CT320

Well i am going to hit that mark in next week or so , proudly. I will have camera ready for that moment and post it soon. Anyone has 250k yet? With my yearly average of 35k - 40k i should be 250k by next year. Truly these C43s are rock solid cars and even now still drive very smooth. Pics soon

DRBC43AMG

Great news. Congratulations.
Have you a list of things which needed repairs since you have the vehicle? It may be an indication to other owners of possible weak points, other than the occasional tranny

Mine has now passed 225'000km and going strong

KJI3jflarryfe93

my baby hit 100.000km last week!
daem, she's gettin' old!

DRBC43AMG

So Denis, you see she has still plenty of life in her. Just keep her fit and happy too

nd4spd13

Conrats! I hit 200k last january in my 36. That's when I realized that car is pretty much unsellable now.

CT320

I got some receipts from my cousin who owned this car since 07. Its 98 C43 black on black. Car was purchased with 136k miles i believe. Since then he replaced tranny around 150k with rebuild one that had 60k miles on it. Last year also control arms and almost complete front was done. Since my cousin planned keeping this car and doing paint job he decided to do lot of work to bring the car up to date with maintenance. I am going to list all the work that was done. Then news came that 4th kid was on the way and so he had to sell it and get the minivan.

Oil and filter service, Front Wheel Bearings , Idler pulley , Serpentine Belt Tensioner , AT Complete Service ( pan gasket , filter , adapter , fluid ) , Rear Brake Hoses , Spark Plugs (16 ) , Ignition Wires (16) , Valve Cover Gaskets ( both banks ) , Breather Hoses (4) , Oil Cooler seals (4) , AC recharge / leak test , ECU diagnosis , Trunk Diagnosis , Leak Diagnosis , Sunroof Switch , Front Crankshaft seal. He paid over $4000 for this job. I also replaced tires with Contis , Akebono rear brakes and disks , Tints , and i had to do another AT service since i hit some object under and oil leaked so full service was done month ago. Now service that was done in April was more as preventative maintenance rather than the car was in bad shape. I will do outside buff and wax next week and most likely will park car for the winter. I think its not worth dealing with winter in Northeast with this car so just get some daily beater and meanwhile do some tuning. Chip , Cat delete , maybe few more things and that will be enough for me. Just to add comment from mechanic who did this job that Engine is so clean from inside that he has never seen car with almost 190k at that time with ZERO sludge inside. His view was that as long oil is done regularly , which i am very strict , car should have no problem getting 300k. Engine was never rebuild and its all stock until now.

Just remembered , when car was bought in 07 it was lowered and car was put back on stock springs with front end replaced with new parts.
I thought this might help other C43 Owners with some idea what to expect in future. This is my 17th vehicle and i am 32 years old, with this one and M3 E36 my favorite and by far the best quality made car. Tx guys

DRBC43AMG

Well that certainly looks like a well maintained vehicle. Good work

KJI3jflarryfe93

yo pops, my C43's still tight and firm like a hardbody gal
it's most important to keep her both happy and in healthy condition.

right now I'm getting rear axle bushings for a full tune up possibly next year.
I want her to be tighter when I drive her on swedish autobahn's.
costly but worth it.

DRBC43AMG

Get your baby running on German unrestricted autobahns and see how it flies
Next spring, I'm planning a little visit up to Affalterbach to see and visit the Mother Ship

CT320

here it is

503C43 ////AMG

Would have been a better picture if it was 200,000 even

CT320

that was plan but somehow i forgot. Maybe at 250 000 miles lol. I put 9500 miles in 3 1/2 months so that wont be too far away.

503C43 ////AMG

I don't think I put 9500 on my C43 the first year that I had it and its my DD, 9500 in 3.5 months is INSANE!

yamadjs08

I have a good friend with a 97 C36 that has over 250k miles with original engine and transmission. Its lived a very hard life also, the kid hits kickdown multiple times a day everyday. But he does maintenance the car a lot.

I am surprised his transmission has lasted that long, isn't the 97 C36's trans similar to the C43's trans? The electronic 5-speed one? And I've read of a LOT of C43 transmission failures...

CT320

I do drive a lot , NYC- Hartford CT-Western Mass couple of times a week minimum. Used to be 5 times a week , my girl lives in MA , so i been back and forth since 2002. Thats why i changed 16-17 cars lol. M3 E36 i got 35500 miles in 7/12 months then sold it , back in 03 , 04 i remember doing 6k miles a month average for couple of years. But one thing i always have been doing is on-time maintenance. And that is a KEY to long millage on any car. all the sleepless nights driving are wearing me down big time.

thundercles

I'm almost to 250k on my '95 C36. Just did the head gasket and scotch padded the cyls as smooth as a baby's bottom while the head was off (used ATF and MEK as solvents to help loosen gunk before scraping the rest off with elbow grease), took the head to an experienced automotive machine shop (almost all I saw in the workshop were heads, a couple blocks.) and the owner with 20+ years of experience doing machining on engines personally cleanedmup, resurfaced, and set the cams to TDC (got the exhaust manifold unbolted too which was too rusted tight for me to previously do.) and replaced the valve cover gasket as well while I was at it. Just debugging the errors from the car sitting around not running for the 6 months that the temperature outside didn't drop below the 90s at any point during the day or night and thus was too hot to really get much done on a car in a carport that faces the setting sun Going to go pick up a new air temp sensor from carquest tomorrow since an ohmeter showed that it and the cam pos sensor are completely toast (am going to have to order the new cam sensor since carquest only claims to sell an OEM one that is ridiculously expensive compared to a couple non OEM sensors I've seen online.) Wish the car luck, I'm hoping it it turns over tomorrow so I can hurry up and get it emissions tested while my temp tags are still good. It's around 225k-230k I don't remember the exact mileage offhand so once it starts I'll hit 250k pretty quick. Living in Phoenix tends to entail driving ridiculous distances on a regular basis.

I figure with all maintenance I did and am currently doing surrounding this head gasket replacement like the serpentine belt*, timing cover gaskets, oil filter, air temp and cam sensors, egr and both chain tensioner seals, exhaust gaskets, battery, spark plugs, pivot pin, both breather hoses from under the intake, injector seals, radiator hose, and keys (I dropped the only key, which had recently broke off from the rubber keyring part, into that abyss at the rear of the block behind the oil filter and heater core hose ) I think that's all the parts on this specific task, of course vacuum tubing since vacuum lines get broke or lost pretty easy when you are ripping things off the engine and various nuts and bolts to replace the ones that get lost, and other basic stuff like that.

So as I said I figure between having just done all hethat and all the other part replacements that have been done leading up to this 250k miles mark, mostly done by me and the previous owner, like both flex joints, both motor mounts, water pump, alternator, control arm bushings, tie rod ends, belt tensioner, an ignition coil, thermostat, and partial harness rebuild (hacked off all the ignition wires and redid them since heat damage had heavily effected this part, plan on pulling the entire thing and rebuilding it fully since the 200k+ miles and 110+ degree weather have really made the notorious wiring of t 90's Mercedes very clear. I'll take pictures whenever it is in the future I do pull that harness as physical proof of how crappy these harnesses are.

So I am gunning for a 500k lifespan of this car, I think that would be a really neat testament to how good of an engine the m104 really is and solid of a body the w202 is, and how well made overall these cars are, but the moral of my story is the 200k + mileage is not for the weak of heart, expect to work on the car very often and start building friendships with the parts department at the dealership and a good online parts retailer, I've been mostly sticking with carpartsdiscount** but I have found that the chain carquest has pretty good connections with suppliers and an expansive enough amount of storefronts, at least in this area, that I can actually walk in and buy most of the parts I need or at least be able to pay for them and come back the very next day to claim them if they have to move the part down from a warehouse or another store, and for around the same price as the online retailers, generally slightly more (especially when you factor sales tax in which is quite often m ore then shipping costs you avoid paying would have been.)

These are very good cars and the main components of the car are perfectly capable of making it to 500k, but realize just about everything else wont make it to 500k and will have been replaced by the time it reaches that mileage. That's still pretty damn good considering most cars would be on a second engine, probably even had to rebuild it even to reach 500k. And that's assuming the chassis hasn't completely fallen apart to the point of the frame being compromised. But once one of these cars hits 200k you will need to become very intimately familiar with the engine compartment as a whole especially because there is a lot of components under there and any of them that are original and can wear or break outside of complete neglect of maintaining the car, will need to be replaced or rebuilt. I even had to dig an actuator out of the drivers side door and zip tie it to get it to unlock with the automatic locks. Most of the stuff is little crap here and there like a bent pin or a seal that needs to be replaced but not staying on top of them will just snowball, not necessarily effect how long the car will last as much as effect how long you'll have to work on it to keep it running. It's a very solid car though, I owned 4 hondasb, 1 mazda/ford and 1 Subaru before getting this c36 and it has been through multiple events that each would have single handedly killed any of those jap cars I had before, and that's on top of the previous owner who often had to flee police in it since he wouldn't stop for them (that's why he had to sell it to me, they finally caught him by sneakily tracking him to a gas station, and waiting until he was walking back out of the convience store to even try and approach him for an arrest. Most of what I paid for the car was getting it out of the impound and paying an auto title loan he had on it off. He was evading them too.)

Good luck on reaching the 200k milestone! remember stay on top of your maintenance or you'll spend at least 4 times as much time fixing it later, plus have a non-operational car until it's done. Scan the forums and see what people have had to replace, chances are if two or more people have had to replace something, and your car hasn't had it replaced, you'll have to replace it in the near future.


*serpentine belt, which parts databases all suggest the wrong size of. Thanks to Randy P for sharing his cross-parting wisdom with me which lead to the purchase of a belt intended for a Ford Expedition which was half the price of the suggested belt and fits perfectly unlike the belt I ordered off the internet or the slightly larger but still too small belt auto zone tried to sell me. I'll pass this tip along to anyone currently spinning in circles trying to get an ordered belt that seems way too small to fit over all the pulleys.)

**I would love to make most of my purchases from autohausaz, they are located just a few miles from me, Unfortunately becasue of that I have to pay sales tax if I buy from them and when I contacted them about arranging for parts pick up instead of shipping they refuse due to insurance reasons or something. I just can't justify paying sales tax and postage and having a courier bust their hump moving the parts between a warehouse and post offices that I drive right by on a regular basis. California parts retailers ironically get parts here just as fast since it takes 1-2 days to get a package to the main PHX post office whether it's coming from LA or PHX, plus another day to get it out to the local office so it can be delivered. If I'm gonna wait the same amount of time either way I sure as hell am not paying sales tax. Excuse the rant, but it pisses me off when nationwide small businesses try and isolate themselves from their local communities. I spooked the **** outta Rockford-Fosgate when I strolled into their main corporate offices with a 15" sub with a busted voice coil trying to drop it off for its warantee, they made me pretty irate when they told me I had to mail it (they are located in my freakin zip code and that speaker weighed a good 35 40 pounds at least that they were expecting me to pay to mail down the street) and lied and tried to tell me their repair center was elsewhere in the country when google maps clearly showed that the address I was to mail it to was the next building over from the one I strolled into. I now refuse to buy Rockford Fosgate products as well.
I have found the staff at carpartsdiscount to be very helpful and friendly, and not charge me sales tax. They do need to fix that reference in the database for the serpentine belt for the c36, the one they swore was supposed to work was like trying to stuff the chick from that Precious movie in a size 0. But so does Auto zone and probably every other retailer. I imagine mercedes has caught the mistake and corrected it in their database but somehow forgot to send a memo to anyone else, and now just finds it amusing to watch people get their cummupits for not buying parts through the dealership.

nd4spd13

Glad to be up in this realm with ya. Think mine's around 212,000 now

thundercles

OOOO
Damn! You caught it at 200k
I keep a flip camera in mine right now so I can catch film as soon as I get it to turn over. I intend to deliver it to all the haters who didn't think I could get it running again I will keep it in there and make sure I get my rollover to 250. Might as well get some footage of Dodges eating my dust, cause I don't know if it's the name or what, but every punk in a challenger always thinks they want to race me all the time, I don't even go out driving looking to race anyone, but it's like comon, you're driving a freakin dodge. I have to....

Edit: Oh yeah, I have a few pics I've taken throughout the process I'll put them up later, it's pretty amazing how good the condition of the cylinders and pistons are at 230k, you can even faintly still see some of the lines from the die the parts were cast in, which I was really surprised to see. Especially since this is the second time this engine has been taken apart, I asked the service department at the dealership to give me a maintenance record since I was confused as to why my engine has the old style 1-pin plugs on the sensors but the new style belt tensioner and according to them it has had two warrantee services, replacements of the belt tensioner (thus the '96 or later style tensioner which I'm happy about since it's way easier) and the head gasket, making the one I just put in the third head gasket. We kinda figured it had been done before since it seemed like the gasket we took out was kinda installed sloppily and sealant appears to have been used a little bit which is an absolute no-no. I see what people mean when they complain about there some times being inexcusably incompetent mechanics working at the dealership. I'll get the pictures up later, a lot of good ones of cyl head in various stages of being dismantled and reassembled.

But one last thing since this is a high-mileage thread, any of you noticed when trying to get salvage body parts that it seems that every c36 or c43 in any salvage yard has front end damage making that front bumper cover worthless to buy??!! I guess that says something within itself, but it's still kinda annoying being the one body part you really can't pull off anything but an AMG w202.... My front bumper has an eyesore of a crack on the passenger side from one of the previous owners skirts with john law (also was missing the passenger side corner light so I just replaced both the front corners with aftermarket "smoke" lights since it looks pretty sick against the black paint, still haven't gotten around to replacing the bulb socket in that corner yet tho.) I just have been figuring I'll find a salvage bumper from an AMG eventually and I might as well keep the one I got on there for now since I beat cars up a bit too, but seriously I hope someone gets rear ended in traffic before they manage to crash their car into something between now and when I need to get one.

CT320

Nice to see more members with 200k plus here. I like that 200 000 pic up there , wanted to snap same with my car but didn't happen.
I want to replace motor mounts and tranny mount soon. Someone mentioned that they used E55 mounts , and if true also i need some info on how long it takes to replace them? I got estimate for $600 , and that is with stock mounts. Is it too much ?

thundercles

600 seems a bit high to me. I did my motor mounts myself and I got a pair of OEM (Lemforder) mounts for around 80 bucks. All you have to do is get a jack and a block of wood and place the jack under the oil pan and place the block of wood between the jack and the oil pan and jack up the engine, unscrew the top and bottom bolts on the mounts, slide the new mounts in, bolt them in, lower jack (you may have to raise and lower the jack a little bit to ease tension on the bolts when unbolting).

It's a couple hour job if you know what you're doing, that's why 600 seems a bit much, this would be at a shop with a lift and air tools, they could probably pump the job out in just over an hour, easy.