I recently bought a used 1996 w320 sedan with the M104 i6 engine with only 96k miles. Its easily the best example of this car that I have ever seen. The owner said that an older lady originally owned it and only did mostly local driving and commutes to work. Was also garage kept and it shows. His dad then bought the car for him and now he no longer needed it. He also did not get to use it that much. It literally had no signs of rust except some small bubbles in the paint on the trunk lid. Also pulled the front plastic cover off of the M104 engine to inspect that part of the wiring harness. Saw no issue with it there and further back behind the fuel injectors. So knock on wood it looks like I got a good example of an early W210. I realize that this car may still have the older pre 1998 eco harness. So that replacement may be in my future. Also have to check the green serial sticker on the throttle body. It probably also might need to eventually be replaced. But it has no engine light, and drive really nice.

What a difference the owner and a little TLC makes. Before this car, I saw a used 1997 BMW 318is. It was small like a C-Class so is not really a proper comparison to an E-Class. However, it was in such disrepair that it had the check engine light on (due to a MAF issue), the break light on (probably needed pads and rotors), and also the ABS light was on. I think it was not driving well because the bad MAF put it into open loop. It also had a badly cracked windshield, needed a new muffler, the head liner was sagging, the driver door card was beat up a bit, and I could not adjust the driver seat up or down. Wow. Needless to say I didn't buy that car. Would have been a lot of time and $$$ even if I did most of those projects myself. Contrast that with this 96 e320 with absolutely NOTHING wrong with it and was $200 less. No brainer decision there...