Back in late 2023 the soft close mechanism on my 300TE became erratic. Sometimes it would work and sometimes it wouldn’t. Sometimes it would randomly come on when driving. At the time, I assume it was to do with the mechanism, so purchased a second hand soft close and had it fitted. It didn’t fix the issue. Since I was about to go on...
Today was the annual German car show held in Sydney. It’s generally a pretty good event and worth a visit. It is no longer the concours event for the club, that is now held at a dealership earlier in the year. This year I wondered what the event would be like as the organization had appeared a bit haphazard. Promotion seemed to start quite...
My wife’s 2007 E350 S211 Wagon is for sale. This has been our family car for the last 8 years and it has always been reliable and comfortable. if you want a car that can occasionally seat seven and is not an SUV, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class wagon really is the only choice. Not only do you get the occasional seven seats, but the middle...
Back in January when I was on my road trip to Brisbane, I noticed the glow plus relay on my 240D would randomly come on while driving. I didn’t think that was a great situation. At best it’s going to drain the battery and at worst possibly burn out the glow plugs. I also noticed that the plugs would stay on for a...
This week my 560SEC was in having the front suspension rebuilt. I’ve been thinking about doing this for a while, and knew it was time during my last oil change when I saw the condition of the ball joints on the front suspension. I also had a vibration through the steering wheel when parking that I thought may have been related. Unlike when I...
My 450SE is still equipped with its original Becker Mexico Cassette 485. The Becker works beautify including the wunderbar. For Australian delivered cars, the Mexico Cassette 485 was only for 1978 model cars. The main visual difference between the 485 and the other pinstripe Beckers is the model script, which is all caps BECKER MEXICO. Naturally I wanted to keep the radio in the...
Today was the annual ACT German Car show. I try to head down to Canberra each year, as I always enjoy going. It is a show that punches above its weight, has a nice variety of cars and is usually very well organized. As with last year, I drove down on Saturday afternoon to attend the pre-concours dinner. It is a good way to...
On my 1981 240D I had a problem. The sheer accelerative power of the OM616 engine was causing the Mercedes star to lie flat against the bonnet at high speeds. It is rather embarrassing to be driving along the motorway with a limp Mercedes star. Todays job was to replace it. I had a couple of spares, as this part is shared with the...
Running a small fleet of older cars can always present challenges, as they’re not as simple as the older classics, and are somewhat computerised for their time. I first knew there was a problem when Naomi called me, communicating indicators on Jessica’s 2005 CLK320 weren’t working. We told her to drive home and upon arrival, I found the instrument cluster had totally failed, but...
Our July 2025 night drive was a bit unusual. Instead of the suburban outskirts where we normally drive, this was an inner city route. I generally avoid inner city routes, as they are so hard to keep a group together at night. The advantage they have is they require less travel to get to and from the route from most participants. The Seven bridges...
It’s that time of year that we have our neighbourly Christmas in July dinner, at the Pig and Whistle Tavern in Olinda. One may think this is a perfect opportunity to provide a Mercedes fleet update. 1998 Mercedes E430 Elegance My latest acquisition, purchased in late July 2024. Used as my daily driver. Has been reliable, comfortable and that small block M113 4.3 V8...
The 420SEL was now at a point of diminishing returns. I had removed all the parts I particularly wanted, and the car was just taking up space. Body panels are bulky and I don’t’ really have room to store them. I didn’t buy the parts car to make money, I bought it to save some parts I wanted. The plan was to be able...
I will be taking my 560SEL on a 4,800km road trip to outback Queensland soon. Over the past couple of months I have been slowly sorting out a few things that could impact its reliability. This was beyond routine things like oil and filter changes. I created a list of items I wanted to address, with the first being the critical one. Occasional coolant...
When I first bought my 1981 Mercedes 240D, the A/C did not work. It was apparent that the car had been siting around for a while, so it was not really surprising. What was surprising, was that it worked well when I had it gassed up. When cars are advertised for sale as just needing a re-gas, you know that they need a lot...
I was 25 upon release of the new Mercedes E-Class platform in 1996. At the time I thought the styling was conservative and never paid attention to the model range. My enthusiasm for the Mercedes marque still came from the past, with the fabulous W109 300SEL 3.5/6.3 V8s and the W116 450SEL V8 models (including the 6.9). Fast forwarding to July 2024, I purchased...
Today I attended the 61st annual June Jamboree, held by the Northern New Jersey section of the MBCA. The Northern New Jersey section was the founding section of the Mercedes-Benz Club of America, all the way back in 1956. The June Jamboree is their annual concours event and car show. I am current in New Jersey for work, and when I saw this event...
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