E220 estate rear suspension information

[TonyCoolDaddy]

I am thinking about buying a E220 Estate to pull my caravan (shock horror). I think it will do the job as my 2.6 A6 150 BHP pulls it around ok and the E220 is quoted as being 150 BHP in parkers. Can anyone confirm this.

Secondly my van is hitch heavy and I want to make sure the E220 Estate have self levelling suspension to ride level. Does anyone know if these cars were fitted with self levelling suspension as standard or option? Also how can I check to make sure it has self levelling suspension when I view the car.

Thirdly I would like to check the price, it is L reg 1994 E220 Estate in Pale Met blue, no leather, ES auto box, Air con, roof rails, seven seater with 83K on the clock and 2 owners. does £5000.00 sound too much or about right.

Many thanks for reading this, Hope I can help you when I get the Merc of my dreams

 

[andy_k]

as far as I know all the estates have self levelling rear suspension.

To make sure........

1, look under the bonnet and see if there is a hydraulic fluid reservoir near the front on the passenger side

2, check the rear "shock absorbers" or at least the things that look like shock absorbers - they are actually just hydraulic struts - and see if they have a flexi pipe leading to them (I read somewhere about a conversion to change to a non self levelling system). Make sure these are not leaking as they are very expensive to replace (£250 each from the dealers) but not a big job and can be replaced individually.

Make sure it is working properly, load the rear of the car up - two people sat in the back should be fine and see if the suspension levels itself out when the car is started.

Check the pump and return valve is working by watching the return pipe into the reservoir with the engine running

Take the car for a drive and check for a harsh ride/poor damping. If the suspension is hard there's a chance that the accumulator spheres will need to be replaced - cost £70 each from the dealers and need to be replaced in pairs.

If there's a fault with the suspension either walk away or start bargaining we got a hell of a good price on our estate when we pointed out to the seller that the rear suspension was leaking from one of the struts. They are not hard to replace (the hardest job was getting the rear floor trim out to get at the fixing bolts) and the whole job, replacing both of them took about 2 hours. I wish now that I'd changed the accumulators when I had all the trim out as that's the next job on the list for mine.

HTH

Andy K


If it doesn't level itself when the car is started

 

[TonyCoolDaddy]

Many thanks now how about the BHP/ 1100KG trailer question

Many thanks now how about the BHP/ 1100KG trailer question.

Will a 220 pull a 1100/1300 kg caravan without any embarrasing 40mph up hill motorway crawls? And is the 220 actually 150 bhp, this sounds like a lot from a 4 cyl 2.2 or is multi cam/valve with some sort of Variable valve timing?

also is fitting a tow bar to an estate easy/hard/expensive.

Many thanks/ By the way I registered as cool daddy as tony was taken and I just got portable air con for the bedroom. sox and jim jams tonight when its 27Deg C outside. am I the cool daddy or what?

 

[spitfirecbs]

Hi, I've just posted this to another thread...

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I've just finished towing our 1200Kg 'van with our E220 T124 estate. It was fine - not exactly fast, but perfectly OK. I found sport mode on the auto box to be best otherwise it held onto the taller gears too long and lost momentum on hills. BTW, the bar was a self fitted Witter, with a 6-way relay kit that allows the bulb-failure circuit to still function, bought from www.towbarwarehouse.co.uk - who were very prompt with their free delivery.

PS. Also bought the (better) bumper protector, and gave the bar a coat of hammerite first.

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BTW, I paid about 5.4K for ours earlier in the year, it's a few months later than yours (is yours post-facelift also?), but the price seems good if all's OK. At end of day, if you pay 5k for it, there's a fair chance if you want to sell it, someone else will pay that too!

Good luck,
Mark.