The car is a 2008 with 89k miles. Loaded with night vision, dynamic seats, rear seat package, dealer-installed Renntech exhaust and tune, Designo interior (or is that standard?). Clean Carfax. Head bolts and gasket done at 44k miles. Engine mounts at 57k. The body is nearly flawless. Interior seems to be in good order, though there are some cosmetic flaws. Car drives great and sounds incredible. Here are the flaws:

• Backup camera doesn't work
• Seat massage doesn't work on either seat
• Passenger's door lock doesn't work (except manually)
• Pano sunroof just grinds
• Both front seat coolers don't work
• Distronic may be flaky (not sure)

I'm no stranger to the "joys" of this era's German cars and don't expect it to be a Toyota. But I'd like most of the features to work. I'm very handy - I've had over 70 cars and am currently doing a body-off restoration. So are all of these things that can be solved with patience and reasonable investment? I've done a little looking on the active seats and that is a pretty involved system. But it doesn't look like something you just have to throw expensive parts at and hope the work. If there are good troubleshooting resources for these things, I'd be interested to find them. I'm hoping that I can get everything (or nearly everything) working without more than 1k investment. Yes, I am familiar with the 5k/yr rule for repairs and maintenance.
I've negotiated the price to 16k, which I think is quite good. The current owner just put new tires on and did injectors, plugs and all filters and fluids.
Anything in here look too scary?

 

I don't see those things working for less than $1k investment unless, like, fuses, wires and connections are the problems. My guess is you'll spend more than that on the pano roof, which were known problems but I don't remember why exactly. People just stayed away from them. A door module is easy, cheap and widely available; the seats are involved as you say but if it's a pneumatic pump that's easy and cheap like the door module. The pano roof is probably the scary part.

What you've described is the reason people look for cars without all the gadgety options -- engine, transmission, suspension, exhaust, keep the rest LOL.

maw

 

you can find a better one for the price albeit those miles are low

 

Seats are complex and sound expensive. There are posts in the E-Class sections to use as guides.

Sliding roof sounds expensive and time consuming - headliner out job.

Distronic could be simple but specialized electronic parts like radar unit could be expensive.

Door lock sounds the easiest on the list.

Do you really want another project?

 

I'll give the update on this. I bought the car a few weeks ago (got the price down quite a bit more). So far:

Backup camera fixed for $40 - used one off ebay
Seat - not fixed yet, but I can hear a hose leaking in the passenger's seat. Should be free (I have an extensive selection of hose in the garage).
Passenger's door lock - haven't looked at it yet. I need to order an actuator when I get some time.
Sunroof fixed for $120 - bought used OE motor. Fixing is a little bit of a hassle, but not a "headliner out" thing. Just drop the front part, which takes 20 minutes.
Seat coolers actually work. I just expected more... The cooling is kind of pathetic.
I have an appointment with an excellent local indy shop (they've worked on the car before) to find the issue with the Distronic. I'm reasonably sure one or more of the radar sensors needs replacing. They look like they're $36 each for the ones behind the bumper at FCPEuro. If it's the main radar sensor in front, I'll get a used one (about $100 on ebay).

I decided to completely go through the ABC and replace both accumulators, the filter, and the fluid. So far, that's been the most expensive item, at $700. I've done all the regular checks (compression and leak-down, borescope in every available hole, checking all fluids, etc) and feel much better about the car than the horror stories on here would have left me to think.
In lots of reading, I've decided the terrible reputation these cars have is mostly due to insane dealership prices. $5k to replace headbolts?! $6k to work on the ABC?! What a ripoff. I suppose if you are the guy who just wants to drop it off at the dealer and open the wallet, that's up to you. But you can do just about any job yourself for literally a tiny fraction of that if you're willing to troubleshoot and spend some time turning wrenches. I should be well under my 1k budget to get everything on the car working as new. Add another 1k for complete maintenance (every fluid and filter, the ABC stuff) and the car should be a solid daily. Assuming I can afford the fuel...

 

When was the last transmission service? You may want to spring for that as well.

The seats are not officially cooled, they are just "ventilated".