1998 E320 M112 & 5 speed Q's
 

Now my dad is looking at a 1998 E320 he's found that's really cheap. It seems like it was involved in a minor rear ender but the repair bills look good and the MB guy says it was a good fix.
Now i'm just wondering about the new 5 speed transmission and the M112. I believe this was the second year that the new 5 speed came out and want to know how reliable it is. And for the M112, I believe this was the first year it came out so my concerns are again mainly reliability. I do know about the good old M103 and M104 and want to compare.

Other than that, the car is very clean. No touchshift :(, Xenons :(, and I prefere the 98 dash but I don't like the fact is doesn't have any steering wheel controls like my aunt's 2002 E

Oh and does it have the FSS and the onboard diagnosis system? I don't know when it came out. And how many dashboard changes were there?

Thanks!!

The old I-6 is known to have prolem with wiring harhness, head gasket (which could demand a new head job), and burning oil. Either maintenaince or repair on these jobs are costly.

The M112 is much more reliable, smooth, efficient (you get better gas mileage). Mercedes has used the same engine, almost unmolested, since 98 til now on all its 6 cylinder car. The only problem is the harmonic may break and cause the damage to oil pan. Upgrade part came out in 2001. Replace this harmonic is cheap, but if it break, it is costly to fix. I think it also gain some horse power and torque over the old I-6.

The 5 speeds is much better than the old 4 (still used til today model unchanged). Mercedes add steptronic on 2000. Way more smooth and efficient than the old 4 speeds.

98 was the first year mercedes came out with the FSS & new ODB.

I have a 98 and 04 E320. Identical engine & perfomance (as perceived/tested by me, my buddies, and my mechanic). Even the 98 has 95K more mile than the 04 ;). That show you how good the M112 is over the long run.

Thanks zam2000!!

The repair looks like is was done correctly and me and my dad are going to the dealer today!! :D:D

so how much was the car? i took like the old w210 with the 5 spd and 6 cyclinder engine.

Hmmm, I think it had 46,500 miles and we got it for $18,000, $2000 off the asking price or so. Car was in good shape, I think it was an excellent deal!!

I disagree, the I6 is a better engine. The wiring harness problem was fixed in 94 and the head gasket problem in 95. The I6s from 96 to 99 were the some of the best engines MB ever produced. The I6 was used in the S and SL up to 1999 probably because the V6 was not good enough for the flagship models. The M112 V6 needs a balancing shaft to offset the 90 deg. angle between the cylinders or it would be unstable. The balancing damper flys apart and takes out the oil pan and other things. The real power and economy numbers on the I6 are same if not higher than the V6. MB specs are not consistant. I am glad to hear that MB is dumping the M112 and going back to a 4 valve dual overhead design instead of the single overhead 3 valve for it's next line of engines. The M112 was a step backwards in design just so MB could convert to a V motor and use consistant parts with the V8.

Here's the list of 10 best engines (for production car) in 2000. The Mercedes V6 M112 engine ranks number 3.

List of 10 best engines

From what my mechanic told me, the reason Mercedes decided to keep the I6 on the SL til 97 (no SL320 for 98 & 99), and on the S sedan til 99 is because these two lines of car were in the last year of their model cycle, so it's not worth effort to redesign the engine bay & electrical system to fit the V6. The new M112 engine was also accompanied by the new CAN Bus system (for similar reason, both the S and SL did not change to CAN Bus, even after 98).

When the W210 first came out in 96, the M112 engine was still being worked on, and that's one of the reason Mercedes retained the I6 for the next two years.

Except for some know minor problems, the I6 engine is great though. I had it on my 300E back then, and I loved it. I just disagree that the M112 is a step backward, I rather think it's a leaf forward for Mercedes.

A reason for MB V6 being on the list is because in 2000 they had no I6 in production then. The BMW I6 is on the list and the rest of the engines listed look like they are DOHC 4 valves per cyl instead of the ticky SOHC 3 valves per cly. With only 33 nominees I would hope that it would be in the top 10 and by 2000 they fixed the harmonic balancer problems.

I know the M103's and M104 could stay at the redline all day while crusing on the autobahn.
I find the M112 very smooth but do you think it's as ridgid as the M104? I'm sure it is.

Heh, Mercedes got cheap using the M112 and the M113 and the SOHC design.