Iron Sheik

Hey whats up everyone...
I'll be heading over seas for school soon and one of the cars I am considering is a 2003 E 320 or a CLK 320..... maybe even an E240/CLK240....if they are availabe...
Do you guys recommend getting either one of those cars considering they are first year productions W211/W209 respetively??
What are some of the major problems/bugs were in those cars?
Would a 2004 be that much better??

Thanks in advance...

Iron Sheik

Diesel Benz

W211 sales started on March 2002 in Europe, 2003 should not be from the first production year. But they had a few issues that were all taken care by factory recalls. If those have been done and the car is otherwise OK, I don't see any reason to avoid a 2003 car specifically. Of course every MY can have a bad one, even if not bad from the factory but if it was not serviced properly etc.

lig

Based upon my very small sample size (me ) I would absolutely avoid an '03 E320.

It seems that the newer the better as far as reliability is concerned.

Diesel Benz

Usually "the newer the better" applies to every model, I do agree on the W211. I even agree that there probably are "more bad samples" on early cars. But even on those ones I would claim the issue is more on the dealer service quality, a good dealer service know what needs to be fixed on these cars and when done, they should not be different from 2004, 2005, except for the age.

Even a good dealer may have had difficulties when the 2003 car was new, but now that they have become familiar with the car and the specific issues, they should be able to make the 2003 model work fine.

How would you classify your dealer service?

Barry45RPM

The problem on the earlier ones was that there were many poorly designed components and also many pooly made components by the contractors who made them. When replacement parts were installed on failed items, they were no better than the parts that failed, so they failed too.

Also MB modified certain audio parts & software as they developed cures. Problems showed up due to poor design that people couldn't believe could manifest themselves like that. Problems were intermittant and difficult to replicate while the car was in the shop. Early on, the best dealer service departments in the world couldn't solve problems for which cures weren't known and replacement parts sucked also.

Replacement parts for many of thes rediculous problems have been redesigned and are dependable. Most of the Audio problems have been solved (Finally!). Unless you happen to get a traditional "Lemon", the cars are pretty good now.

Of course, the longer a model is in production, the fewer bugs are in there. All things being equal, many of the '03s are very unique to that year.