[QUOTE=Skid Row Joe;3668896
My next MB diesel car was a new 1999 E300TD sedan. Spent $42,500 plus sales tax on that car. Never again. Too much money for too little return. Drove it 100K in it's 1st 4-years of ownership. Nothing but a problem basically for years - one thing or another. Gifted it to a Brother 3.5 years ago. It had 132K on it. I repeatedly warned my Brother that it would cost $1K to $3K a year to keep it on-the-road, if he was going to drive it a lot. He keeps it as his garage queen. Seems to have ongoing issues, even when not driving it but a thousand miles a year.[/QUOTE]

I hear ya. I bought my 99 E320 wagon for just over $50K. Fortunately, my wife talked me into paying up for the extended warranty. Fool that I was, I didn't really think I needed a warranty at all on a new Mercedes. I called a friend who had the same car to share a little gloating. He said that his car spontaneously caught fire in the driveway, and he was overjoyed when the dealer offered him his full purchase price back. I had the car for 10 years, but maybe had six years of actual use. A good part of the time, it rode on a flatbed. A good part of the time, I just let it sit outside because I preferred whatever other POS was rusting in my driveway, and because I didn't deem it worthy of a place in the garage. A good part of the time, it was at the dealer, getting some major component repaired under the extended warranty. The agony ended when my wife accidentally drove off the road and impaled it on a tree. Insurance company gave me full book, and I was done. One thing I agree with is that if you want to buy a car for the purpose of crashing into a tree, W210 is the one.