Guest Post: Adding a W210 E430 to the garage

The only constant of our garage is new acquisitions, we never seem to be able to slim the fleet down. The latest addition was considered necessary when my daughter (Jessica) came to grief with her 2005 CLK320 on a concrete wall at Eastland Shopping Centre, Ringwood. Given we are insured for market value, we weren’t confident that it would be repaired. Once we got a slot, at a local panel beater, the weeks dragged on. This delay required us to drive Jessica to work and back, often early in the morning and late at night, depending on her shifts. This wasn’t going to last too long, and finally I said to Naomi we need to get her another car in the meantime.

Racking my brain, I thought what I could buy for between 6-8K but also pricing in a roadworthy certificate. I do enjoy these challenges, as quite often the thrill of the hunt is more entertaining than the mundaneness of car ownership. I remembered a friend had posted a few months back on Facebook, that he wanted to move on his 1998 Mercedes-Benz E430 Elegance. After viewing photos and a phone call, a deal was done, sight unseen. I booked the car for a RWC the following week with Berwick Prestige. To pass the RWC, it needed lower ball joints, tail-shaft coupling and gear shift bushes. I was within my 8k budget, including purchase price, RWC work and registration transfers.

Mercedes-Benz Australia released the E430 in 1998. The new V8 was 3.2-litre V6 with two extra cylinders. The one thing the V8 doesn’t have is the V6 balancer shaft, not needed on a 90-degree V8. Mercedes rational for the 4.3-litre V8 was lower emissions, reduced fuel consumption (11% over older quad-cam 4.2), with a broader range of torque, rather than superior power, producing 400NM across 3000-4400rpm. Performance specs back in the day quoted 6.6 seconds to 100km/h, a second quicker than E320, while carrying 50kg of additional weight and higher gearing. The list price on release for the E430 Elegance was $147,800, with the Avantgarde costing 4k more.

I’m someone who prefers originality but stop reading now if you’re a purist. The E430 has been lowered and wears a set of original Brabus mono-block styled wheels. The original front and rear bumpers have been removed and replaced with genuine W210 E55 bumpers. Finally, the original exhaust has been swapped for a genuine Remus exhaust. The colour combination is striking, Ruby Metallic (527U) with Leather Mushroom/Quartz/Pebble (205A). As you can imagine, the interior leather and car mats are hard to keep clean.

There’s been a couple of small jobs I’ve needed to address. The drivers side headlight allowed moisture in, this was fixed thanks to Pick-A-Part, sourcing another headlight cover. The driver’s side Brabus alloy wheel had a buckle in it. Can highly recommend Wheel Enhancements in Dandenong South, they did a great job of re-rolling wheel. I couldn’t stand the leather steering wheel, as it had lost most of its colour. I used New Life Vinyl & Leather Service; they came to my house and re-coloured the leather. Finally, both rear speakers were shot, after years of UV. Replaced them with a pair a Kickers.

My daughter finally got her CLK back, which means the E430 is mine now. I have a couple of small items that need to attention but will save that for future updates.

Author:  Nick Gruzevskis is a contributor to classicjalopy.com, and the custodian of a great collection of classic and modern cars.  Links to some his other articles can be found here