argon

what are some questions I should be asking the sellers? Anything else I should know about before buying? Things to look for? Any help would be much appreciated, I have been on these boards for over a year and finally will be able to buy my 1st car, a quartz blue 320, just need to find one near socal Thanks guys!

charliev68

where to begin...
has the recall for the harmonic balancer been done, motor mounts, fuel level sender, o2 sensors, maf sensor, passenger srs sensor, and then the basics...coolant flush, sparkplugs and wires, fuel filter.
it's a great car, these are just the basics that the car needs.

argon

thanks! is everything following the harmonic balancer a recall too? or just something i should see if needs fixing?

Chappy

Argon,

Glad you have chosen to become a member of the W208 family. Your question has many possible "answers", so I'll just stick to one:

When you've located a car you like and it seems priced fair for your area, have a thorough PPI done and make sure the previous owner(s) had service complete and done timely.

Best of luck in your search.

argon

thanks chappy! i really dont want to overwhelm myself with making sure everything is inspected on the car, but i do want to make sure there wont be problems anytime soon, also anybody have information on extended warranties? im looking at buying a car with 40-60K on it, so a warranty for 100K is ideal, thanks!

Whodat

Warranty: http://www.autowarranty3.com/index.p...id=&mid=&code=

I don't think there is any way you can be 100% sure that NOTHING will happen to any used car you purchase (or new for that matter!). I remember sitting at a light thinking that I'd bought a mechanically sound car and soon as the light went green, my car cut off (CPS issue)! Talk about embarassing!
Anyway, all you can do is due diligence and hope for the best! Carfax, PPI (as the knowledgable Chappy has mentioned), personal visual inspection and a professional mechanical inspection if you can find a mechanic you can trust.

GOOD LUCK ON YOUR SEARCH!

argon

thanks! but for some reason california isnt listed in the drop down menu when i try to get a quote?
also anythings to be aware of in particular when visually inspecting the car? What are some of the regular maintenance things you guys do on a monthly or weekly basis?

MarcusF

You may want to consider a Mercedes Benz certified pre-owned (CPO) vehicle. The warrantee on those can go out to 100K miles. That will mean any dealer will fix the car as if it were a new car under warrantee. I didn’t purchase my car at my local dealer, but they supply a free loaner with any CPO work.

Also, you may want to get a VMI from a dealer. That will list all the work any MB dealer has ever done to the car. If you go to MBUSA.com, you can search the national inventory for used CLKs and see what’s available in your area.

I do my own work and as far as I can see, these are low maintenance cars. The good news is plugs last 100K and there's no timing belt. My personal schedule is a coolant change every year, an oil change two or three times a year, engine air filter every 30K, and every other year a new cabin air filter, brake fluid flush, fuel filter, and an accessory drive belt.

argon

cool, thanks marcus, what would an ideal VMI on a 2001 320 look like?

MarcusF

I think the perfect VMI would state all the maintenance was performed on time (and it should have been, it was included in the price of the car), any recalls had been performed, and all other warrantee work was done at the time of the service (this tells me the warrantee work was minor).

Here’s an example of something I didn’t want to see: While I was looking for a CLK, I saw a 2001 CLK430 in the Los Angeles area with 37K on the odometer. The car looked new. I asked for a VMI from the seller and could see that the MAF had been changed four times. I thanked them for their time and ran. Any time a dealer replaces the exact same part four times, I think something is very wrong.