97 mercedes e420 wont die!

[qship96]

One of my best friends bought this about the same time I got the q-he has done the bare minimum servicing{ not even following the factory schedule},his last oil change was over a 13 month,25,000 mile interval with non- synthetic as always,never flushed the transmission or other fluids,never waxed or hand washed,etc,and the damn thing just rolled over 201,000 miles! he is the original owner and has always abused all his vehicles like this{more dollars than sense!} he is always laughing at my overmaintaining my cars,and doesnt see the need,hate to say,but i secretly wanted to see his car dead on the side of the road 100,000 miles ago! do mercedes really tolerate this abuse any better than Infinities,or is he just damn lucky?by the way,he plans to dump the car for an s class at 250-275000 miles-poor car!

[greg_atlanta]

That's funny since it's the first year of the new model, and supposedly much less robust than the '95 and earlier.

MB uses more fluids so they don't degrade as fast.

[qship96]

the quality was definitly down on this series,the dash had multiple cracks near the windsheild within 3 years,despite being always garaged,and I hear this was a common fault on the e class of that year.I always lust for a 1991 560SEL sedan,the last over-engineered and overbuilt Mercedes that I know of-what a machine that one was!

[1992Q45A]

Don't forget about the mighty porsche built 500E...

[qship96]

Don't forget about the mighty porsche built 500E...

yes,quite a rocket in its own right!but for pure decadence,nothing beat the 560SEL-even way back then,it had features infiniti and lexus are rather new to today,like heated and power reclining REAR seats,instant weather reports on the radio,etc-and the best build quality of any car on the road-every component was overbuilt to last and last.unfortunatly the success of lexus and to a much smaller degree,infiniti,forced mercedes to start building their cars to a price point,instead of their old way of specifing only the best overbuilt systems,and then pricing the car accordingly-never again will we see mass produced autos built the old way mercedes used to build them-thanks TOYOTA!

[Q45tech]

Didn't it sell for $56,000 [no discounts] when the 91 Q was $39k [but $34k out the door].............$90,000 today will buy a pretty decent car over a $50K Q or $63K LS430..........as long as you stay with a plain Jane V8.

[qship96]

Didn't it sell for $56,000 [no discounts] when the 91 Q was $39k [but $34k out the door].............$90,000 today will buy a pretty decent car over a $50K Q or $63K LS430..........as long as you stay with a plain Jane V8.

true,but do you feel the 2004 S class,be it a v8 or v12 has the same quality of components and construction as the older 91? many new gadgets,but the "bones" dont feel right to me.

[texasoil]

Gotta agree on the 91 560 SEL History will remember it as the best car ever built. Had an 89 with only 101K miles sold it after I got the 94 Qactive. Love the Q ship, but still miss the 89 560. MBZ had done a fantastic 10 year job of perfecting the car--NOTHING was weak EXCEPT the seat springs. But they were cheap to renew every 10 years or so. And the rubber hoses did not hold up like the Q ship--needed replacing every 10 years.