1993 Mercedes 320TE, with seven seats.

Don't read this when you have no passion for cars...

It's totally off topic ;)

Our family has a some tradition with this brand, as an uncle of mine was forced to work as a slave in the Mercedes Benz factory in Sindelfingen until 1945.

Well, back to the present... I drive this MB because I love the good old fashioned engineering. This car is just a hobby. It costs me more to keep it on the road as when driving a new car. For that the drive feeling is great. You can't compare it with modern "plastic" cars. It is so silent inside, and comfortable. This car is the most wanted youngtimer over here in Germany, and prices have started to go up.

Driving the 320E engine. Internally called M104.

This engine has it's origin in the sports car 300 SL, but was modified to get higher torque at lower rpm. This engine has two faces. One for grandfather driving at low rpm. At 50km/h the engine runs just above idle, at 1200 rpm. The other face is the beast that appears when you use kick down. The engineers did an amazing job here. At 1200rpm, if you accelerate, you hear not much, though it just jumps forward, with it's 3.2 liters that is not hard. Then above 4000rpm, the cam shafts switches to high power mode. So another opening point of the valves come. If you rev the engine up now, it sort of produces the sound of a motor cycle, which sound gets really loud at 6000 rpm it accelerates like mad. It is totally clear this is bad for the gear box, and indeed many of the very old 320's have gear box defects. So I don't kick it down until 6000rpm any more. I tried only once.

About the 6 Cylinder Line engine

Only with six-cylinders in-line the unbalance of the running engine is theoretically zero. This is not so with any other engine, like V4, V-6 or V8. The V8 has more unbalance as a V6. However due to a trend of higher rpm with engines, the designers must use cylinders with wider diameter and shorter length. The wider diameter makes the engine longer, and a six cylinder 3.2 Liter line engine gets too long for today's cars where the engine is given as little space as possible. So the 6 Cylinder LINE engine is a bit of a dinosaur now. Newer engines are the V-6 now, despite their higher noise, higher complexity and compromises.

Anyway, I still have one of the last good old ones. The way the engine starts is a dream. A one Euro coin on it's side can be put on the running engine when in idle. I will try to capture that in small video later. Just touch the ignition key and it runs smooth immediately, no matter how cold outside.

The automatic transmission.

Another dinosaur. (This transmission was also sold to Porsche). The last with hydraulic control for everything. It is a four gear box, with an additional overdrive gear box attached to it, which is electrically controlled, as with old Rovers or Volvos. So you have five gears in total, where the 5th gear is for cruising and lower fuel consumption. For maximum speed and acceleration you need to disable the 5th gear. The engine torque is so large that the 1st gear can not be used for accelaration, or you would destroy things, such as the rear axis mountings, and the gear box itself. So it starts off in the second gear. Only when you use it as a mountain brake it selects the first gear by itself.

Repairs and buying advise.

Unlike modern cars you can access it from all directions easily. It is hardly necessary. This chassis, called W124 holds several records, also for reliability. The German car club records all cases where they have to assist people that get stuck.

When the W124 was introduced back in 1986, it was the car with the lowest air resistance made so far (in car history). This was reached by things like rubber fittings inside the doors, leaving no slots, and the bottom covered with plates. This record-low air resistance is also explaining why it is so amazinly silent at high speed. 2.6 Million of those have been build from 1986 until 1996, which is really a lot. The W124 holds some (unbroken) records at the German car club (ADAC). The first record is, it is the car with the lowest problem rate for every year it was made from 1986 untl 1996. It is the only car holding this record for 10 years. The second record is, it held the "record" even for two years after production was stopped. That is even more amazing, there was no new car that was more reliable than a 2 years old W124.

So it was the number #1 from 1986 until 1998 in it's class. Twelve years in a row. Specially with modern cars getting more and more problemful with all kind of software and electronics problems, this 12 years record is probably never to be broken again any more. Well, nothing is perfect, and also this car has specific weaknesses that are known by people who drive them. These are just a few, and always the same, so this is actually really comfortable when buying a used one.

I need a station wagon, but with those the supply has always been smaller. The interior has the quality to be like new after 20 years and 500.000km. Some owners wreck them up, but these cars are often exported to Africa. This is not a joke. Most fine condition W124 are driven by car lovers now. Still for 2500...6000€ (2011 prices) you have a marvelous car, with collector's pieces being totally normally available for 13.000€ upwards. Collector pieces are the ones with no signs of use, shiny first paint, fully new interior, 50.000km or less, kept in a garage ever since by the first owner who is 70 years of age.

What is a pity, once they start to rust, they rust to death in the next four years after. It seems the paint detoriates in some cases. Once this starts, it's over and out. This depends a lot on the color, and they year it was build, and if it was in a garage allways or not. However for a reasonable price you get a rust free one easily.

Later model engine. Line engine was replaced by V-Engine in follow up model.

The W124 is the last with the 6 Cylinder line engine, made of iron, a bit heavy but very robust. The newer generation 6 Cylinder Engines from MB are aluminum block V-engines, these are smaller size and lighter weight. However physics say a V-Engine runs less smooth than a line engine, and even with rotating balancing weights inside, the V engine is less silent. Still the good old iron cast Line engine was sacrificed to save weight. So you see, less nice V-engines are now mounted in newer cars, to make place for weight consuming electronic systems. It's a pity. The weight of this car 1750kg was a bit high as it was introduced, in 1986. Today manufacturers have lost control of the weight of their cars, and compared to new "top of the line" cars, 1750kg is quite ok and contributes to the good acceleration. For comparable capabilities, the Volkswagen Touareg weighs 2200kg. Below the driver seat in the Touareg is a huge box with relays and electronic junk and this box gets even quite hot, just to mention something I noticed. Definitely I have the opinion that today's car manufacturers lost control over the electronic stuff inside, and sure that will not make the owner happy on the long term. Specially because they don't care at all if it breaks down, they simply say you must replace this or that control box and it costs you 1300 Euro. Buy a new Volkswagen Touareg today, and I am sure, you will not be writing such lines about it's quality, 20 years later, as I do now with my Mercedes. Though Touareg is a good car, it is made too complex, and no amateur will be able to repair it 20 years later. Instead of that you need to bring it to the dealer to replace crazy expensive electronic units, and you probably sell it way before those 20 years are over.