Hello, I'm new here, and looking to purchase a w211 facelift soon. There are a couple I've looked at but none committed to purchase.

I'm not new to the MB world as I was previously a technician by trade and worked in an MB dealer from 2019-2012.

I'm aware of some, but not all of the serious issues to look for now that these w211s are a bit older. When I was working at the dealer the age was relatively young in the life cycle.

These are the issues I knew about from that time:

1 Balance shaft - Will avoid VIN range
2 Gas tank cracking - Wasn't this recalled?
3 Keyless Go handles - Avoid Keyless Go
4 SBC time out - I've heard there's a reset workaround, but unsure of safety of this
5 Thrust arm (control arm) bushings - Will inspect

Other than these in not aware of the other super common issues that are really costly.

 

1 - The engine numbers of the effected engines have been posted on here many times. Do a search.
2 - There was no recall on the tank. It's covered under an extended warranty for 15 years from the build date.
3 - Eh, they go bad. It's a very nice feature. A door handle will run you around $200 if it needs to be replaced.
4 - No SBC on 2007-2009 models, which I'm assuming you're looking at since you mention facelift.

If you do go with a 2003-2006 car, the SBC warranty was recently just extended to 25 years.

If you get a car with Airmatic, expect to replace those parts eventually. It's not if they go bad, it's when.

 

Thanks. Didn't remember/realize w211 did away with SBC for facelift. Thought about mentioning Airmatic, but it wasn't very common from what I recall. Mostly 550s, 55s and 63s, right? Was 350 even possible?

Was also avoiding Keyless Go because of seemingly incessant beeping reminder, but also heard there was some type of unfamiliar SCN coding workaround.

 

Keyless Go is a great feature I wish my W211 had.
​​​​​​I've rented vehicles with it and really appreciated the convenience of leaving the key in my pocket.

 

Airmatic was an option on the E350. Some have it, some don't.

Personally I'd rather have the Airmatic than not. It rides well and I like being able to choose settings. I'm also lowered and being able to raise the car up for driveways and what not is very convenient. You can always swap out the Airmatic for coil over setup when parts start to fail.

 

Airmatic was an early option on the W211, but in later years, they got rid of it although some station wagons had it in the rear. It was standard for the E550 though which had real leather as standard, E350's had MB-Tex as standard unless they paid extra for real leather.

The balance shaft also affected early 2007 so 2008-2009 would be fine. The gas tank is just an extended warranty to 15 years unlimited miles as long as it's not Pzev.

Also no reason to avoid keyless go, yeah, the door handles buttons might go, but at least you can still do keyless start. If the handles fail and you don't want to replace the $200 handles, just leave them alone, you can always press the button on the remote. Keyless go was usually part of the P2 package which included the bixenon headlamps and the active curve illumination. If you want to step up, go for 2010+ on the W212, they redesigned the door handles and now it seems like they don't fail like they used to. Now it's just an external sensor instead of a button on the W211. Water would get into the button and corrode the contact on the W211 so that's why the handles failed. The W212 seems to just have a touch sensor so that water doesn't penetrate the door handle and ruin a mechanical contact like the W211.