Merceds E-class - advice?

'95-98 W210 Mercedes E classes can rust like you wouldn't believe, other than that they're pretty much fine.

Particularly the front crossmember, apparently.

A friends 1998 E300 turboD has had 2 front wings, boot bonnet, and rear wings sandblasted and basically a full respray!! all done 18months ago under Mercedes warranty!! It did look good after he got it back Last year he had to get the crossmember welded for the MOT, he reckoned he could have gone the warranty route, but the garage only charged him £25 to weld a plate on it. The only reason they noticed it, the undertray had been removed on the motorway by a large stray piece of exhaust!

It was bought s/h at 4yrs old and he had the car serviced at a local garage not dealer. It never let him down though. great motorway tourer, set the cruise control, set the aircon, two bikes on the trailer, you could drive

60miles before you realise you had missed the exit ;~) He has sold the car with 130,000 miles to a mutual friend.

Allways carry a spare key in your pocket they have a habit of self locking!

And wings, but you can obviously see the condition of them. The under-trays need to come off to fully inspect the cross-member with the car on a lift.

autoboxes die after about 120k if they havent had fresh fluid annually.

All in all, not the best car MB have ever made, infact pretty crap.

Tim.

Did you see the Car Mechanics magazine project recently? It had new wings and a few other bits, and practically a full respray. I was very surprised to hear of what sounds like a serious rust issue on a modern Merc. They didn't have any mechanical issues though.

Soon, I'll be able to replace 'rusts like a 1970s Fiat' with 'rusts like a W210 E-Class' in my dictionary of motoring cliches....

-- SteveH In the bar, waiting for the football to start 'Aha!'

It will be harder to replace the "Italian electrics" one though!

You play football in a bar? Oh, table football I guess :-)

Chris