Well folks, the time has come to move on from my Evo. It was a blast to drive, but I've had too many problems out of it. I decided to cut my losses before I had to dump any more money into it. I traded it for a 2005 Mercedes C230 Kompressor. I figured since I'm sacrificing power under the hood, I would go for something with a little more luxury. Here's a few quick pics of it:

 

Just wait until that thing breaks down, my bro had an 04 bimmer and it was a nightmare. Another friend of mine has an 03 benz and its same thing! Power steering pumps, window regulators, steering racks, sun roofs, a/c compresors, clusters. Those German cars lets just hope you got a good one. Looks nice though, and good luck!

 

Yikes
Good luck bro

 

Well this car looks to have been taken very good care of. Spotless under the hood, and the interior still looks and smells new. After dumping over 6 grand in less than a year in just repairs on the Evo I got sick of it. That and the $300 a month I was spending on gas for it.

My payments are $150 less, my insurance is $50 less a month, and gas should be at least $50 less per month.

The only thing I miss is the power my Evo had. And I'm willing to make that compromise for the build quality and comfort of what I have now.

I may get back in the Evo game down the road, but most likely not as a daily driven car.

 

I don't even spend $300 on gas in my Jeep a month... Being that you spent a ton in gas, I am guessing that you had lots of fun in the car. Were the repairs caused from beating the crap out of the car?

As for the insurance being less, did you shop around to see if maybe your company is quoting you higher than other companies? I pay $70 a month for full coverage on my Evo with State Farm, but when I call other companies for quotes it is much more and they always tell me that it's because of the car.

As far as the new purchase, I pray for your sake nothing breaks... We have done some insurance jobs on Mercedes and an older ML350 side mirror is almost $1000!!!! Not to mention all the specialty tools you need to work under the hood. They look good, but abuse it and it will give it back to you 10x worse.

 

Mercedes is not a car to own outside of the warranty. Be prepared to spend more.

 

Lose the pinstripe!

GL

 

+100000000000!!!!!!
If you can, try to buy some kind of warranty or you'll be sorry

 

Good luck with that....

I have a '99 and you have just traded one set of problems for another.

make sure the LCA bushings are good. and also check the following common problems

1: motor mounts fail easily, but they are easy to change.
2: check the steering. I don't know about yours, but mine has a pitman arm steering!
3: the flex disks (UJoints) can dry rot, they will need to be changed if you have a high millage car.
4: DO NOT SEA FOAM THE ENGINE.... this will trash the MAF sensor. Don't ask how I know this.
4: If the car doesn't start on the first crank you either have a dead/dying battery or a bad crank angle sensor.
5: DO NOT turn off the AC for extended periods of time. It's designed to be run all the time, using econ mode will cause premature failure of the compressor ($500 to replace)

As a rule with Mercedes... Anything that sounds like it's a real PIA to fix is actually really fricken easy... Anything that is normally really easy to do on any other car is really fricken difficult on the mercedes.

Enjoy the ride! My '99 has been reliable for the most part, but seriously... have those LCA bushings checked out.. If the bushings break down, the suspension can fail.

 

To answer some of the questions:

The reason I spend so much on gas is because I have an 80 mile round trip 5 days a week for work. All the repairs were made because the previous owner beat the ever living dog **** out of it and never did any maintenance to it. I launched the car twice during the entire time I owned it. Other than that I never pushed it. I just drove to and from work and to Fire/EMS scenes.

The insurance I have on the '02 Envoy and '05 Evo was $180 a month for full coverage with a $250 deductable through USAA. No other insurance company could come close to what I pay through them. Now, with the Merc insured instead of the Evo I'm at $138 a month.

Yeah, it sucks maintenance wise if anything breaks, but I'm fairly positive I'm going to have less problems with this car than I've had with the Evo. Hell, the amount I paid out just for repairs on the Evo would have paid for about 2/3 of what I'm paying for the Mercedes. I would have kept it in a heartbeat and got a cheapo daily, but I really wanted something nicer since I spend so much time in the car. Also, having 6 more airbags is nice too in case something bad happens- especially if my other half and the kiddos are in the car as well.

 

Repairs are going to kill your bank account on the Benz, what issues did you have with the evo? They are pretty reliable cars.

 

Repairs killed my bank account with the Evo! I could have damn near paid it off with what I spent in repairs...I had to replace the suspension due to blown struts, the Megan racing header that was cracked when I got it, the transfer case and rear end when they imploded on my way to work, and the piston rings were next on the list of things that needed to be fixed.

Any car is reliable if it is taken care of... Hell my step-dad has a 1994 Saturn with about 400k miles on the clock and it still runs like champ. That's because he was a stickler for maintenance and didn't beat on it when he drove it.

I knew when I got my Evo that it would need some work. But what ensued was a landslide of issues that seemed to just keep coming one after another. The car spent just about as much time being worked on as it did being on the road. I finally decided enough was enough and pulled the trigger on something else.

 

This, folks, is why you always get a trusted source to do a thorough inspection of any vehicle before you buy it and why you should NEVER buy a car that "needs work" unless you're prepared to dump money into it until it's fixed and you're getting a good deal on the car

 

^This...

I got a decent deal on the car, but I didn't think I would be replacing or needing to replace damn near the entire drivetrain within the first year of ownership. But you live and you learn right?

I have no regrets though. I thoroughly enjoyed owning what I -and I'm sure many of you- consider to be one of the best all around vehicles ever made. Sure things could have been better, but it is what it is...

Like I said before though, I'll probably get back into the Evo game at some point, but as it sits now I needed something more dependable so that the family has 2 vehicles again.

I'm gonna miss the hell out of the sound of a turbo though, lol. But the sound of the supercharger isn't half bad either...

I'll continue to lurk around here off and on, and chime in with helpful info when and where I can. I've been part of this Mitsu community for over 5 years now, and everyone has been a great help along the way. I hope I can find a group of people with as much knowledge and willingness to help over in the Benz world as I have seen here on EvoM.

 

Good luck man. I used to work at a dealership. German cars came in all the time. Always stupid issues that cost alot. But like anything, you can always get lucky and never have a single issue.

Taylor