Buying Advice

[Panzer]

Hello to everyone on the forum!

I am a new member and am currently selling my car (a Seat) to buy myself a mercedes e280 W124. I have a general knowledge of the model but am not familiar with the pros and cons of ownership. I will probably be buying something in the region of £5000 with between 95000 - 120000 miles on the clock. What should i look out for mechanically and how economical are these cars (i believe its around 25-35mpg). + what spec must i go for (leather and air con are my priority) is there anything else? 8)

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks

Ed.

 

[Orlando 300E]

Hello Panzer, & welcome!
From my experience, the number 1 thing to check would be the Automatic gearbox.

You are probably used to a manual gearbox, so looking out for faults in an auto will probably be hard -try to get as much "saddle time" as you can with different cars on this one. There has been a lot of discussion on this forum about: what gear for what speed? What gear the Mercedes pulls away in? -Usually 2nd! So familiarize yourself with that aswell.

I had to have a complete rebuild done on my box, over £1K bill, apparently because someone (read fool!) had fiddled with the internal settings in the box. So check that the box (+ the rest of the car) has been serviced properly and regularly with someone who knows what they are doing.

Good luck with the search, consider not buying the first one you find!
Orlando

 

[wagamama]

Hi Panzer,

If you're getting the MPG's from the MB's website, i'd take them with a pinch of salt. I usually get less than the quoted mpg's. I drive a C240 (2.6l v6 2001) and get around 13-18mpg in town, and i think the manufacturers quote it at about 15% extra i.e. 15-20mpgs.

I usually drive fairly gently too, but am usually filling up with 45l of petrol every two weeks...

Not as economical as my old 1.8l diesel :wink:

HTH
Waga

 

[mjtray]

Hi Panzer,

Being a fellow E280 owner and a relatively new one at that, I have the following comments to make.

1) Check the head gasket for oil leaks....fairly common to have a leak at the front, which is cheap to fix as its the Distributor (?) gasket. If its coming from the rear of the engine, it likely your head gasket is on its way out. It appears that the head gaskets go once they start hitting the 110-120,000 miles mark......big ££££ to replace. Also check the expansion tank to make sure its clean, ie no oil residue from a blown head gasket.

2) Engine Harness. A well known problem, which causes erratic engine management problems. MB used eco-friendly insulation on this harness which is fitted to all M104 engines, ie 280's and 320's. Problem is that the insulation starts to disintegrate prematurely. Only solution is to replace the harness, @ £900.00. Mine has not yet suffered any problems and it appears that its the higher mileage cars and cars in hotter climates, such as States and Australia that suffer first.

3) Full service history. Has the car got a full MB Service history and has it had coolant and transmission oil changes done at the right times?

4) Auto Gear box. Mine always starts off in 1st as does a mates 320. There has been endless discussions on whether they pull off in 1st or 2nd. I have never met a 280 owner whoose car pulls away in 2nd....I'll probably get proved wrong. I prefer the car to pull away in 1st.

5) Throttle. If this is your first W124, as it was for me, one of my first impressions was that it had a really stiff throttle pedal. Apparently they are all like this and you do get used to it.

6) Other impressions. Having traded out of a 2001 E220, I can honestly say that I prefer to drive my 10 year old 280....smoother ride, better quality interior, although very old fashioned. I also think its better made than my E220.

My car leads a tough life, in the two and half months I have had the car its done 8000 miles, its really comfortable, cruises down the motorway at steady 90-95 without breaking sweat, has great brakes and does on average 27.5 mpg......I have never got past 28.5 mpg! Air con on/off seems to make little difference to the MPG figures, maybe 26 mpg V 27.5mpg. I also run it on Shell Optimax, which gives slightly better MPG and the car picks up and runs smoother on this brand of fuel.

When I was looking for my W124, I hardly saw any with Leather and very few with Air-Con. Mines got a checked cloth interior and air con and had 75,000 miles on the clock, full service history, 2 owners from new, and immaculate bodywork and new tyres. I paid £5500 from a dealer and got a 2 year warranty thrown in.....although I am sceptical of the warranty as there seems to be disclaimers for everything and it wasn't the warranty that sold the car to me, I would still have bought it with or without.

If you buy one, make sure you get it serviced my a good independent or an MB dealer like Tony Purslow in Basingsoke who give 40% off labour charges and 10% off parts for cars over 8 years old.

Let us know what you buy and good luck.