Anyway, the car has a full MB dealer service history, it's not perfect, but damn close to it for a four year old car. I'm only getting one key, which I can live with short term, and I'll probably do a transmission fluid change since I know it's probably not had one. I'll check to get a service history from my local dealer and work off of that. That's it for now, I'll probably be picking the car up before the end of the year and will make some minor upgrades and go over the car head to toe. I do most of my own wrenching... it's the only way I would be able to afford an old Porsche so this car will be weird not having much to do on it for some time. I've read through most of the sticky threads and it looks like an over all reliable car, with the 2013 having had the benefit of a long run and a lot of the issues of the previous years worked out.

Thanks for reading through my long winded introduction, I plan to stick around for a bit, at least as long as it takes me to sort the car out to my taste. Most all of my activity here has been on the W208 section. Since it's my wife doing most of the driving, I won't do much performance wise, at least in the short term. I'll probably work through a speaker upgrade if the HK system isn't to my liking.

 

Congrats! Did exactly the same 4 yrs ago. I replaced my Audi A4 Avant with 182k miles and went with the C300 Sport w/AMG wheels. It's a nice compliment to my 993. I mounted a set of winter tires to 17" Sport wheels.

 

Funny then, we'd be kind of like the car Bobbsey twins. How long have you had your 993?

The C300 seems to be a pretty capable car in sleeper tuning if that's the way one wants to go, I've spent the last couple of days looking at all the great suspension and ecu tuning mods available with the non Porsche tax pricing on them. I have to keep reminding myself that the intent was for it to be my wife's daily driver, not mine.

 

Ha! I've had the 993 for almost 11yrs. The C300 has been a pretty capable winter DD for me, although the A4 Avant is almost impossible to beat. I put C63 rims on for summer which fill out the wheel wells nicely and compliment Palladium Silver perfectly. Nice stance with sport suspension which is about as low as I want to go. Over all it works great as a daily driver...easy to get in n out of, hvac works well, solid and predicable handling at speed.

Every car has its issues and the c300 is no exception. Had the ESL failure, power steering lines replaced, alternator, blower motor failure, and a failed lower control arm bushing. Currently at 66k.

 

She's home. It's brutally cold in the NE now so no posed pictures. In the mean time, I ordered the essentials, couple of oil filters, brake fluid, the cabin filter, a new air filter blah blah blah. You guys know the drill. The the front brake rotors and pads are new so got lucky not having to replace them, the rears the pads are about 60% life so I can leave them alone for now. I ordered a set of Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3+ from Costco and they're being delivered. After weighing the difference between paying tax or paying shipping and Costco had a $70 dollars off for a set of 4, and the price was a decent amount off what TireRack would have cost. I guess the tires will go on next week some time. Between the cold and the crappy mismatched tires on the car right now, I didn't want to push too hard but I'm enjoying the car as is.

I'll keep the thread updated over the next few weeks on the progress of getting all of the safety things buttoned up.

 

I am in the need for some Michelin Pilot Sports in the very near future. Would you mind letting me know what you paid at Costco for the set?

Thanks very much in advance.

 

 

That seems to be a pretty darn good deal! Thank you!