Shed of the Week: Mercedes S320 CDI
Having seemingly escaped the curse of rust, is this Merc the ultimate bargain barge?
The vendor of this week's Shed is not only aware of, but also honest about, his car's shortcomings too. He can afford to be. The car he's selling is an example of one of the best cars ever made: the W220 Mercedes S-Class. Which means that, even with the odd problem, this 15-year-old S320 will almost certainly still be a better way to get around the place than 99 per cent of other cars on the road in 2018. Especially when the cost of getting your name on the V5 is a mere fiver short of £1,500.
This 'one of the best cars ever' thing isn't just Shed's opinion. It's a commonly-held view among a goodly percentage of motoring journalism's longest-serving and most respected scribblers.
In the lofty manner of Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling, Mercedes has never commented on the matter. If they had, it would have cost them even more money to sort out than whatever it did end up costing them. Whatever the truth might be, that - along with quite a few reliability issues - turned long-time Mercedes owners against the brand forever and put a steaming cow pat on chief designer Bruno Sacco's legacy.
The good news about this particular car (apart from its highly desirable full service history) is that, although some corrosion is present in the usual place, ie the wheel arch, it's a 2003 car. While that may not quite put it into the era of proper galvanisation and nano paints, it does distance it from the most unreliable and most rusty W220s, which were the early pre-2002-facelift cars.
If you decide to go along and look at it, it's still a good idea to check the suspension turrets for rust, and while you're there look for any signs of the Airmatic air suspension leaking. One of the pics with the ad indicates that the system is functional, which is a reason to be cheerful. As is the garage guy's comment about this car's quality. Most powerfully-built PH types should be able to live with the broken boot lid springs, another very common W220 problem.
The electrical drain issue is a bit more worrying, as the root cause of it doesn't seem to have been uncovered yet. The vendor tried disconnecting the satnav, with no luck, but Shed's own research points to plenty of other possibilities on this complex motor, including the alarm system, the voltage regulator, faulty electric seats, or summat amiss with the Comand system. Or it could be something as simple as loose battery wires, dodgy earth straps, or just an old battery that needs replacing. The comment about fritzing parking sensors is interesting too, maybe that's the culprit. Or wet carpets could be shorting out something important. Or there could be a problem with the keyless ignition, if the car has it, as issues in that department are not unknown.
Torque converter issues rarely affect S-Classes with under 200,000 miles on the clock. Lumpy gearshifts can often be fixed by changing the transmission fluid.
There are those who will tell you that a cheap Mercedes will be the worst Mercedes you ever buy, but surely it's worth a £1500 gamble to experience what it feels like to drive one of the world's best cars?
With huge regret I'm selling the comfiest car I have ever owned. The air suspension and quietness means journeys fly by.
The spec includes full leather, electric seats passenger+driver, COMAND APS DVD satnav, MP3 playback, 10speaker audio, parking sensors front & rear, electric sunroof, auto climate control, speedtronic cruise control, 18" alloy wheels, electric steering column, airmatic 3 mode suspension etc.
Good points
New MOT with no advisories
FSH
New tyres, brand new on the front
Recent brake discs and pads
No warning lights or messages
Drop links have been recently replaced, no squeaky suspension
Dashboard cluster was rebuilt, a common fault on these
It drives really well, the garage says it's a particularly good one
Bad Points
Some rust on the near side wheel arch
Boot lid springs are broken
Parking sensors are tempermental, they work fine in the rain!
There was a discharge on the car. It's often the sat nav, so I disconnected it. Turns out it wasn't that so it needs plugging back in.
The stereo isn't working, it apparently needs a new gateway
1500 quid is cheap though. So cheap its barely even worth selling which makes you wonder why the owner is. What’s lurking?
Even if it has the last service print out sheet it doesn’t tell you anything else other than what the service did. Which I’m willing to bet it hasn’t got a merc one, if he’s pulling the sat nav out himself I doubt it’s just been main dealered. So his mate Dave has likely done it, not exactly Stuttgart’s finest.
It’s clearly got a number of electrical problems that will likely cost more than 1500 to fix and that’s just the problems you can see on a test drive. Often sellers use that as a technique of covering proper mechanical problems by being your best mate and pointing out any faults, cos he’s an honest guy.
So, if you want a car without a radio, sat nav, temperamental parking sensors and maintained on the cheap. Here it is. For bonus points for the first 3 weeks before it breaks down, you get to look like a low grade drug dealer.
Journalists always seem to be convinced that the new versions will have addressed the problems of the previous models. Then along comes the next model, and we hear the same story. Check out how the cars are after a few years on the road, and then you see how good they really are.
Rant over
Still for the money, it's not bad. As already stated, if it works for a while, and you have the time and desire to sell it for parts when or if it dies on you, probably quite a pleasant car to drive.
It's a little harsh to attack the seller for being honest, if indeed he is. Innocent until proven guilty, in the civilised World, I thought.
We should celebrate the fact that a vendor is prepared to offer this at an honest asking price and hasn't attached the moniker "classic" to it, thus allowing it to be advertised at several times its true value. Remember the £100,000 RS2000?
Whichever way you cut it, this is a huge amount of car / cashable scrap weight (delete as appropriate) for the money.
Yes, it's cheap.
But before you take the plunge have a look how much servicing costs.
It might cost sub 2k to buy I will be anything but cheap to run.
Those will all be in 3K territory now I would have thought, at best (I sold a 98K FMBSH SL500 in 2012 for £7200 - all I could get) and at that price a few faults will write the car off.
Same with this shed - I'd not touch that with a bargepole, those electrical gremlins are a total no-no!
Those will all be in 3K territory now I would have thought, at best (I sold a 98K FMBSH SL500 in 2012 for £7200 - all I could get) and at that price a few faults will write the car off.
Same with this shed - I'd not touch that with a bargepole, those electrical gremlins are a total no-no!
And I’d bought a good one!
Utterly fantastic car when it worked though - I still miss it!
Phew! Lucky them, eh? I mean, its not like they never scmitted to their being a fault in the uk and helped owners at all, despite the opposite in the USA.
A british car company with the same quality issues would be crucified in the press and elsewhere.
Anyway, I didn't realise that that was Bruno Sacco's final design for MB. To this day I love seeing so many of his designs in streets all across London. Like the pre-Bangle BMW's there's something about the general proportions and details of most of his cars which makes them timeless. I even like some of his van designs.
With regard to the air suspension on these isn't it ABC rather than Airmatic? Anyway, they're both great when they work and expensive when they go wrong - ABC more so by all accounts.
Rust. Was it the water-based paints? Was it the steel? One of my Mercs (1999....) turned out to be one one of the fizzy ones. I had a really good bodyshop crawl all over it and their diagnosis was that the undercoat wasn't adhering to the paint properly. There were little "spiders" all over where a stone had chipped the paint and water had got underneath. I've never seen anything like it before or since. Unlike my other Mercs I traded that one in rather that sell it through the MB forums/to a mate. All the others since have been fine.
The parking sensor thing sounds minor to me. The sensors on my two E Classes have sometimes played up, often when wet. They're cheap to replace or you could just disable them.
The current drain could be any one of a hundred things. I had it on my last E Class when the phone module failed to shut down properly. That was cured by disonnecting the battery which reset the COMAND system and all its associated control modules.
As others have pointed out that last one could cost a bit to diagnose and fix but otherwise it's a vast amount of sheddage for the money.
I'd love to waft about in one of those. In fact I had a taxi ride in one in Greece a couple of years ago and after two weeks of being smashed about inside a decrepit old Jimny it was an incredibly serene experience with the best ride quality I've ever experienced in a modern car.
Which is kind of the point of these things, really, isn't it?
For £1500 it's a huge amount of car, even with a managed retreat of sheddage it'll last decently for a couple of years at least I'd expect. Airmatic rather than the hydraulic suspension means it'll likely be a touch more reliable, and being a later-model the electrical gremlins will be significantly reduced.
So shed more barges please, just not Mercs.
I've had all iterations of the W220, from the petrol S320 V6, the S500 V8, S55 AMG Kompressor and the S600 V12 Bi-Turbo, as well as several of these diesel models (not had the 280 model, but that never really appealed to me)
Economy is great on the diesels, and you will genuinely get 55mpg on a steady run with over 600 miles to one tank of fuel.
Early models rust to s
t, but there are some examples that have had the rust issues repaired under warranty. Later facelift models are much better, and the interior / switchgear feels more solid.Agree that it wasn't Mercedes' finest moment due to the issues, but when working, these are sublime cars. Lovely ride with the air suspension and the engines are generally very reliable.
I suspect most people commenting on these have either never been or owned in a good example of one.
Air suspension is the main thing that lets these down, and I spent over £1k sorting the ABC out on my S55 (struts, air compressor, etc.). Engine and gearbox mounts also go due to the torque, and that costs over £800 to put right.
The AMG and V12 models are very costly to run, and a full service on an S600 Bi-Turbo will cost over £1k (to begin with, it has 24 spark plugs, which cost over £200 just for the parts!). But people tend forget that these are 500 BHP super saloons, so they wont be as cheap to service as a A180d! How much would most other super cars with that sort of power cost to maintain and own? Probably a fair bit more.
I've never had any electrical issues in the ones I have owned, and if you keep on top of maintenance, then they go on forever.
They are very complicated cars, laden with top notch technology (at the time), so naturally they will be pricey when they go wrong.
This shed seems decent - although I would want to get the electrical drain investigated as it could end up being a major issue. If it didn't have the problems noted, I'd be tempted to have it myself for a commuter car.
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