This was my 2005 E350, good old, complex and pretty damn solid luxury barge straight from Stuttgart. I been driving the livin' daylights out of it and also using its practical aspects quite a bit...
That's the car with a good 600lbs of stuff in the back. The hydraulic leveling system pumps it up as soon as the engine is started. The system came standard on all S211 E Class wagons.
With this payload the car sits at a solid ~2200kgs/4500lbs which is quite interesting at speeds over 180kmh/115mph. During the 450km drive that followed I went up to 230kmh which felt pretty solid. When you need to quickly reduce speed the brakes really start to shine. Mercedes literally built the system to cope with max curb weight at max speed.
Given that this is a naturally aspirate 3.5l dual overhead cam V6 the consumption is about what you'd expect. Surely the old 5.0L V8 will drink much more and be not that much quicker. The newer 5.5L V8 on the other hand is known to push very hard while needing not much more than the V6 - on anything over 100mph that calculation quickly goes out the window naturally.
Now about the durability you may recall I had to replace the battery and that was really the only serious issue as it rendered the car useless for a few days.
Besides that this car has performed flawlessly and each and every gizmo has worked at all times. Even sitting at idle at close to 40C degrees with the AC on full didn't bother it much. The Mercs of this era are absolutely built a tad more solidly than their BMW brethren and I say that as a BMW fan.
Besides it is georgeous, retaining the classic understated and elegant Mercedes design language while incorporating some modern and innovative line flow - love this design:
As for maintenance I just came up on the first oil change after 10.000km - also I wasn't sure what the previous owner did with it exactly. Recommended factory oil viscosity is 5W-30 with high mileage ones going to 5W-40 so at over 260.000km I went for Liqui Moly 5W-40 with the Mercedes petrol verification called MB229.5. What you see below is Meguin oil, they produce for Liqui Moly but without the brand name it's a bit cheaper.
Engine takes 8L. Oil filter looked completely shot. Replaced that with a Hengst one.
Thing with the oil filter housing is that if you've had enough amateur workshops tackle the housing the threads on the plastic will wear out and the standard hub will not be able to arrest. Here's my work around for now until my new (8EUR) oil filter cap arrives:
That's right, nothing a good ol' shop cloth can't cover. Loosened like a charm. Replaced the sealings and closed the bleed screw before filling in the oil. Mercedes actually pumps out the oil when doing an oil change so the oilpan bleed screw is never actually loosened. In the absence of a pump it seemed ok to do the classic bleed and closeup before refilling. Haven't had any leaks yet.
Before doing the oil change I've used 3 of these to top it up:
Yeah, that's the Liqui Moly branded oil I'm using. In total this equates to an oil consumption of .33L/1000km which is absolutely fine. Next time I'll do the change I'll run some engine flush through it beforehand as I'm suspecting some residue and clock up in the engine as the previous owners seemed to have done the changes only infrequently. Here is the engine frontend after the oilchange (uncleaned except for the oilfilter assembly cover):
That said, check out the dipstick after 1000km:
I didn't clean that, it's soaked in oil but pretty clean and new oil!
Also Mercedes makes it easy to manually reset the service interval yourself so this is the current display:
While I had the car up on the jack I replaced the lower front engine cover as it was struck by wood or sth. Managed to get one in original condition that I merely had to clean up on Ebay and installed following the oil change:
Mercedes did some interesting one over the other system when it comes to bottom end covers which took me a good 10 minutes to get right:
After this exercise and a few, very foggy morning drives:
And a very quick run from Munich airport back home:
I took it upon myself to start cleaning the engine bay with some soapy water as a prelude to when my Sonax cold engine cleaner arrives. So far so good:
Gotta say Mercedes did an excellent and also somewhat overengineered and nerdy route to design and lay out this engine bay and i absolutely LOVE IT. The way that main sealing wraps around the engine, the electrical, fluid and other compartments are arranged around it and the entire presentation is just a thing of beauty:
Same goes for the interior:
I've been really fond of BMWs over the years but the way this S211 is designed, engineered and put together is a thing to behold...
That's not to say it's simple or mindlessly reliable but everything has a certain amount of sense to it and is actually quite DIY friendly IF you have the right tools, software and most importantly drive and use it with care and brains - it will appreciate it. That said it's built extremely solid and overengineered to the nth degree. It feels like a tank and that's a great feeling.
It's also got a few tricks up its sleeve like after you shut the engine off there's a button in the climate controls that says 'REST' press it and it will release remaining cold or hot air (depending on the setting it was at when the engine was shut off) at a preset ventilation stage for a pretty long time.
I've shut it off after 15 minutes but it seemed to just want to continue.
Ultimately what attracts me to this super huge, heavy, complex and sort of crazy wagon is its design - here during a stop somewhere in the middle of Europe:
No matter where you park it you can always spot it from a mile away as the big ass inevitably sticks out of the row of cars...
Catch ya next time when I will document how the exhaust gets welded and maybe tranny fluid changed.
For now MJ fans rejoice:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RzQy288ehKcBGXNb8
If you're wondering about the sound insulation it actually is that good not even double glazing it's just whisper quiet. Think they tweaked with the window sealings or something. At 120mph you can still have a regular conversation and have some music play in the background - gotta love it.
Peace!
