500E or E60 W214....help appreciated

500E or E60 W214....help appreciated

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Discussion

blackmk1

Original Poster:

430 posts

224 months

Friday 23rd December 2005
quotequote all
always wanted the proper 4 door porsche built monster , drive a 911gt3 today

anybody owned either of these cars? who can help a little with what to look for etc.

have there been other threads on these motors?

considering buying a german one from mobile.de and bringing it back.

any wisdom greatly accepted....

Egbert Nobacon

2,835 posts

244 months

Wednesday 28th December 2005
quotequote all
Back issues of EVO and Mercedes Enthusiast have buying guides for the 500E.

Main issues on these are the engine wiring loom. Due to large V8 in tight bay and lots of heat the loom can become brittle and break. First signs are shorting and misfiring.

Must have a full service history.

Later E500 (facelift) came with better brakes and other mods.

I have looked at a number of these and walked away either due to price (too high) or condition (crap !)

Good luck

pentoman

4,814 posts

264 months

Tuesday 3rd January 2006
quotequote all
Not a lot of threads on them here that i've seen.

Plenty of owners lurking on places like bnzworld and mercedesshop.com though for all those owner type questions.

I considered one for quite a while but a 190E 16v did everything i wanted. They don't seem to sell easily, lots lurk for quiet a long time. Don't know whether this will change in future and they'll be somewhat collectable but the predecessors never were.

Many say the m119 32v V8 was one of the best engines Mercedes made. Most of the 500's parts are shared with other, more common models making them not that expensive to run (compared to, say a Porsche or maybe an m5) but still those S-class and SL parts are still not cheap. Also the 500E ran different injection (LE-jetronic IIRC? for much extra torque) to the SL and S-class so that could be a sort point if parts were required.

An E60 AMG has to be pretty hard to find. Back then AMG was pretty specialist and rare. This means they aren't all the same and parts can be quite hard to find should you need something like a new head or block. Pretty unlikely if you buy a good example though, and more of a problem with the 80's hammer models really. The extra power and AMG badge are probably quite desireable, but I'm not sure if they share any Porsche-500 DNA or the flared arches?

As said, wiring harnesses can be a problem on the W124, only heard of it in hot countries before but the hot V8 could well make it a problem over here too. Usual symptoms can be check engine light, no performance/throttle response.

I'm being really picky but that's because there's so little to worry about with one, except usual Mercedes stuff (bodywork, maintenance, is the mileage correct).

I saw an E500 badged E200 at Donington last year . 3rd one I've ever seen since becoming aware of them 5 years ago.

Would love to ride in one

Russell