dreib

2008 E350 101K

2004 E500 112K

2008 E550 122K-pano roof

I am leaning towards the 04 just because I don't want to deal with keyless go issues among other tech issues with the 08's but I can be talked into almost anything.

pick one for me all cars are 2 owner vehicles.

cetialpha5

What keyless go issues are you worried about? The door handles basically go bad, but you don't have to replace them, just use the key fob like cars that don't have it.

They also have bad gas tanks and the 2004 will be about expired as it was only for 15 years. You'd still have a few years left on the 2008. Plus I like the interior better on the facelift. 2004 also had SBC and although covered by warranty for 25 years, still don't like how it can fail on you at any time. Why drive a ticking time bomb? Pano roof makes a little noise, but not as bad as on the W212, I don't even notice mine anymore and it's much nicer. Only thing I don't like about E550 is airmatic. But at least you get cooled seats and real leather with an E550.

tjts1

04 E500 will be by far the cheapest and easiest to maintain. M272/M273 in the 350/550 is a good damn cluster****.

rodneypierce

08 e550 all day.

MaschioneCazzuto

E550

dreib

The 550 is by far the sharpest car and most expensive, but not by much actually. I will be doing all maintenance outside of engine and transmission internal issues so I want the easiest and cheapest to work on and the most reliable...is that asking too much?

tjts1

That's because despite being 4 years newer the used car market is well aware of the fact that maintainance on the 550 will be far more expensive than the 500.
The 500 should have a new fuel tank by now under the extended 15 year warranty and the SBC has another 10 years left on the 25 year warranty. 350/550 have similar fuel tank warranties and no SBC.

cetialpha5

I'm not sure why you assume this. There's always posts from people who are outside of warranty and are SOL.

tjts1

Assume what?

cetialpha5

That the gas tank on the 2004 would have already been replaced. I think there are stories on here of people buying 2003 E320's which still have the original radiator. And even now you still hear about the bad balance shaft still happening with 2006 E350s. Build quality on early pre-facelifted cars was just bad in general. Those were still the Chrysler days.

tjts1

It's pretty damn easy to figure out if a w211 has a bad fuel tank. Just fill it up and smell it. It's a pretty well-known problem by now. You can also take the VIN to Mercedes and they'll tell you. I bought my 04 wagon with a bad fuel tank but I knew I still had another nine months of warranty. The dealer took care of it no questions asked.

cetialpha5

Right, but that's hard to figure out on a test drive. You're going to fill up the tank during the test drive and sniff around for gas in the back seat or take the back seat off and see if there's gas pooling around the top of the tank? You usually don't get the VMI til you're doing a PPI. A 2008 probably means you have 3 or 4 years worth of coverage. The 2004 coverage is expired. Considering MB charges 3k for the tank, might make more sense to pay a little more for a newer car with more warranty coverage. Of course if you want to DIY, you could always try some RTV on the seal around the tank or just replace the fuel pump/filter.

Andre91

Getting the VMI on all three is a very good idea and might help narrow the list down. The service adviser probably won't give you a hard copy since you're not the registered owner, but they'll more than likely be willing to read off the service history. That was the case when I bought my car, they just read the report to me line by line over the phone. It's a full history of all work done at a Mercedes dealer, including preventative maintenance, warranty repairs, recalls, and customer pay work. I would get the VMI before bothering with a pre purchase inspection, there's no sense paying for a PPI only to find out after the fact that the car should be crossed off the list because of a poor maintenance history.

dreib

Looking at the E500 this weekend. I know the SBC has been done and I did talk to a service adviser who said it looks like the car was well taken care of and has had everything fixed as needed. I do not recall anything about the gas tank but I will look into that today.

Im going to show up unannounced when I check the car out so I can see how the air shocks look. Other than looking for obvious issues(leaks drive ability tires) I am going to be sure to check out the motor mounts, and see if I can get a look at the CV joints/boots etc. if anyone has anything else to add I would appreciate your input and add it to my check list.

Thanks everyone!

Azeem

Don't mind me asking but have you owned an MB in the past? A lot of people have this notion that it is a very expensive car to maintain and it certainly is, if you start throwing money on parts after reading forums!
I think you need to to have access to a good MB workshop to do the diagnosis and maintenance for your car. With my skill set (very limited), I had spent way too much money on preventive maintenance which was not required. I kept purchasing parts in hope that they will go bad and I need to keep an inventory and I ended up changing them without ever a need! I have spent more money on my better half's Honda Civic than on MB. MB is very fuel efficient than Honda Civic.
If it is your first ever MB, do your homework on the car you are purchasing. Once you are happy with your purchase, enjoy your car, and keep coming back to forums and learn from people' experiences. That's the cheapest way to learn.

dreib

Never owned a MB but I do own a BMW. I do my homework when buying used vehicles, in fact I go all out OCD.

I checked with the dealer ship that serviced this car and everything checks out and it does have a great service history. If the test drive and inspection go well looks like we will purchase the E500.

rodneypierce

If you dont mind me asking, do you have a particular reason to pick the e500 over the e550? Dont let tjts scare you away with that "car market knows it will be far more expensive to fix the e550" bs. Also, whats the price difference between the two? I would pick a post facelift model all day over a pre, if nothing else for the riddance of SBC alone.

Not trying to sway your decision, just genuinely curious what your deciding factor was.

Also, take whatever car you are thinking of purchasing in to a good independent qualified shop and have them do a PPI.

cetialpha5

Yeah, I'm not sure why there's so much love for the 2003-2005 models. When I was first in the market, I was looking at a 2006 and ended up with a 2008. I had toyed with the thoughts of the earlier 2003-2005 models, but back then there were tons of horror stories about them and how bad MB was with the Chrysler marriage and how things got better with the facelift. It's well know that the most reliable year was the 2009 model and the worst was the 2006, but that was only due to the balance shaft, otherwise 2003 was pretty bad too due to the radiator. Earlier models were strippers too, they didn't have too many options in the early years. Plus bluetooth was an issue, they didn't have the puck setup or the comand update in the facelift years. You also had the gasket problem with side mirrors, just a bunch of little things that most people seem to have forgotten.

rodneypierce

Spot on sir

cetialpha5

Oh yeah and I was trying to find some of the horror stories in the old threads. Ran into one which said the radiator problem where coolant leaks into the transmission and destroys the transmission wasn't fixed til Sept 03 so that means that some early 2004 models could have the bad radiator. I might be a little biased in thinking the 2008 year was the best as you could just burn a copy of the navigation from 2003-2008. They updated comand in 2009 so you had to use the original DVD to update navigation. But you could always sell the DVD once it was loaded so I guess it's not that big of an advantage. Mine is one of the rare ones that's somewhat loaded, designo graphite, pano, parktronic, bixenons, keyless go, power trunk closer, real leather, folding rear seats. I hardly ever found one like that in a pre-facelift car.

rodneypierce

Agreed. I have an 09 e550 P2 w/sport package. So I understand

Mine doesnt have as much as yours, no designo, missing pano roof and parktronic. But its got everything else offered. My favorite car I've ever owned.

tjts1

Price out an intake manifold replacement on an M272/M273. They go out quite often sometimes with catastrophic results.
Why are you afraid of SBC? An 04 has another 10 years left on it's SBC warranty. The SBC brakes were way ahead of their time and far more powerful than the conventional brakes that replaced them after 06.

cetialpha5

The intake manifold kit at FCPeuro is almost $600. There's several videos on youtube on how to replace it. Nothing too crazy if you're a DIY type, just long and somewhat involved but no real special tools needed. Probably expensive for the labor at a dealer though.

https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mer...ierburg-516475

As for SBC, yeah it's great when it works. I just don't like to drive around with a ticking time bomb. It's an extended warranty not a recall so I bet MB won't replace it until you get some kind of warning. It's a mechanical pump and MB is conservative, but they're still estimating when they think the pump will fail based on how many times it's been used. Could fail earlier. When it's failed on people, they say it's somewhat frightening as you without any warning basically lose 90% of your braking power. Somehow the ones who report back survived, I suppose the ones that didn't, didn't post? Not that you read about it that much in the news. Same with airmatic, you basically come out to find the car sitting on the suspension and you can't drive it anywhere. Although that's not too bad because you can replace them in advance with the lifetime warranty Arnott, still somewhat expensive though. With a conventional suspension, it just slowly gets worse not just fail completely one day.

rodneypierce

I have heard of far more intake manifolds going on an 272 than the 273 for whatever reason. And even then, I wouldnt call it common. The 273 is damn near bulletproof. As for the SBC, Im not scared of it. Its just a flawed system waiting to fail.

cetialpha5

They made a lot more M272 than M273. It's just a numbers game. Lots more E350's out there than E550's.