Bumper cover

I was looking at Duraflex, too, for my E320 CDI, but then I found a Tong Yang (Taiwan) one online, brand-new and primed, for $110 including shipping. This was from "Car Parts Wholesale" on FleaBay. Turns out to be a pretty decent bumper cover, made of flexible ABS plastic (I believe factory is made of the same stuff). Took it to the body shop for painting, mounted it on the car, and it looks pretty good. Mounting was easy, just like factory.

You might consider going the same route for your W220 if you'd like to go new. Normally I like to stick with OEM, but apparently "made in Taiwan" is better than "made in China", and I've found that to be true with hand tools as well.

However, there are enough W220's out there that you might be able to find an OEM one in good shape on a junker car. At that point, it'd probably just need a paint job to match your car. Is that an option in your location?

I also bought a Tong Yang front left fender (aluminum, just like OEM) for the E320 CDI. It, too, fit pretty well; matter of fact, it did fit just like OEM. You'd have to really look hard to tell it wasn't OEM, and even then, the only major clue is the different batches of silver metallic paint (the car *is* 12 years old). Even among the metallic paints, silver's the hardest one to match. But that's not the fender's fault. The fender itself looks good, and had the color match been exact, you *wouldn't* be able to tell it was aftermarket. Tong Yang apparently has it goin' on, as they say.

Recently I found an OEM left fender in really good shape, for a price you wouldn't believe, to put on this car, but I only did that for two reasons:

1.) the paint on it is also about 12-13 years old and thus is a closer match for my car, and
2.) it was *that* good of a price, practically a giveaway.

If the price hadn't been *that* good, I would've been just fine with the (slight) color difference.

And agreed on the Depo headlights, BTW; the project S500 and my Dad's car (both MY 2000) have sets of those, and they work very well, too.

Could Taiwan end up being the next Japan?