Mercedes-Benz CLK350 Elegance - Bottom of the Barrel

Makes sense, admirable restraint and I think its only something we learn with experience, a bit like going to a burger place and not ordering the biggest one on the menu Sounds like its a bit of a goldilocks kind of choice to make.

I do wonder after driving my sons one how it would far with three or more times the power, am sure they are better tied down than the 220CDI version but only so much they can do with that platform.

I do think these can be a very decent buy and are a really good looking car.

I'm looking to replace the driver's seat cushion in my CL203, and given that the CLK is based on the W203, I wondered if you knew the answer to the following?

The seat base on the CL203 is clamped to a rail (which is part of the seat) with two sets of two plastic bolts, which I suspect have female torx screws in them. As I don't have a socket for the male torx bolts that hold the seat in place it is difficult to see what screws these plastic bolts have in them - are they female torx screws (T30?) as a YouTube video of a W204 seat would have me believe? TIA

Another year has passed, and so was time for the MOT. For the sake of convenience I sent the car for a pre-MOT just to see if there was anything amiss other than the worn front arms that I was already aware of. The inspection revealed some light corrosion on the rear brake pipes that would lead to an advisory - I inspected them to find them some very solid pipes with a smattering of light powdery corrosion in places, so all that was required was a clean with a wire brush, and a liberal coating with Dinitrol wax.

I swapped over the four front arms from the Designo car because eventually I will perform a light underside restoration on that car, to include all new suspension and bushes (I'm extremely fussy when it comes to suspension) - for now it sits on axle stands. I decided to fit new Febi track rod ends and tie rods together with some Lemforder rear ball joints, prior to an alignment. The rod ends and ball joints weren't necessary from an MOT perspective, but there's a gulf between MOT standards and optimum driving/handling, and after checking them I decided that pre-emptive replacement was in order.

Of course, the inner tie rods that had been sent were for the W208, so as I was, working away from home with the car on axle stands, immobile, I was stranded with the option of refitting the worn parts, or doing something else. I was fortunate to free off the original tie rods to which I attached the new Febi track rod ends.


The car passed its MOT with an advisory for the rear brake pipes: 'cleaned and covered in grease' which wasn't a surprise - Jamie explained to me that it's an arse covering exercise.


That's all for now. Very uninteresting, but somehow this car has turned out to be one of the most enjoyable that I've owned - partly I suppose because it was purchased for 'scrap' money, and hence my expectations are so low, but it is more than that: it's like that old pair of shoes that are ever so comfortable. I've said it before, but it is a much more cohesive package than the CLK63 despite there being a nagging in the back of my mind that it needs to be a V8, although really only for the sound, because from a performance perspective it is certainly adequate.

Oh, I am still playing around with suspension I've gone through two additional spring changes. I can see that Jamie thinks that I'm a bit mad - I suppose when you're used to changing snapped springs all day it must seem quite strange to remove & replace relatively new parts. I've gone back to the European spec ARBs front & rear, but with the US dampers. The US ARBs turned out to be too much of a handling sacrifice for a surprisingly small gain in comfort. I've found that offsetting with spring rates is for me preferable to ARB rates. I'm still playing with spring rates, but I'm very close now to the perfect spec.

I will finally tune with tyre sizes: I think that the next profile size up at each end will complete the package...confirmation to follow post-testing.

Ditto for mine - it's just worth more to me.

I'd actually quite like a 220CDi. There's something reassuring about a solid diesel lump

I also like your Fiesta ST. I would like to own one.

Just the tyres, and I'll increase the sidewall rather than the width. The 350's had upgraded brakes so unfortunately 17's are the smallest wheel available. The brakes are also too good to give up, and the next system down - the basic version - always felt marginal.

I did own a 270CDi equipped with the 16" wheels; it rode beautifully. If it wasn't for the brakes I would fit some.

My 2003 320 has 16” wheels. It’s a lovely comfy thing.

I wanted to own a 209 before the world ran out of petrol, and it hasn’t disappointed. Having run a W204 C63 as a daily for a couple of years, this, with my ageing bones, is just so much nicer.

My 2003 pre-facelift C320 Sports Coupe also rides quite well, despite having 17" wheels and sports suspension. It does make me wonder if the W203 facelift, and presumably the W209 CLK facelift, while improving the handling iirc, perhaps didn't help the ride on our rubbish roads?

Thanks for the offer, but I've not really got the facilities to do that. However, your comment did make me recall that the MOT history has entries for each of the front springs being broken, and some of the service history is not at Mercedes-only specialists, so there's probably a question as to who made the front springs and to what specification.

I suppose one of the things that could make the 16" wheel CLKs ride so well might be lower un-sprung weight from the smaller wheels and brake discs, rather than just the tyre profile?

If you're ever interested then MB parts dept can provide the spring & damper part numbers.

The 350 has aluminium calipers whereas the base brakes are all cast iron, so the brakes will be reasonably close in weight. There's definitely extra weight in the wheels and wider tyres, but to me it feels more like tyre profile rather than weight.

Yeah, ours was like that, ten minutes with some alcohol had it sticky free, if I were selling a car I couldn't sell it if the buttons were like fly paper !