[suginami]

The early W140's had tremendous quality problem.The biggest problem would be leaking a...

The early W140's had tremendous quality problems.

The biggest problem would be leaking a/c evaporators, which cost about $4,500 to replace.

Further, even though this car is badged 300SE, it has the 3.2 liter M104 engine as used in the W124 and W210 chassis E320. The '93-'95 3.2 M104 engines had bad engine wiring harnesses. The insulation of the wires breaks down due to heat and causes terrible driveability problems. This engine also had a bad head gasket design that manifests as an oil leak at the right rear corner of the head (passenger side).

If the a/c evaporator, the engine wiring harness, and the head gasket have been replaced then it's might be worth buying.

If you have no proof that any of these have done, budget $4,500 for a new evaporator, $850 for a new wiring harness, and $1,500 for a new head gasket.

 

[suginami]

Re: The 'incorrect' badging is just as correct as the 280 SEL 4.5, 300 SEL 6.3, or the 450 SEL

The 'incorrect' badging is just as correct as the 280 SEL 4.5, 300 SEL 6.3, or the 450 SEL 6.9! The numbers just don't match and it dosen't make sense. Same deal with the next level up 400 SE/L, it has a 4.2 engine. Mercecdes has quite a history of "misbadging".
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Yeah, look at my signature. All 1993 300E's got the 3.2 liter engine, but the badge still read 300E. They should've badged it as E320 (which they did the next year), or 300E 3.2 (like they did the 300E 2.6 and 300E 2.8), or even 320E.

The 1992-1993 400E's always had the 4.2 liter V8, and the badging was correctly changed to E420 in 1994.

Heck, the current C240 sedan has a 2.6 liter six cylinder.

Go figure...