Hi everyone
Have spent the last few days trawling through this excellent forum. I'm a newbie and hopefully soon to own my first MB.
I've been looking on ebay and autotrader for several weeks now trying to find a W211 estate that has been looked after and will hopefully be reliable for everyday use. I want an E Class estate to put my 3 small children in the back (3 car seats) and plenty of boot space for camping trips. Also they are beautiful cars with a great safety rating. Fuel economy would be good too!
Budget is up to £3k so I'm looking at circa 2004 for that money.
I've been to take a look at this one:
Mercedes-Benz E Class 2.7 E270 CDI Avantgarde 5dr
The concern I have with this one is the lack of service paperwork. I have been given the contact details for the garage that looked after it so will get in touch but I'm surprised the paperwork is missing.
The battery was flat and the rear of the car had dropped down over the wheels until it was started up. Is this normal?
Also black smoke coming from top of engine while running. They mentioned this was probably injectors. I suspect it's the Black Death I've been reading about.
The garage will get it fixed up and MOT'd and then provide a 1 year warranty for "mechanical failure". Is this good enough or is there too much wrong with it?
My question is about the onboard computer service menu. Does this tell me the service history of the car? Can I interrogate the car through these menus and find out if the car has full service history etc?
I also took a test drive in this car earlier today:
Mercedes-Benz E Class 3.0 E300 Avantgarde 5dr
Serviced up to 80k miles but no paperwork after that. I know it's bargain basement money. There was a strange amount of engine noise coming from what sounded like directly behind the steering wheel as I was driving along. Very strange. Any ideas what that might have been? Also some knocking from front wheels when going over bumps so I walked away. Decent condition for it's age with the usual rust on wheel arches etc.
Once they get over 150k miles, should I be looking at Diesel only for reliability, or do the petrol models have longevity too?
Anyway I guess I just wanted to say hello and see what advice you guys could offer based on my budget and requirements.
Have spent the last few days trawling through this excellent forum. I'm a newbie and hopefully soon to own my first MB.
I've been looking on ebay and autotrader for several weeks now trying to find a W211 estate that has been looked after and will hopefully be reliable for everyday use. I want an E Class estate to put my 3 small children in the back (3 car seats) and plenty of boot space for camping trips. Also they are beautiful cars with a great safety rating. Fuel economy would be good too!
Budget is up to £3k so I'm looking at circa 2004 for that money.
I've been to take a look at this one:
Mercedes-Benz E Class 2.7 E270 CDI Avantgarde 5dr
The concern I have with this one is the lack of service paperwork. I have been given the contact details for the garage that looked after it so will get in touch but I'm surprised the paperwork is missing.
The battery was flat and the rear of the car had dropped down over the wheels until it was started up. Is this normal?
Also black smoke coming from top of engine while running. They mentioned this was probably injectors. I suspect it's the Black Death I've been reading about.
The garage will get it fixed up and MOT'd and then provide a 1 year warranty for "mechanical failure". Is this good enough or is there too much wrong with it?
My question is about the onboard computer service menu. Does this tell me the service history of the car? Can I interrogate the car through these menus and find out if the car has full service history etc?
I also took a test drive in this car earlier today:
Mercedes-Benz E Class 3.0 E300 Avantgarde 5dr
Serviced up to 80k miles but no paperwork after that. I know it's bargain basement money. There was a strange amount of engine noise coming from what sounded like directly behind the steering wheel as I was driving along. Very strange. Any ideas what that might have been? Also some knocking from front wheels when going over bumps so I walked away. Decent condition for it's age with the usual rust on wheel arches etc.
Once they get over 150k miles, should I be looking at Diesel only for reliability, or do the petrol models have longevity too?
Anyway I guess I just wanted to say hello and see what advice you guys could offer based on my budget and requirements.
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