S320CDI - Opinions

It will cost you a fortune to maintain. Are there many indies out there that are able/willing to work on some of the more specialist aspects of these cars, namely the horrifically expensive suspension?
 
Hell of a lot of car for sub £5k, as long as you appreciate it still has running costs of a premium marque limo, then enjoy!

Plenty of indys will look after one reasonably, but go & research the MB forums for reputable names.

I love this sort of car, but would avoid one with air suspension.
 
They all have air suspension.

IMHO the S320 CDI at this pricepoint is a completely pointless car. The S Class is an absolutely amazing car but they cost serious money to keep on the road as they age. The one reliable thing about an S Class its V8 petrol engine - the S320 CDI swaps this for an unreliable diesel engine to add to the eyewatering amounts of expense with the rest of the car.

If you are bothered about fuel economy even in the slightest then running an S Class isn't for you. If you can afford to shrug off the costs involved in keeping one you can afford to run one with a V8 petrol.

Buy an S500 or buy something else.
 
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[TW]Fox;21489875 said:
They all have air suspension.
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I know that! :p

Which is why I say I love this sort of car, but would avoid one with air suspension - which, yes, unfortunately would rule the S-Class out for me.
 
My family has had an 04 plat from new, I think they paid around 3.8k for a 3 year warranty last year. They did have a 2k bill once but other then that it's not had any major issues.

Having said that its not used that much as they use a newer car day to day. They are really nice cars.
 
[TW]Fox;21489875 said:
They all have air suspension.

IMHO the S320 CDI at this pricepoint is a completely pointless car. The S Class is an absolutely amazing car but they cost serious money to keep on the road as they age. The one reliable thing about an S Class its V8 petrol engine - the S320 CDI swaps this for an unreliable diesel engine to add to the eyewatering amounts of expense with the rest of the car.

If you are bothered about fuel economy even in the slightest then running an S Class isn't for you. If you can afford to shrug off the costs involved in keeping one you can afford to run one with a V8 petrol.

Buy an S500 or buy something else.
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Are there any particular reliability issues with the 320 CDI that you're aware of? If it's the usual diesel issues, then I think it's worth the risk of chewing up some injectors etc. for doubling the fuel economy. I understand where you're coming from with what you say about affording to run a V8 but i'm sure Jez said at some point that if he had his time again he would have had a diesel and just used an indy? It's not like having a petrol engine is going to add anything to the ownership of a car like this.
 
I'm pretty sure Jez is a champion of the 'S320 CDI is pointless' club - he said the Merc forums are full of people with engine issues with them whereas the V8's just.. work.

The V8 adds a lot - it gives you silent waft. Silent waft is what this car is about. You sit in traffic and you can hear no sound. You pull away from the lights and hear almost no sound. The soundproofing is good but the dagdagdagdagadg is intrusive.

The S320 CDI is for airport taxi's (And 90% of them are ex-airport taxis).
 
Check out what I drive :)

S320 is a pointless car. If you're concerned about fuel economy, you probably can't afford to run a W220.

I have been lucky, it hasn't cost me all that much. I had a £1000 bill a while back for an AC problem, tyres are ludicrously expensive if you have decent wheels on it, Airmatic is RIDICULOUSLY expensive to fix and it WILL break. There are other things that can cost you a fortune - anything wrong with COMAND will be prohibitively expensive to fix, same as with the PSE system that controls the doors/boot/etc.

The V8 petrol is effortless in any form. You forget it is there. It is silent inside unless you're giving it death (and then that's not what the S-Class is for). The S320... isn't. That and the engine is just totally not at all suited to the car or the gearbox.

If you're going to get an S-Class, go in with your eyes WIDE open and GET THE PETROL.

The V8 isn't exactly the last word in reliability by the way - they are prone to sensor issues which will bring the car to a halt at the side of the road and require you to be rescued but essentially other than that, there isn't much to break. They are very old tech in there. The diesel is, I believe, a whole new ballpark of unreliability.

EDIT:

Fuel economy wise, I get about 13mpg on a short cold run, 16-19mpg on a slightly longer across-town run (speeds up to 40mph, 10-15 mile trips for example) and I've cracked 30mpg on the motorway once, usually get 27ish with the cruise set to "around 70".
 
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Fair play. That's certainly something to consider then. I must admit that I thought the pro-V8 angle was more to do with an awesome noise, which is exactly what I don't want. I want no noise like you say.
 
It's very much no noise. If you want an awesome noise buy another car. If you want the ultimate in luxury wafting, buy a V8 S Class.

This is not a car you buy for even the slightest money saving angle. It's a huge pit into which you throw vast amounts of cash but in return you are rewarded with one of the finest cars in the world.

The S320 CDI made sense to people buying them brand new in order to cover interstellar mileages (And I mean interstellar - many covered in excess of 50k a year). On the used market they are horrible and make no sense whatsoever. Thats if you can even find one that hasn't quite literally covered Enterprise miles.

The S320 CDI is hardly what you'd call an economical car either.
 
If you want no noise what on earth are you considering the S320CDI for? The V8 S Classes are silent waft above all else, even the AMG models are pretty subdued comparatively.

Go drive an S320 CDI, then drive an S500. Compare the real world achievable economy for the type of use you're going to give it and you'll probably find the V8 compares better than you think.

Fox is right though - when I bought mine I had an inkling about what I was letting myself in for. I've been reasonably "lucky" so far as it has only cost me a couple of grand (plus fuel) to keep going. The car is amazing and although I have issues with it in terms of outright practicality I'd question the sanity of anyone that is prepared to spend this much money running a car like this for the use I give it!

EDIT: I have two cars as you can see from my sig. If a W220 S-Class is to be your only car then make sure you have tip-top breakdown cover as they are in no way to be relied upon to get you from A to B, purely because almost everything that is likely to break will leave you stranded at the side of the road:

Airmatic: Can't move the car, needs to be craned onto a flatbed
Engine sensors: No way to bypass, car needs to be transported as you can't keep the aromatic system pressurised without the engine running afaik
Gearbox issues: There is a gremlin that locks the car in Park, requiring a new selector handle mechanism. Car totally immobilised, needs craning onto a flatbed
Battery flat? Can't be jump-started from another car and it explicitly says so in the manual. Merc later added a procedure absolutely dripping in disclaimers that it should never be attempted as it is likely to damage every electrical system in the car

You get the picture...
 
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monkey_boy said:
With petrol engines in mind- why the 500 over the 320 or 430?
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The 430 is a V8 just like the 500 and as a result offers zero running cost advantages over the 500, but has less performance. Therefore unless you find a particularly nice example there is no real reason to chose the S430.

The S320 (Or the earlier 280) are petrol V6's which will also be reasonably silent but it's a big, heavy car and they can feel a bit breathless and as a result are not hugely more economical. The one area where you might consider an S320 is if you can get a particularly new car for the money as a result of the reduced desireability. There is an S350 as well - I think these are the late cars only available as a facelift model.

I love the S Class. I just don't have enough brave pills for one :D
 
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430 vs 500 is almost a no brainer. Used, the 500 is no more expensive, more powerful, costs the same to run both in maintenance and fuel (very close real world consumption) but as ever, it comes down to condition or any other significant factors. I ended up with the 430 purely because it was for sale at the right moment.

Watch out for rust, they will all either be rusty or have been repaired. Merc washed their hands of any form of corrosion warranty early on so beware. You need to check literally every panel - wings, bottom of doors, boot lid, around the sunroof if there is one etc etc.

Check the airmatic carefully - look for bills where the compressor has been replaced. They either failed all by themselves or a relay fails and runs the compressor to death so by now all should have been replaced. The actual struts themselves cost about £1000 each to replace if the actual air bladder has failed. The top seal does go and that can be replaced by a specialist - the kit costs about £180. I'd expect to see bills for something like that at least once in the car's life.

Check for water ingress in the passenger footwell, very common and an easy fix but there are electronics under the footwell there and in the back where water can get to. The main blower fan also ends up getting swamped and often fails when it gets wet.

The AC is expensive to fix no matter what is broken so check that all works properly.

Check all the doors and the boot self-close properly, if this doesn't work at all you're looking at the PSE system in the boot, else you're looking at an individual door or maybe the vacuum distro block being the issue.

The warranty will cost you more than the car, so just set aside a couple of grand for when stuff goes bad.
 
At the ***** end of the market, which these certainly are, they can be run on the cheap.

I cant comment on the petrols, but we have been running our 320 without any major bills, the left airmatic leg went and that was sorted by a back street merc specialist using sh parts for £200.Ours does next to no miles so thats why its remained trouble free.

The engine has been totally bullet proof, the electrics the same, but these are a weak point on em. The body itself is shockingly crap, the wings have rotted away as has the bootlid. The only reason we kept it, is its worth sod all now.Just waiting for something big to go on it so we can scrap it.

I can recommend the chap in wolverhampton that sorted ours out, they have all the diagnostic equipment and what not.

Truth be told, i think they are not a nice car, not particularly pretty and not particularly special inside. I'd rather have a E class if you must have a Merc, we are asian, so its the law.I prefer the previous gen S class, that felt like it was hewn from granite. The current gen is also Merc back to their best.
 
The E Class interior isn't as nice as the S and the same generation E Class rots just as quickly.

I love my 18-way electrically adjustable heated/cooled massaging memory leather seats, it is massively more comfortable than pretty much everything out there bar the likes of Rolls Royce etc and the ride certainly puts the E Class to shame too.
 
[TW]Fox;21495065 said:
I just don't have enough brave pills for one :D
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After reading the posts here, I need to have a good hard think about whether I do.

Sounds like a 530 would be a piece of **** to keep in comparison. Having said that the 3.0d X5 I'm running at the moment has been definitely reliable and the economy is outstanding from it for what it is, it just doesn't 'feel' right.
 
Got the s350 blue tec 11 model for a couple of days through work, it's certainly a nice piece of kit with sophisticated bar graphs to calculate fuel efficiency 15 etc minute intervals, seats are awesome much nicer than any BMW, they seem to have done away with the silly foot parking brake now it's just a pull and push style button under the ignition key, like the f10 520 it may be a base model but at 258bhp it feels reasonably rapid.
 
Slumberbox said:
Got the s350 blue tec 11 model for a couple of days through work, it's certainly a nice piece of kit with sophisticated bar graphs to calculate fuel efficiency 15 etc minute intervals, seats are awesome much nicer than any BMW, they seem to have done away with the silly foot parking brake now it's just a pull and push style button under the ignition key, like the f10 520 it may be a base model but at 258bhp it feels reasonably rapid.
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Errr thats a £60k car he is talking about a £5k 10 year old one..
 
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