Mercs

I’ve been doing the brakes on my 56-reg E Class and I’m always struck by how well put-together they are and what a pleasure they are to work on.

Parts aren’t the cheapest - even aftermarket - but that’s kinda the point. Since Jim helped me collect it two years ago, I’ve spent about £17 on a Merc brake switch. I’ve put new discs and pads at both ends and it needs a couple of suspension bushes, a couple of glow plugs and an exhaust pressure sensor but it’s going like a train. And Mrs MRS loves it too.

By the way, I’m using Michelin CrossClimate tyres on the winter wheels and I’m really impressed by them so far. Given how muddy the roads are around here, the M in the M&S designation is almost more important. But they’re also a lot less squidgy than the full winter Alpins and come with a better wet-grip rating. They should probably wear better. Dunno what they’ll be like in proper snow but that doesn’t happen too often down here.

I had a look at a Merc ML350 yesterday, straight after a Volvo XC90

The Merc was leagues ahead of the Volvo in terms of quality and refinement - very nice place to sit

20” tyres were a bit of a shocker when I checked the price though - £175 - £200 per corner.....

I'd heard that Merc went through a bit of an unreliable period in the 2000's due to "the accountants getting involved" (to quote Clarkson). He seemed to have no end of trouble with his Mercs. I know that the late 90's Mercs were supposed to be bullet proof, but I wasn't sure whether they had returned to form.

So I'm glad to hear that they are still living up to the hype.

I had a 2001 Merc which was a shocking piece of rubbish (when Merc got into bed with Chrysler - the ugly girl you wake up next to). Merc spent billions (two at least) repairing the damage and every Merc Ive had since has been excellent. The dealers not so much. Avoid the bad patch and all is good.

I owned a 2004 E320 CDI estate by accident (it was the only GB registered car for sale in my part of Spain at the time).
It had done 214k miles when I got it and had plenty of gizmos that no longer worked. However, none of these stopped MrsC and I from driving it - rammed with a significant proportion of our worldly goods, and 2 cats - from Southern Spain to Stroud in 2 days.
I really loved it - so comfortable and capable - and would have kept it, except that it turned out that one of the gizmos that was broken was the transmission and the £4k required to fix it was beyond our means.

Driving MRS' car back from the dealer in Brizzle was like meeting up with a (younger, fitter) old friend.

The car was in slightly better shape too

True story!