Just wanted to say Hi and introduce myself.
It took me a year of looking and dreaming and I never thought I would be able to afford it but I finally found a what I think is a good deal for my area. I pick up a 03 silver with 80k miles for 23,XXX Not my favorite color choice but it had great options. Keyless go, Navigation, Sat radio(working) Integrated bluetooth puck, Integrated MB IPod, Dynamic seats and few others. Mechanically it looks and seems to be OK ( fingers crossed) The car is on the outter limits of what I can afforded so I wont be buying a warranty. Plus I like to do all my own mods and repairs. I changed the oil and am going to change the trans fluid in the next few days. I'm saving up for a pulley and tune(whats with the pricing on tunes for the MB!!!) and am going to build my own rear mount ice/water reservoir and pump in the near future. I'm going to go race it at the local track to get a base line on weds day and I'll let everyone know how it does!! Thanks for all the great info.
Nick

Conrats!!! ENJOY.

Enjoy!! But honestly and since you plan to drive it aggressively (track etc) if anything breaks and you say you have no money left you could be in real trouble. Its 1 thing on a camaro, or honda, or even a 330 beamer to be the handy man and fix stuff yourself. But these cars have so many computers and electronics, its mind boggling to even good mechanics.. hence amg certification and everything else...

Ask some people what some of their repairs costed them and your talking well into the thousands.. not 1 or 2k but 4k+... thats why a warranty might be a good idea, if you plan to drive the car hard and keep it for at least 2 years.

Well it was buy it now and enjoy it for the summer before I deploy to Afghanistan for a year or wait till I come back and get "more car" but the reality is that there is no guarantees that I'll come back. So I'm hoping for a great summer with my dream car.

congrats on the purchase... like others have mentioned, though your finances may be maxed out, you should seriously look into an aftermarket warranty... these cars will cost you a lot of money if something goes wrong, and with you having an 03 something may go wrong... i'm not trying to be negative, just trying to help you out before you turn a great happy purchase into a nightmare...

other than that, good luck with the car!

Congrats! Enjoy yer car in good health! Let the modding begin :rofl:

Congratulations and welcome. Could you possibly post up your process for changing the tranny fluid and filter, let us know how it goes and what's involved? I've searched the forum and haven't been able to find a thread or DIY on this.

I don't want to repeat what the other guys are saying, but you should look into an aftermarket warranty, especially on an 03' w/80K. It's gonna pay for itself if one corner of your airbag suspension goes. And that's just one example of something that could go wrong. I believe Chrysler will let you pay off a warranty over the course of a year.

Thank you and good luck.

Welcome and congrats! GL at the track and let us know how it goes!

I sure will, I have done it once befor on my 98 jag XJR it to uses the MB 722.6 trans. It really is pretty stright forward. but I'll take some pic. The real challenge is getting the dip stick tool. what I might do to save the cost of buying it is to messure exactly how much comes out, put in that amount and then go to the MB service and see if they will check the level for free? If not the tool is 40 bucks.

Congratulations! I am a new E55 owner as well and I don't get to enjoy my car as much as I would like to. I am always thousands of miles away on business. Enjoy in good health and keep your head down over there in the sand box.

Congrats...

congratulations

Congratulations, great choice. All the best with your 55K.
BTW oil change takes two new drain plugs and fleece filter.

Why is that? I noticed that the drain plugs were "glued" in ? I just applied teflon paste to the threads and reused them. No leaks afterwords!!

grats mate.

23 grand is amazing from my perspective. The going price for good w211 e55's here are about 100 grand $au which is about 75grand $us. I could have bought 1 and 3 for parts for what I paid for mine

i know you said 23k was on your upper band but you should really really invest 2.5-3k into a warranty. some of the things are so expensive to fix that, 03 is the first year too. you don't want to take a risk of facing a $5,000+ repair.

Welcome and Enjoy

An 03 with Navi?? Is the car the Presidential edition or was the navi added after??

I remember reading somewhere that 03 did not have nav? I'm not sure if it was added later or what? how do you tell? one other odd thing is it displays the AMG logo when its powered on, which leads me to believe the previous owner was an enthusiast or maybe the car is special? Plus to have the IPod and bluethtooth.....

It may have other goodies...did you dyno it, check to see what other mdoifications it may have.....You should post some pics up

I had to look up what the presidential edition is, and mine is not that so maybe a add on? it looks all factory with a dvd nav in the trunk.

+1

Congrats and post up some pics!!