My last new Mercedes was a 1987 190D-turbo, now long gone into history. After retiring in 1990 I have owned a variety of cars and trucks, emptied my Porsche bucket, and now face the unhappy prospect of replacing my favorite driver, a 1990 Audi V8 Quattro. In point of fact, now my wife and I are contemplating downsizing to one car at precisely the time of life when I have zero interest in cars at all. We will continue to drive the 1994 Audi 100 Avant Quattro and are on the lookout for a suitable replacement that needs to be at least as good and reliable as the Audi wagon has been, now as it rolls past 212,000 miles here in Maine's challenging automobile climate. Here's what we think:
Let me say outright that Mercedes now, once my favorite, only seems to scare me to death. I understand mechanical things that connect and push her or pull there to make things work. But all those electrons in new cars scare me to death with their unknown, and perhaps unpreparable for complications and expenses when that little dust mote falls over those two electronic gizzie-posts and everything shuts down.
My mechanic tells me they're ALL like that now. So:
1. My HEART of hearts wants a 2005 E500 wagon. I just LOVE the thought of Airmatic and those eight lovely cylinders. But.....
2. My BRAIN tells me that what we NEED is a 2005 E320 4-matic Wagon. It's got plenty of what it needs and fewer of those mysterious connectors and rubber grommets and stuff that Mercedes so dearly love in their cars.
I am not concerned about fuel consumption. We drive a very regular 200-275 miles per week, all open country two lane roads with the occasional dash down an interstate with very little traffic, seldom a traffic light and no commuting of any kind. I expect the difference between an E500 and E320 for us will be about the same as the difference between my Audi V8 and the Audi 100 (V6), the E500 being better when drives are longer by a couple of miles per gallon, and the E320 better when we just drive the ten miles each way to the grocery store.
I have little hope that I will find either car here in this state, so the hunt is on using the Internet and I'm looking EVERYwhere I can find a listing. Here are my requirements:
1. 2004-2005 model years only. E500/E320 wagon
2. Miles since new: +/-100,000 miles.
3. one or two owners unless verifiable special circumstances of ownership marking more than two.
3. NO northern winters
4. Complete service history verified by CARFAX, with services performed by authorized Mercedes Benz facilities. (Exception: IF the previous owners furnished the vehicle to the seller with complete service records, i.e. work orders, for any and all repairs completed this can be acceptable).
5. Orthopedic seats. This is pretty important because of my wife's back issues, although this by itself is not a deal killer for the right car.
6. And yes, the condition has got to be pretty good and the photos furnished be of sufficient resolution to prove that this is THE right now.
(color isn't terribly important so long as it is not "lose your license RED")
Sounds simple doesn't it? Or maybe impossible. I have been on the hunt now for almost two weeks and have found a couple of likely candidates, all of which are more than 500 miles from here. That means I might end up buying the next car sight unseen. Fortunately two of the four I have found interesting are being sold by franchised Mercedes dealers so the information available from them has been very good.
I can order a PPI but that is not guaranteed as I may not get one done in the time the dealer would want to deal with me, AND ordering a PPI from someone, say in Oregon (where there is a good looking example right now) is problematic as I don't know anyone who might be really a responsible company to do a PPI. Long distance buying is fraught with peril as you can see. Naturally, the car on the west coast adds a whole bunch of non-car expense in the transportation to Maine, so I doubt anything will come of that one anyway.
In the past I have found exactly what I wanted, flown out and drove back. The Audi wagon which is our driver now that the V8 is gone, was in Kansas City. It was a one owner car with 39,000 miles on it when it was seven years old. I flew out and drove it back and was arguably one of the best vehicular decisions I have ever made. That was 17 years ago.
So, I'm going to keep searching and searching. I have found so far that there ARE really good examples there, although most have a tad more miles than I would like.
How will it end? Well, I rather think it is going to end up being an E320, for the simplicity and dependability of the suspension. BUT if I find the "right" car with that all important verifiable service history, I might just find the E500 which at it's 103,000 miles from new, has already had the big PUMP, the four air springs and some other stuff already done, and it's ready for the next 100,000 miles.
Any encouragement from anyone who is a veteran of these things will be appreciated.
Let me say outright that Mercedes now, once my favorite, only seems to scare me to death. I understand mechanical things that connect and push her or pull there to make things work. But all those electrons in new cars scare me to death with their unknown, and perhaps unpreparable for complications and expenses when that little dust mote falls over those two electronic gizzie-posts and everything shuts down.
My mechanic tells me they're ALL like that now. So:
1. My HEART of hearts wants a 2005 E500 wagon. I just LOVE the thought of Airmatic and those eight lovely cylinders. But.....
2. My BRAIN tells me that what we NEED is a 2005 E320 4-matic Wagon. It's got plenty of what it needs and fewer of those mysterious connectors and rubber grommets and stuff that Mercedes so dearly love in their cars.
I am not concerned about fuel consumption. We drive a very regular 200-275 miles per week, all open country two lane roads with the occasional dash down an interstate with very little traffic, seldom a traffic light and no commuting of any kind. I expect the difference between an E500 and E320 for us will be about the same as the difference between my Audi V8 and the Audi 100 (V6), the E500 being better when drives are longer by a couple of miles per gallon, and the E320 better when we just drive the ten miles each way to the grocery store.
I have little hope that I will find either car here in this state, so the hunt is on using the Internet and I'm looking EVERYwhere I can find a listing. Here are my requirements:
1. 2004-2005 model years only. E500/E320 wagon
2. Miles since new: +/-100,000 miles.
3. one or two owners unless verifiable special circumstances of ownership marking more than two.
3. NO northern winters
4. Complete service history verified by CARFAX, with services performed by authorized Mercedes Benz facilities. (Exception: IF the previous owners furnished the vehicle to the seller with complete service records, i.e. work orders, for any and all repairs completed this can be acceptable).
5. Orthopedic seats. This is pretty important because of my wife's back issues, although this by itself is not a deal killer for the right car.
6. And yes, the condition has got to be pretty good and the photos furnished be of sufficient resolution to prove that this is THE right now.
(color isn't terribly important so long as it is not "lose your license RED")
Sounds simple doesn't it? Or maybe impossible. I have been on the hunt now for almost two weeks and have found a couple of likely candidates, all of which are more than 500 miles from here. That means I might end up buying the next car sight unseen. Fortunately two of the four I have found interesting are being sold by franchised Mercedes dealers so the information available from them has been very good.
I can order a PPI but that is not guaranteed as I may not get one done in the time the dealer would want to deal with me, AND ordering a PPI from someone, say in Oregon (where there is a good looking example right now) is problematic as I don't know anyone who might be really a responsible company to do a PPI. Long distance buying is fraught with peril as you can see. Naturally, the car on the west coast adds a whole bunch of non-car expense in the transportation to Maine, so I doubt anything will come of that one anyway.
In the past I have found exactly what I wanted, flown out and drove back. The Audi wagon which is our driver now that the V8 is gone, was in Kansas City. It was a one owner car with 39,000 miles on it when it was seven years old. I flew out and drove it back and was arguably one of the best vehicular decisions I have ever made. That was 17 years ago.
So, I'm going to keep searching and searching. I have found so far that there ARE really good examples there, although most have a tad more miles than I would like.
How will it end? Well, I rather think it is going to end up being an E320, for the simplicity and dependability of the suspension. BUT if I find the "right" car with that all important verifiable service history, I might just find the E500 which at it's 103,000 miles from new, has already had the big PUMP, the four air springs and some other stuff already done, and it's ready for the next 100,000 miles.
Any encouragement from anyone who is a veteran of these things will be appreciated.