Hi All,

Here's a little bio into my AMG ownership!

I've been looking for an AMG for about the last year or so. I'd primarily been interested in a W203 C55 AMG as I owned a 2005 C230K that I purchased from an auction a few years back as a daily driver and fell in love with it (My first MB)! I sold it after a year because the profit was too good not to get rid of it. (No, I'm not a used car dealer.) I'm just a guy who loves older German cars (primarily BMWs) and once in a blue moon I'll buy something from an auction, hoping it doesn't need much work, fix what I can, luck out, drive it for a year or two and then sell it. My father started off as a BMW guy in the 80's, moved his way to MB in the 90's, and I stuck with BMWs. He acquired a W210 E55 about 5 - 6 years ago and I was very impressed with the car...very impressed. I loved everything about it, but then shortly after I purchased an E39 M5 (my dream car from when I was a kid in middle school going into High School. I saw the BMW short films, and the timeless M5 *camera chase car* commercial and was hooked) I finally made some $$$ in my mid twenties and went after the M5. That will be my forever car, and don't plan on selling it...ever.

Well circling back to being impressed with my first MB daily and my father's first AMG (the w210 E55), I started the hunt for a C55 and if anyone is in the NYC area (I'm born and raised on LI, but have been living in NYC ~10 years) it's impossible to find a clean, non-abused, documented car in the Tri-State area for the most part. They're all beat to sh*t, and falling apart by unsavory characters IMO and the NE roads certainly don't help. Well my friend who is an AMG guy, and bought a C55 not to long ago, sent me an ad for an E55 located in the middle of NJ. It was about a 2 hour drive away. I always liked the idea of an E55, but felt more at home with the idea of a C55. That said, I couldn't say no to checking it out. It looked very well taken care of and enthusiast owned.

Well, to end the long story...boy am I glad my friend told me we should check it out! While it's not a very*optioned* out E55, it was very well maintained for the most part. I'm the 4th owner. The P/O (may be on here for all I know), only drove it about 1k miles a year in his 4 year ownership. It spent it's life between Illinois, Alabama, and then Central NJ. (I reached out to the second owner on FB after looking him up, and he was super cool and another enthusiast who answered loads of questions that I couldn't quite clarify).

The car had a decent record book which I've compiled in an excel spread sheet...hehe. I found the original sticker tucked in the owners manual case which was a pleasant surprise.

Since I purchased it about 6 weeks ago, I've gone through replacing many worn front suspension components, new tires all around, alignment, rear main seal/front seal, transmission service (including conductor plate) and clutch packs. I also ordered a new key fob (FML they're expensive).

The only items remaining/bugging me are 1 of the fog lights are out, the rear air springs needs to be replaced as my shop said they are the originals from 05 and the passenger side is leaking. It looks about 1in lower than the driver side (but the car does hold air for days). The fronts air struts were replaced with Arnotts, he recommended I do the same w/ the rears. The seats air bladder do not seem to be expanding. I toggle the switches and I can't tell if they're even inflating/adjusting. I'm really kind of annoyed with that and will have him look at that next.

Other than that, the car did have some performance work done, and this is by far the fastest car I've ever owned. It blows my M5 out of the water (expected) along with my fathers W210 E55. It's really a pleasure to daily, it rides great, there's virtually no wind noise when the windows are up, you can drive it tame and hall friends/family around, or just give it some juice and this thing takes off like a rocket ship. You can really feel how outdated the transmission is, but that was expected. The P/O had a TJ Merry tune (I hope I'm saying that correctly) and while it shifted faster, it was way to aggressive for my daily driving. If I decide to drag the car (it was sold to me with drag radials on) I'll put the tune back in.

It has a Eurocharged tune, pulley (I should probably figure out what size), long tube headers, bigger injectors, no cats. I contacted Eurocharged and found their customer service to be quite lacking. I provided the VIN, which they said they do not enter in their system, it only goes by the previous owners names (which I had on hand and they found) and asked what tune was exactly on the car and they told me they couldn't tell me. I was a little flabbergasted as to not having detail on what type of tune you provided to a customer in the event something needs to be changed or tuned out. I was given the cables needed to reflash the ECU when I purchased the car, and the p/o (before the one I bought the car from) I looked up who was great, sent me all the tune files including stock that he had. Eurocharged stated I had to buy the tune/cables through them AGAIN in order to find out what's on the car and then $150 for any modified tune files. I think that's complete bull****, and I don't think I'd go to them if I decide to retune the car in the future. I can understand $150.00 for updated/modified files but to not provide me with info that they should have on file (for pretty obvious reasons, blows me away!)

 

Welcome to the house of pain. Very nice E55 and glad to see everything's in great shape including the headlights. Think I'm about to pick up something else but there's nothing that quite compares to the blend of on-tap power, luxury, and refined experience you get in these cars. Wish more of what makes the 211s so unique had been carried forward into all of the newer chassis.