Mercedes CLS320 CDI | Shed of the Week
Second time the charm for the Merc's shapely four-door coupe?
A gentle wander into Rarity Corner this week with only the second appearance in this area of the PH homepage of Mercedes’s banana-shaped CLS. The C219 generation made its debut at the 2003 Frankfurt show as a swoopy four-seat alternative to the shorter, narrower, taller and staider (?) W211 E-Class saloon. When it went on sale in 2004 most said it was the world’s first 4-door coupe, but Shed isn’t betting against someone on the forum kindly reminding us all of the Buxom Motor Co’s Hansom Flatley Laundalette of 1908.
Back in more modern times, Jaguar’s sprightly, sharp-handling XF of 2007 bit into CLS sales but Mercedes still managed to flog 170,000 C219s between 2004 and 2010. They had the last laugh over Jaguar, too, because the CLS kept going through two more generations before finally getting the bum’s rush in 2023, eight years after the XF was shuffled off the scene.
The last (and up to this point only) CLS to appear in SOTW nearly three years ago now was a ’57 plate 101,000-miler, also in silver like today’s shed but upholstered in grey leather rather than black, and wearing AMG wheels that were worth £750 on their own. That car looked like good value at £2,000 despite an issue described as ‘sometimes goes into limp mode’.
At the time PH forum used car guru Psycosis thought it might be a problem with the inlet port shutoff motor, something Shed wishes he could fit to Mrs Shed whenever she gets up for the fourth time at the all-you-can-eat curry house. We can’t tell you for sure if the limping on that CLS was ever fixed, but the Gov’s MOT history check no longer recognises its reg number, so draw your own conclusions.
Coincidentally, today’s 119,000-mile CLS also has something weird going on with its reg number. For some reason, it has a ’53 plate on it even though it was first registered in April 2008. Shed has been trying to read some personal-plate value into PW53 CKS. By screwing up his eyes and tilting his wispy old bonce to one side he managed to come up with ‘pillocks’, but that seems like an odd word to immortalise on both ends of your motor. His only other guess is that it was an attempt to tie the number in with the ‘CLS’ model name somehow, but things went wrong in the application process and the owner couldn’t be bothered to rectify it.
Anyway, like that earlier C219, today’s is powered by the 2005-22 OM642 3.0-litre V6 turbodiesel engine, a high-grunt unit that brilliantly disguised its dieselness on the road. The output was 221hp but more importantly it dished up a bulbous 398lb ft from 1,600 to 2,400rpm. Pumping through the 7-speed 7G-TRONIC auto box, that was enough squirt to ease the 1,815kg CLS through the 0-60 in 6.8 seconds, loping on from there to 153mph. The official combined fuel consumption figure was 37.2mpg and the annual tax payable to His Maj’s Govt for the privilege of owning this 200g/km vehicle will be a not too outrageous £410.
The ad says that this car is a new arrival and that there’ll be more information added soon. Hopefully none of that will be bad. Last November’s MOT noted just one advisory for an interesting substance called corrision that had been found on both rear trailing arms. Other than that, the Sensotronic Braking Control system that was hailed for its newness in 2004 and then railed at for its unreliability shortly after was deleted sometime in 2006, so this car won’t have it. Nor, you would hope, will it have the equally untrustworthy Airmatic suspension, which was only available as an option on lower-spec models. Other than that, swirl flaps can stop swirling and turbo actuators can stop actuating, another way in which the CLS liked to sulk its way into limp mode.
M-Bs of this age do have a reputation for electrical bother, which is probably why gen-one CLSs end up sliding into the sub-£2,000 swamp. Three years ago Shed said that investing some dosh into a Mercedes-dedicated MB STAR diagnostic tool had the potential to improve the ownership experience on almost any 21st-century Merc. A full-blown one would cost a fortune, but a limited C3 version at £500 or so would cover cars like this.
Obviously £500 is still a lot, but the kit does include a laptop and all the cabling and if it plays a big role in keeping a car like this going then it might feel like money well spent – all the more so if you come over all entrepreneurial and set up a business telling other Benz owners what’s wrong with theirs. You might want to order up a tin hat to go with it though. Shed has a few lightly dented ones for sale.
Yes, people with less money still have aspirations and appreciate a nice car on their limited budgets, no need to be so sniffy and judgmental. Any car takes on its surroundings, this Merc parked somewhere more salubrious without any dodgy modifications would still fit right in.
I used to have a similar looking V8 one, l really enjoyed it. This for a couple of grand will be a pleasant way to waft around, pity diesel is so expensive now.
People will pay daft money for older Mercs, have driven a few W124s and very good they were but would take this over one nowadays, some will say they dropped the quality but go and drive one of these, they feel very well made and they seem to have got the rust protection sorted again after the W210 era.
As a shed? Reasonable VED and not bad punt for a few months if the suspension isnt boned.
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