Comments: 1-15, 16-17
What had NOT gone wrong?
By the time I purchased the car with 107k miles, the following was already in need of repair or broke while in my possession...
- The stereo stopped working.
- The driver-side rear power window didn't work.
- The cruise control didn't work.
- Far too many of the interior switches didn't work, or worked intermittently.
- A transmission mount failed.
- The motor mounts failed.
- The pull tab for the hood release broke.
- The seatbelt warning lights flashed non-stop while the car was on.
- The bulb failure warning light illuminated many times even though all exterior lights worked properly.
- Oil pressure gauge stopped working.
- Oil warning light illuminated randomly for no reason. Checked oil each time and it was fine.
- A/C never worked while in my possession.
- Front passenger power headrest didn't work.
- Transmission started slipping badly and needed a rebuilt at 108k miles.
I bought this car thinking it would be a solid, reliable car that I could put at least another 100k miles on if properly maintained. This car was very well maintained and looked brand new inside and out when I bought it. The paint was glossy and looked excellent. The interior was spotless. The leather looked like new and the carpets were spotless.
I was decieved by the implied reputation of Mercedes. I come from a family of very satisfied Volvo owners. I bought this car thinking it would be just as good of a car. Boy was I wrong! You saw the list of things that went bad with the car within 108k miles. It's pretty pathetic for any car to have a list of problems like that within this kind of mileage. But for a car of the world like Mercedes, I was horrendously disgusted with this car. I paid a premium for it because of the great condition and the fact that you have to pay more for the name.
Never again will I pay for the name. It's a joke! I've had more reliable American cars! This Mercedes was very high maintenance and very temperamental.
It was good looking, roomy, well built, and had a smooth powertrain. That's about all the good I can say about this car though. It rode very harshly. The seats were pretty hard and stiff. The steering was too vague for my liking.
The car had NO guts to speak of, even though it had the larger, premium gas guzzling 3.0L 177hp V6. The transmission, as mentioned above, only lasted 108k miles. That's pretty pathetic for such a high-end car.
The electrical systems seem to be complete crap on these cars. Volvos have their own fair share of electrical bugs, but this Mercedes was far worse, affecting cruise control, stereo, MANY interior switches, and warning lights on the dash.
It's a beautiful, fun to sit in, lawn ornament and that's about it. Maybe other Mercedes models aren't such crap, but this one definitely was.
I don't mean to bust balls, but sounds like your car buying savy is more at blame than the bum Mercedes that you bought with multiple problems.
Everybody makes bad car buying decisions, myself included. Learn from it, don't blame it on a make and model which, at the time, was far superior in build quality and reliability to most anything else on the road.
Mercedes is not perfect, but I unfortunately think someone (the seller) just pulled a fast one on you..i have a 90 benz 300e and I have had a problems, but most were because the previous owner left car sitting..and I messed with air intake screw..when actually there was nothing wrong with it (I actually just had a bad spark plug) I do have a minor problem sometimes when I floor it from standing start, but like I said I may still have air/fuel screw adjustment wrong, but besides that it has been good I have put almost 20,000 miles on in 2 years...there was an issue though with gremlins due to the bio degradeable wiring harness in later cars ( 93 or 95 on i believe ) but not our years ( yours and mine ) that i have heard
Just curious what the orig. commenter paid for their vehicle. This vehicle is 20 years old. I had one that I also paid a little more for, but had incredible documentation window stickers etc and all its service records. It was fine during my ownership ran well cool a/c...but it was cared for. I sold it for more than I paid for it a year later as I bought a used 450SL. Its good to have a mechanic look a used one over before you buy. Its easy to be attracted to a Mercedes the first one you own. I also spent about $2000 on some repairs and mostly upgrades on the 450SL loved driving it and sold it for nearly what I had in it.
I'm the original poster of this review. I've owned a variety of vehicles (Ford, Chrysler, Volvo, Mercedes, Toyota) and except for the '88 Toyota Camry, the '87 Mercedes 300E was by far the WORST of the bunch. Obviously I liked the car or I wouldn't have bought it. It's how it treated me in return that left me with a horrible impression. All the mentioned issues in my review I repaired. And I still can't get over the transmission crapping out at 108k miles, at a cost of $2,500 to repair. I simply can't forgive that. 1) because that is such a short lifespan for a transmission on ANY car! Never had transmission issues with any of my vehicles, all of which had higher mileage. 2) because even IF it was due to neglect (which I honestly have no idea) my friend's '87 Volvo 240 with well over 200k miles on the ORIGINAL transmission started having issues. She figured it was simply crapping out due to high mileage. She took it to a repair shop for inspection. The mechanic asked her if she had ever changed the fuild. She NEVER had because she didn't realize you're supposed to (it was her first car). Mind you, she bought the car with 70k miles on it. He changed her fluid and guess what? It worked fine after that and she sold the car with about 250k miles. This Mercedes was crap. Period. It had FAR TOO MANY problems for a car that, judging by it's cosmetic condition, was not abused, and only had 108k miles to begin with. Abuse would not cause all the electrical issues. So that's not worth arguing over. I easily could have saved myself an easy $1,000, bought a NEWER Volvo, and had fewer problems. My mother, who is on her second Volvo, bought a used '95 Volvo 940 with 141k miles for $2,800, a few hundred less than my '87 300E. She's had that car for 3 years now and hasn't had to make ANY REPAIRS to it whatsoever. Mercedes simply are not worth the extra cost of purchase and repair costs since you're not getting longer lasting parts...obviously. My '85 Volvo 240 I bought for $2,500 in MINT condition with 134k miles. I put another 30k miles on it, spent around $500 in repairs over a 2yr. period, and sold it for $2,300 in less than sparkling condition. Right now (6/22/07) I'm looking at buying another car. I am considering Volvo 850 or Mercedes C-class, either around 1996 models. Guess what? I'm realizing in order to buy a Mercedes C-class of similar year and mileage, I'd have to pay about a $4,000 premium! That's insane! I've compared multiple 850s and C-class models, so I'm sure of this. That extra $4,000 does not gaurantee it to be a better car and I have a feeling it's not. With cars like these I'm starting to realize you are paying for the name. Not worth the extra expense at all. Orignally I was looking at the Lexus 300ES, but for the same money, it would be older, probably early 90's, and I've read story after story of how they have transmissions that fail around 100k miles. What a joke to pay the premium. I still think Mercedes are pretty lawn ornaments. 3 Volvos in my family for cheaper purchase prices, less money spent on repairs, and none have had major engine or transmission issues. Re-read my 300E review. You do the math.
Did you not post for Mercedes 300e in another section? Are you posting for every year Mercedes 300E? I think you are the same guy.. I must say, I have never heard of so many problems happening at the same time. But I appreciate your honesty. Can you tell us how you came across the the car and how it was bought? Dealer or Private party?
Also.. did you have the car checked by a Mercedes Tech prior to purchase? Let us know since I know you want to help other buyers not make the same mistake or mistakes you made. Thanks..
Most of the problems mentioned seem to be related to electrical gremlins, which do plague Mercs but can generally be fixed with brains and a few basic tools.
Other problems mentioned seem to be pretty standard wear items.
The gearbox in all probability needed an adjustment or fluid and filter change, lots of people forget that there is a filter in the gearbox. Another possibility is loss of vacuum, Mercedes of that vintage run on vacuum. There are quite a few upgrades that should be done to that gearbox but complete failure is rare.
Anyway I could go on and on but at the end of the day owning a Merc is not for everybody, they are engineered like no other car and you have to live with that.
It may well be that this particular car was flood damaged, but on the other hand I am quite happy for people to believe that Mercs are expensive and problematic to own, this keeps the price of them down.
It's me again, the original poster of this review.
To answer some questions, no, I have not posted any other reviews on carsurvey about this car. This is my only review. I'm not trying to deceive anyone, just share my story.
I felt deceived because people who love Mercedes rave about these cars, but then I bought mine and you read what the result was. It was most certainly the most problematic car of all the various makes and models of cars I've owned, and being a Mercedes, the most expensive to repair by default.
I've owned some pretty unreliable vehicles too, like my '90 Ford Ranger 4x4, '88 Toyota Camry, and '89 Chrysler Lebaron convertible. Those were my 3 worst cars.
The three best were my '85 Volvo 240DL, '92 Plymouth Acclaim, and '97 Mercury Tracer. No engine or transmission problems with any of those cars, not even leaks!
As for the Mercs transmission failing at 108k miles. I would be driving down the road and it would slip into neutral at random will. If I put the shifter in Neutral then back to Drive, it would resume gears again... until it decided to slip into neutral again. It got worse within just a few hundred miles and became very unsafe to drive.
It also had a hard start problem, which I forgot to mention in my original review. It would take unreasonably long to start sometimes.
I don't want to hear people blame all the car's problems on its old age, because my other old cars performed well.
I think Mercedes are poorly engineered in that they are very fussy and temperamental. Sure, it might last over 200k miles, if you're willing to put thousands of dollars worth in repairs. I'm just not one of those people.
When a car's yearly repair bill adds up to the equivalent of a monthly new car payment, it's just not worth owning anymore.
Over-engineering leads to complicated, costly, and problematic engineering in my opinion.
The older Volvos may not be as luxurious or refined because of their crude engineering, but they are a hell of a lot more dependable as a result. I will take that kind of quality (solid reliability) over Mercedes interpretation of quality (fit/finish) any day.
This review does not seem to me representative of Mercedes or of the model. I have had many Mercedes, with extremely high mileages and I have spent very little in them, just normal maintenance. For example I own currently a 2000 model with 140,000miles and I have only changed some 3 light bulbs and 2 wiper blades (that's for real), out of the normal parts that have to be changed in service.
The 300E was an extremely reliable and durable car, one of the very best. Or your car was not serviced well before you bought it or something out of the ordinary occur to it.
By the way, your car has a L-6, not a V-6, something else that adds to its great durability -as it has 7 main bearings- and extremely scarce vibrations.
I even remember that a special cars TV program was made in order to test the wonderful qualities of these cars. They took a 300 TE -wagon- and destroyed it in all the possible ways, at the end they even used dynamite. The persons in charge of the program were amazed by this car, many things still worked after all the vandalism. These are absolutely over-engineered automobiles.
I believe the original poster just got a bad car. Whomever had it before didn't do the regular service.
And the question was raised, did you have the car inspected before you bought it? Let's be real here. Anytime you buy a used car it's going to need work, because I guarantee most of the population don't service their cars the way they should. Any used car you buy should be pre-inspected, you got a lemon.
I've owned a few Volvo 240's myself, and yes they are great cars. And the fact that your friend never changed the oil, just confirms my statement that people don't properly service their cars. And yes the 240 ran anyways, she was lucky.
I think bad naming Mercedes is unwarranted here. How many 300's did you look at before you settled on this one? The first question you should have asked before you bought it is, DO YOU HAVE THE SERVICE RECORDS? If they said no, I would have moved on. Generally I never buy a car from someone who has owned it for a short time (a year or less), it's a red flag.
My 1990 300TE has 282,000 miles and runs better than any newer auto. Fit and finish are outstanding. Like I've said, I've owned quite a few Volvo 240's and they have their quirks also, again, THEY HAVE THEIR QUIRKS ALSO. But they are great cars. The Mercedes 300 series also have quirks, again, THEY HAVE THEIR QUIRKS ALSO. But they are great cars.
Before you bad mouth a whole brand, maybe you should find a Mercedes that's been serviced properly, then state your opinion. Obviously this era of cars, are just finely made and extremely reliable, otherwise you would read about it in all of these forums. People that praise these cars, don't do it just because their Mercedes, that would be just ridiculous. They praise them because of the gems they are.
Compare comments about current Mercedes vs. the classics, huge difference. The newer Benz's just aren't made as well, and have problems.
Bottom line, I'm questioning if you went through the proper steps before buying this car. With the transmission failing, that just says it was not maintained. There are certain things to look for before buying these cars (the same goes for Volvo 240's). I'm not bad mouthing the original poster, I just think the buying process should have been more thorough.
These cars will run forever if you take care of them, and in general servicing is not expensive. I'm very suspicious about the car you purchased, to have that many electrical things go wrong, something happened to this car that you just didn't know about. I'm pretty sure I won't change your mind just by a few words here. But I (and a whole bunch of other folks) have to totally disagree with you, the 300 series Mercedes is fabulous. And its popularity is there for a reason.
Just read this post again.
You totally got a lemon. Something definitely happened to this car, and they didn't disclose it. Sounds like water damage to me. Something happened to the electrical system in this car. Read it again yourself, no car will have this many problems.
I am thinking of buying a 1992 300 CE 24v coupe. just after reading this thread. Makes me a bit worried. Should I be. Would most of you still recommend buying one? What are the main things to look for when checking one out. I will definitely bring a mechanic with me as I really only know how to drive a car, that's about it. Any advice appreciated.
Don't be worried because of this post. These cars are wonderful. Just Google and you'll find mainly positive feedback. Check out the link below, it'll ease your mind.
http://www.epinions.com/reviews/auto_Make-1990_Mercedes_Benz_E_Class
I would suggest bringing the 300CE to a Mercedes mechanic, they should know the car quite well. And ask for SERVICE RECORDS.
Hi
This is to the original Poster.
I own a 1998 Mercedes c230. It gets great gas mileage, runs really well, has been the most dependable, comfortable, beautiful, reliable car I've ever owned. It has been a dream.
I purchases it for $16,000 at the Local Mercedes Dealership with 43,000 miles on it in 2002/2003. It was well worth the money. At this time it currently has about 118,000 miles, and still runs as good as when I bought it.
It has required little servicing. I take it into the dealer where I purchased it every 3,000 miles for a check up, oil change and whatever else needs to be done. It is a great car, and if you have the money to spend, I would highly advise thinking about buying a 1998 C230.