I'm looking at buying a 500CL. The car I tested has been well looked after and factory maintained since 1993. However, I noticed that water temperature while sitting in traffic on a warm night (30degrees celcius) reaches 100, rising up to 110 going up a steep hill with air con on. To me this is quite alarming but a friend who owns a garage told me this is quite normal with the 5 litre V8 W140. I find this quite unusual as none of my performance cars (including a Supra TT and a GTR) reaches that sort of water temperature even when driven hard on mountain circuits. Is this a particular feature of the Mercedes 5 litre? Many thanks in advacne

Michael

Here, I'll answer my own question. Having checked with a Mercedes technician, he confirmed that one fan switches itself on at 105 degree and the other at 110 degree. All's normal with a slightly higher than 100 degree cruising temp. Can't wait to pick it up over the weekend.

yup mine's about there too

there is a switch you can buy that allows the fan to come on sooner

http://pages.prodigy.net/jforgione/MB_CTS.html

I am gonna be buying mine from him soon... its cheap

My 740il bimma idles at 110c and then when up in the revs drops down to about 99c-105c. Its ok all german cars run hot. More efficent when hot!