Before I go in depth with this car, I must admit that I actually hate most German cars as I think they are overpriced for what they are, unreliable, a pain in the butt to repair and have next to no resale value after a few years. However I do like the Mercedes W123, W124 and the W201 (the baby Benz) and the W126 as I consider these the last of the reliable and well built Benzes that made.
As I know the folks at the dealership and the whole sale guy, he just handed me the keys and told me to spend as much time as I wanted with it.
this picture is not of the featured car
This E320 is a 1994 model and is the first year the E was moved from the back of the model number to the front of the model number. It has a 231hp 3.2l Straight 6 engine.
The key is the familiar square headed key with the big hole in the center (A Mercedes trademark for years).
Before getting in the car, I notice the massive door latch striker this is what gives old Benzes, the vault like thunk that you hear shutting the door. It is a very solid feel.
Upon getting into the car I am greeted by the comfortable and well worn looking MBTex and the classic 3 gauge pod cluster .
The car starts right up and runs quietly without a hint of engine chatter or ticking.
The car has been a one owner car since it was bought new in 1994. It has lived in Maryland all its life and does show some wear and tear, rust and paint fade. It does live in rock salt land. Still that does not detract its stately look.
Unlike the car it replaced(the W123) which in its base form made snails seem fast, this car hauls. It is no super car with rocket acceleration but the power of the engine is more then enough to motivate the metal quickly. As old as this thing is, the car has been taken care of and still retains a smooth ride with comfort on a bumpy road.
The interior shows the German spartan setup that a lot of Benzes have. Everything you need and no fancy brougham touches. Plus no touch screens, heat sensing buttons like the later Benzes have. This one is all old school with knobs, buttons and switches. This one has dual airbags and ABS.
The classic Benz wheels had aftermarket protectors added, which kept brake dust form accumulating on the wheels but also reduce the air flow to the brakes. Probably not an issue in normal driving.
However just because it had that old school interior look did not mean that it was devoid of the latest tech. The car once had a factory Cell Phone.
This lived in the center console but you could also control some features with the unit above the rear view mirror
I got a chance to have this car for the weekend and it performed well for its age and despite it being 24 years old this year, felt more solid and Benz like then the 2017 E Class I drove for a couple of days early this summer.
It did have its fair share of issues (saggy headliner some fender rust and busted power antenna) but nothing that could not be easily fixed for cheap. A fine way to drive through the weekend.
A very nice sample, but I don’t have the patience to maintain such a beast.
This is from a guy that thinks that all car ownership is a love ❤️ hate 👿 relationship!!
It’s just a matter of finding the right match😎😎😎
Wow. The weatherstripping is color keyed to the interior. Didn’t expect to see something like that on a German 1990s car.
Overall, W124s are very decent cars, but I just can’t stop thinking of them as of cheap beaters. Which is what 90% of them are where I live… much like the contemporary Audi 80 & 100 and e34 BMWs (Opels have already rusted into nothingness). That thought really detracts from their appeal as classic cars.
I’d really like one as my daily driver (and only car), but I cannot figure out if even a well-kept example is simply too old. The very youngest ones are 24 years old and wasn’t there something about the later model years using a wiring harness that biodegrades over time?
You remember correctly: apparently the ’92-’96 (some say ’97) models had more eco-friendly but much less durable wiring. It was an issue across the Mercedes line, from what the forums say.
I love it. To me it seems perfect. Quality vehicle.
Nice car, though as Stanislav says, these are old cars and in the UK market they sell for banger money typically £500-1500
but what are those monstrous things either side of it in the first picture
The Benz is a sensible sized vehicle but looks like a toy next to those
Hahaha, that’s a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Chevy Pick up. What’s funny is that a large portion of the people that own Cherokees of this vintage in my area are 16-20 year old girls. And that Chevy truck is actually looked at as being kind of small around here. It looks to be 2wd, has a really short bed, and sits “low to the ground” because it doesn’t have a lift, or big wheels/tires. It’s a good example of a family car around here. I know we Americans like our big SUV’s and trucks and they must seem huge to other parts of the world.
I was reading a novel by a British author a while back, and he referred to a character driving a “big” Ford Escape. They come a lot bigger than that in these parts, my friend.
Escapes and other CUVs are certainly tall, I guess,* but hardly large vehicles in any other sense. It might also be that from a European/global perspective, a 3.0L V6 is quite a large engine, while in the US, that’s firmly middle-of-the-road if not on the small side.
*And even then, I consider any vehicle which I can see over, including most compact CUVs, to be a “low” vehicle, especially compared to the tall trucks and tractors to which I’m more accustomed.
The Silverado pickup appears to be a 4×4 based on what looks like a red Z71 sticker on the bed. Historically, Chevy/GMC pickups have usually sat the lowest, whether 4×2 or 4×4, though the 2014 and especially the 2019 models appear to be changing that.
In flyover country, half-ton 4×4 pickups, full-size SUVs and CUVs, and minivans are considered average-sized vehicles. Only heavy-duty pickups are really considered “big,” and even then, they’re the same width as half-tons, just longer and taller yet.
I got overtaken yesterday by a Dodge Ram pickup it had a lift kit huge wheels the whole disaster kit aboard its roof was well below my window level, big trucks really, just toy puddle jumpers.
Put 26000 litres of cream on it like I had and I doubt it would go so well as my DAF CF.
Duratec 3.0 in the Escape, never used the Vulcan in Escape.
I like these but perhaps I lack the willingness to make the kind of emotional commitment that would be required at the first repair. I am reaching the age where it is best to stick to what I know.
My 87 is still my semi daily driver. Maintenance is not terribly expensive, and parts availability is good. Later model W124s were built with eco friendly wire insulation which did not hold up well to under hood temperatures, causing all sorts of performance issues. Most cars out there today have likely had updated harnesses installed. Earlier models like mine with the M103 SOHC engine never had the soy based wiring insulation so all of the under hood wiring is still in good shape.
I see you have retrofitted your US W124 with proper ECE headlamps.
I am curious about the headlamp washers. On the US models, they operate in opposite direction (from front turn signal indicator to the edge of headlamp capsule and back) than ECE headlamps (from fog lamp to the turn signal indicator).
Did you simply reverse the polarity on the washer motors or replace the entire assembly with ECE version?
The photo of US version is below:
I managed to find a grey market car in the junkyard with the ECE headlight wiper assemblies intact. I pulled the arms, motors and trim panels so the whole job was plug and play. I think I paid maybe fifteen bucks for the wiper parts and a factory accessory Gloria fire extinguisher that mounts to the passenger seat. I did have to spend a couple of hundred bucks to get the trim panels painted to match the car, but they did a much better job than I would have done with rattle cans
Cool! I am sure you appreciate the improved light output from ECE headlamps now.
Yes, the ECE headlights were the first improvement I made to the car when I got it 12 years ago. The difference in light output over the US spec lights is amazing, and the vacuum adjustable beam height is a nice extra feature. I went with Bosch units at about $500/pr. If I were to do over, I would probably go with DEPO copies which are half the price and great quality.
From reading about the relative simplicity of this car (for a Mercedes), I also really like it. Great write-up.
Mercedes has not changed as much as people think. This car is packed with such simplicity as multi-link suspension, pantographic wipers, vacuum operated door locks, flex discs (instead of U-joints), thermostatic auxiliary cooling fans, remote fold down rear headrests, and a climate control system that was invented by Rube Goldberg as far as I can tell.
Mercedes are and have always been uniquely over engineered in ways other cars weren’t- even during the dark years of the W210 and W211. It’s still there- just check out the passenger side wiper linkage on just about any current model from Metris to S-class.
Their quality is not leaps and bounds over other cars the way they once were- but they are still different than your average automobile.
Not to mention the overtly complicated 4Matic all-wheel-drive system with all of sensors, hydraulic tubes, regulators, etc. It’s like Microsoft redesigning the Apple iPod package…in this parody video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
Audi’s quattro system is spectacularly simple and effective.
As a tech industry guy, that is one of my favorite videos. Thanks for reminding me.
Actually, that car has leather. The MB-Tex of that era was arranged in a purely vertical orientation of rounded side bolsters and inch-thick pleats vertically in the middle with no cross stitching to speak of (I own a car so equipped).
Leather was standard on gas sedans from at least 94 onward; Tex was only available on wagons and diesels.
The grouping of cars by country has always got my heckles up; Audi never made good cars, Volkswagen has perpetually had quality issues, BMWs have always been mechanical and electric nightmares; Mercedes alone (mid-90s to mod-2000s excepted) earn the right to that “German quality” banner- if anyone does .
French cars are not always quirky, American cars not always large and cheap, Italian cars not always tempestuous. And Japanese cars not always reliable or boring.
Agreed about it being leather. The natural wearing and wrinkles also give it away.
Agreed that the stereotyping gets old and tedious. One of my goals here at CC was to try to show folks how that is a very limited and often inaccurate view of so many cars. The reason people resort to them is the same reason they use them about people, races, countries and everything else: it’s lazy. It takes less brain power than getting to know the nuance of all things. Human nature.
I just wish they were so lazy that they wouldn’t bother to type stereotyping comments. 🙂
There’s a reason stereotypes exist, GML.
To quote Daymon Runyon:
“The race does not always go to the swift, nor the fight to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”
Articles like this bring back a mini-flood of memories and emotions of my 300E. I used to think it might be nice to get another one, but then I realize it would never live up to the experiences I had with mine back then.
The main reason is that in 1986, the W124 was just so far ahead of the competition, especially American cars of the time. So my experience driving it then was as much relative as absolute. Today the W124 is still a nice driving car, as this report makes clear, but it’s also showing its age, finally. A five speed automatic transmission that starts in first every time is a bare minimum for me now.
How does the W124 compare to the E39 BMW 5 Series ? I always wondered how those two titans compared to one another.
The E39 is a whole generation (and a full decade) newer than the W124, so it’s not really a direct comparison. The E39 was an absolute superb handler, and very lithe all-round. It was the consummate sports sedan.
The W124 was not overtly sport, and in some ways felt a bit heavy-footed, as was common with Mercedes. The W124 was just a superb all-round sedan, and very much ahead of its time and the competition in the mid 80s.
I had a very low mile 23K miles limited production 1992 Mercedes 500E back in 2003 sadly I was involved in roll over accident the car was totaled and I stayed over month in hospital almost a year on crutches and canes !
That is a nice example given it’s age and location. My father has an 86 version in not quite as good condition. I replaced the brakes for him a few years back and was amazed at how cheap and easy it was. No special tools required it seemed like the engineers had their way not the designers. I took it for a test drive and then hopped back into my 91 Jetta diesel. Boy did the Jetta feel like a clapped out cheveete by comparison. My father keeps talking about fixing it up, it needs some interior bits and pieces and hvac fixes. But given his beater car history I have my doubts.