Merc dealer would be proud to display your '02 plate; longevity and loyalty are the brand values. My '03 and '13 have never seen a stealer since I got 'em, but run so well that to part with either would be to send a pet to the pound... You're old enough to have one comfortable car, so man up and nestle in the old girl's leathery depths...

Maybe you should have place the car in a “service position” when removing the wheel…that’s why maybe it went back flat

Mercedes dealer: numerous minor and semi major faults are detected Jack: The Merc drives comfortable and is MOT safe so why bother 😃

In the entire history of mankind; those security lug nuts have only been useful for locking the owner out and leaving him stranded by the side of the road

Problem with main dealers is they are part replacer’s, they don’t repair cars!.....they diagnose a fault, then change every part pertaining to it, not the single culprit! Buy the parts from a main dealer if the car warrants this!, then get a trusted specialist to put them on.

Main stealers don’t repair - they replace. Not mechanics, only fitters.

Re the 'air injection pump', I presume they're talking about the secondary air pump aka 'smog pump'. Firstly, you don't really need to replace this at all, it's just for emissions on cold start. Even if you do replace, although the OE Bosch pump is quite expensive (although I can't see how they get >£1000 to replace that), you can buy a chinese version for

That would be a good episode taking the merc to a german cars specialist to see the difference in price and or criteria.

Interesting report. To be fair, I have an invoice from Mercedes for £5500 on a Smart Roadster, so doesn't seem too bad on an S Class that was originally 9x the price!

Great stuff Jack, liking this series as much as the 308!

Looking forward to this progress, I bet a lot of this can be sorted quite cost effectively over a period of time.

That’s not bad for a main dealer, wonder what a specialist would make of it.

This has become one of my favourite car channels. 👍

With regard to the air suspension, is there no pre-jacking procedure for "locking" the air units and preventing excessive droop during work? On at least 3-4 cars I've had with air suspension they've had a service/tyre change mode which if you failed to follow would show the types of faults you observed. Worth paging thru the manual ...

Jack did you put the car in Jack Mode before lifting the car?! If not that will be the error. The W220 doesn't have a button to put is in jack mode, so a trick is too leave the hood or a door open and this way the car will keep the strut charged as a safety procedure.

I love this content Jack! Keep it coming buddy😃👍

What a great video! I had a friend who bought one of these with air suspension. You can image what the costs were to refresh the suspension from the MB dealer!

Nice video. Entertaining and informative. All common sense suggestions and the price quote was far lower than what I thought they would be asking for. Would be interesting to see if a good sorted version of this car would be the repair price plus the original purchase price of this car. Looking forward to the next episode. Keep up the good work.

Great video as always Jack. The Merc is certainly different, and a "diverse" choice, and a great watch. It's sad that "on paper" it costs so much to fix at Mercedes but it'll be a good watch as you fix it urself. For those of who aren't so good at spanner work, the costs would be scary! Look forward to seeing the next one,, I think the car suits you. You look very comfy! Ben 🚍🚌🙏

As a Merc owner Ive found dealerships have a set time for doing the job, this doesn't mean they will take that amount of time, i.e. Book says 1.5 hrs but technician takes 45 mins. I have a very good man in North London who does what's needed and charges for the time he takes, never a worry for me.

There won't be any S classes left on ebay, after everyone watches your series of videos. I'm really enjoying this so far. Thank you.

What a great way to have your car fully inspected and have a list of faults and parts that need replacing or attention! Was there a cost involved in that or is that a free inspection and quote for work?

Great video and interesting to see the cost at Mercedes to bring a car like this back to nearly perfect. I had a 1999 Mercedes E class until a few years ago and it was still running great, but with only 80,000 on the clock. A simple thing for the headlights to make a big difference, is to smear them with Mothers Metal and Mag polish and then give them a good rubbing, preferably with a buffer and only takes a few minutes. Wiper blade from Halfords or the pound shop and that's a bit of money saved haha.

Check the hand book on changing a wheel. Some air suspension cars need either to be lifted on all 4 corners at the same time, or have the boot open with the hazard warning lights on to change a puncture.

Great video as always, looks like you got a good car for the money, could of been alot worse ☺️ If you can rebuild a Ferrari Engine then the work on the Merc will be childs play 👍

This barge content is pure gold. I have a Swedish barge, Ulrika, and she has a terrible drink problem.

Regarding the propshaft coupling, a lot of times they actually look fine at first, no visible cracks on the rubber, but the wear is usually around where the bolts go, and it is only noticeable once taken off.

Blimey!!!!!!!!!!!!! Expensive buddy, but fair play to them for going through it all. A super interesting story all of this regarding the merc. Actually lots of positives too with the report, thankyou so much mate i love this channel 😊🌈 Andrew

Looking through the MOT history on an old car is always interesting and a potential clue to how well looked after by previous owners. Yours looks good! Interesting to see it was couple of months late for the 2013 and 2014 MOTs …….. forgot or pushing their luck maybe? However worth checking the rear brake pipe picked up in this years advisories. Everything else mentioned you have covered I think.

Agree that you got a great report card! Would love to see you work on the wheel arch and show us the steps on a basic remediation of the paint.

Great video, Jack. My dad has the facelift 2005 S350, W220. It's had a few issues, but overall a great tank.

Now, immediately go to the nearest breakers yard and purchase four normal MB wheel nuts. Then take that security adapter, and the four corresponding nuts and throw them as far as you can, preferably in different directions! Invention of the devil, in my books.....

Love this car, my favourite project that you've taken on thus far :D

I think you got a good deal there, Jack. I was honestly thinking five figures and not four, on that estimate. Great car to just run into the ground and spend the bare minimum on.

Looking forward to you sorting this out on the cheap Jack, & enjoying many trouble free miles (for a change)!

My 2001 Lincoln has rear air suspension using bags similar to this Mercedes. Before the car is lifted, I must toggle a switch in the trunk ('boot') that disables the system and basically locks-in the pressures in the bags. If I fail to do that, when I put the car back on the ground the rear suspension is totally collapsed. Luckily, both times I have forgotten the switch the car did haul itself back up to normal height. But that did not happen immediately; it was several minutes of stressful waiting. I think your car may have a similar arrangement. As for the cracks in the bags, I would be very surprised if they could leak without failing completely due to the high pressures involved. The original bags in my car were still functional at ~130k miles, but they also had fairly deep cracks in the folds. I replaced them with heavy-duty Arnott bags, which cost $100 apiece. The replacement was a bit of a pain, of course; suspension work always is.

Excellent! Very interesting, I'm hooked.

Full marks to Oxford Merc for parking the car at the front of the dealership.

Great video, the cylinder shut off system on these cars was called ZAS it was an optional extra from factory to shut down 4 cylinders on the S500 .

Been watching for a while but never commented. Can I just say: credit to you for tackling a track rod and end, AND having it run straight afterwards.

Hi. I have owned and driven my merc s320 for 200,000 km and have gone through most if not all of the issues. For the airmatic issue, please consider changing the "height level sensor" at the driver side front tyre as a cheap fix before deciding to change the strut since it appears the strut is fine. There is a "height level sensor" for each of the front tyres. But there is only 1 sensor located for the rear wheels and this is located at the rear axle central position - you might want to make sure that sensor is secure and not loose. It can become loose and you must secure it otherwise it can cause your rear suspension to drop. As for the rear prop shift coupling change, i think you would be able to manage it as a DIY but you should raise the car on all four tyres in future to do any work under the car. This will avoid loading the weight of the car on less than 4 old air struts which could then cause a leak.

Great episode, Jack. What impresses me most is how much car you actually got for your 800 - correction - 900 quid....Hoovie, man -are you taking notes sir?!

It certainly has given you back more than you expected. Very interesting episode. Would be good to know what an independent would charge.

The car is a good one for age and mileage. Good buying Jack. The rust on the wheel arch is worth doing then as you said. Nice comfortable reliable daily driver. Excellent.

You should take the list to a back street merc specialist for a revised quote and get it all done. I'm guessing less than a grand. (£)

It would be really interesting to see how much a mercedes specialist would charge to do the exact same work, as a comparison to main dealer cost.

So glad you shared your experience of taking an oldish girl for a health check. Ying and yang when it comes to should you spend the money or not and make a profit. As you said earlier, your not about keepers unless it’s special, so maybe fix the fixable and let someone else carry the Baton. 👍🏻

considering its age i actually don't think that was too bad haha. i would've expected10k+ they're such beautiful machines. used to have a W140 and even my mechanic told me to junk it as it was just not worth repairing anymore when the fuel economy when 20L every 100km on HIGHWAY!. it had done 340,000 kms on it, time was up on it. still hands down best car i've ever driven.

At 7:00 I would buy the parts and have a go at fitting them myself, them get a local garage to fit the rest. Most of the parts do not sound expensive 🤔 while the fitting times indicate that most of the quote is for labour charges. 😱 Rear brake pads; lower ball joints; transmission oil filter and pilot bush. Rear propshaft coupling. At 8:00 buy the oil pressure switch and see if replacement fixes the engine fault. 😎 Then enjoy wafting along until you start another project. 😀

Always entertaining,good luck your gonna need it 👍

Great follow-up vid Jack. To be honest, that estimate really surprised me. I thought it would be much more than that. You seem to have struck lucky with this baby. Sure there are things to monitor/fix, but it's 20 yrs old.

Great video on a great car, like you i thought its a bill of health and most items can be sorced elsewhere. Keep it going !

Congratulations on your New Buggy Jack! I'm assuming it would be in line with my 2002 Jaguar. lol Best of luck going forward with your new Mercedes S Class, I look forward to going on another journey with you! Stay Well my friend. ❤🙏❤

That's a great video ! For me, safety, then reliability, then whether I would get even 50% back on a repair if I sold the car would my decision tree. The report from the dealership looks pretty comprehensive. Very weird that the air suspension fixed itself. But great that it did !

A used W220 era Benz reminds me of Christmas - loads of Christmas tree lights all across the dashboard! :-)

Nice one Jack, main dealer , main money 💰, I bet you could sort most of the work yourself, especially with your subscribers behind you, sorry I can’t help you out, but I will keep watching your videos with great interest, 👍👍👍.

I had the CL55 with hydraulic suspension. Very similar. When you jack it the wheel over centres its sensor. When back on the ground, re start and it will then re set. I drove for 3 years with ABC valves faulty which lock and hold the height on turning key off. It slowly sank after a day. So long as it jumps right up on start it will keep going. Vibration will definitely be the rubber Guido joint. Febi do them about 40 quid. An hours work and fixes it.change gearbox rubber bush at the same time. It's a world of difference !

Mine did the same Airmatic sag with the passenger (driver side on your side of the pond) rear, replaced with Arnott and no issues since.

I would check the lines to the struts at the pump. As I recall they have o-rings and they can leak. If not there check all along the line. You also jacked it up without putting it in service mode as far as I could tell.

Overall not bad at all👍. Have a look if there is a rebuild kit for the air compressor. I did the unit on FIL’s RR sport. Includes the filter and new desiccant absorption granules, seals etc.. Cost about £70

Hello 'Number 27', you had a massive result, a real good buy, fix what is needed then drive it or sell it on with a full MOT, Regards, RichardA.

This is brilliant... I recently watched another youtuber series on a VW Phaeton he bought cheap and drove for a year. Why the hell not?

I replaced all four airbags on my GL, on the drive, Jack. Not as easy to do as other people on KZfaq suggested but absolutely doable by an amateur. Buy Arnott replacements over OEM versions. Potentially harder to do if the fronts have the electronically adjustable dampers too because they are integral with the front strut and I couldn't find a plug to allow me to separate the whole assembly from the rest of the car, so I had to perform the spring replacement within the wheel arches. The rears were dead easy.

It is normal for the car to drop on one side once it has been jacked up then lowered to the ground. Because the gap between the road wheel and body increases the car thinks it is riding too high and exhaust the air from the strut. I am surprised you didn't have this symptom on all four wheels when you lowered the car down off the hoist. When I was working with these cars at Mercedes Benz, I always had to start the engine so the car would raise so I could remove the hoist arms from under the car after I had it up on the hoist. Cheers enjoyed the Video. Now you can take the car to an independent workshop who will let you know what and what not to worry about. I would suggest the tail shaft coupling be looked at to see how bad it really is. Love what you post, good work!

On some cars with air suspension , you have to set the system into a certain mode before you can jack it up. It tends to mess up the height sensor setting.

It would be interesting to take it to a Mercedes specialist and see what they say and price accordingly.....

Surprised it's not worse. Main dealers do have your trousers down. Great vid

The air injection pump is for reducing emissions on cold start, it doesn't do anything once the engine warms up, it may fail a cold start emissions test but it has zero effect on normal engine operation. I own a 2002 C240 with a 2.6lt V6 similar to yours, mine had the same fault code, turned out to just be a bad electrical connection on the air pump, fixed the connection and no more fault code so check that first, just remove the front engine plastic cover and the air pump is at the front centre of the engine and its very easy to access, good luck with it.

Apart from the rust, you’ve got a proper merc. My brother hated his GLC 43 AMG that much for shocking build and crap gearbox he sold it back to them after 2 months.

@number27, I had the same car for similar price. Had all the Airmatic issues and replaced struts with replacements from Arnotts. Before you lift the car you ned to know the proper process otherwise you get the same issue you had with the struts that were lifted not being reinflated immediately. Listen out for a noisy air compressor.

If only the repair costs depreciated at the same rate as the vehicle! I agree with the other comments here: 1) Not bad at all for a main dealer. Looks like they gave it a decent going over. 2) Yes, it'd be interesting to see what a decent independent specialist would make of it. They can do a lot of cost saving things that a tech at a MB dealer wouldn't be allowed to do.

Cheers Jack, basically it's perfect ... or at least £900 perfect, nice one. :)

Good luck with bringing that baby to nice shape. We should appreciate cars from those days way more. Take care.

Excellent result. No surprise that the price is high but it all helps with the overall strategy. Interesting …..

I have an Audi A6 with air suspension. I've been through so much trouble with the system, and replaced all four air springs. Your issue is mostly likely simply because you jacked the car up. When the car is raised, the vehicle thinks the car is too high, and it releases air out in order to drop it back down to correct height. Obviously it was jacked up so it kept releasing air until there was nothing else to release. When you dropped it back down, there was no air left. By the time you started it again, it realised it was way too low and threw up its arms and asked for help. All it needed to do was reinflate itself but it didn't realise that until you reset the code.

Btw, the other part of the suspension are allot cheaper as you can rebuild the pump with seals. That w220 looks like a nice overall car.

A German car I had about 14 years ago needed a side light bulb, hellfrauds didn’t have the correct tool for getting the light module out and I had nothing I could improvise with either … off to the main stealer. 1.5 hours later I had a bill for £28 for a bulb and three pages of report telling me my 3 year old car required £3600 of work …. I took the car and the list to an independent specialist who looked at the report point by point. Nothing wrong. In decades of main stealer interactions I’ve had one good experience and more bad experiences than I care to remember. There seems to be a culture of seeing any sign of wear and tear equalling mandatory replacement. Common sense goes out of the window if the “computer says no” … can’t wait for the high voltage milkfloats in 9 years time!

Really interesting.Cheers!

Suspension sounds fine. They don’t take well to just having a Jack shoved under one corner and jacked up. Much of what is listed there is DIY to a competent mechanic.

That is a pretty decent report. The price tag, however, is worth a few thoughts.. Quite interested in what & how this car turns out to be! Side note: Took the car to the local dealership shortly after it got into my possession. Paid like 25 quids or so. They listed ABS outage, Airbag failures, a rusty steering shaft, a cracked battery tray, a badly corroded oil sump. Their generous offer to replace the oil sump, valve cover gasket and the oil was around 450 Pounds. I declined the offer - had no money that much, to be honest. When I first brought my car to the mechanic back then, he was cussing continuously at them. Some of the stuff they listed (pulleys rusted, steering shaft corroded, battery tray cracked, in need of replacement) was either not crucial OR existent. Years later: - battery swapped, old one died in the winter. no fault codes - modular may be present, have no access to those - oil sump replaced - it was corroded AND dented (I did not cause that) - battery tray cleaned up, clamp painted (DIY) - no cracks present - car passed overseas MOT with flying colors - examiner had no objections In the end I paid like ~350 Pounds for the sump and the valve cover gasket to be replaced, with all fluids changed. So one could take it to the dealers and yes, they do replace stuff ... but take it with a grain of salt.

spill the beans, how much was that diag. at merc ?, my guess £160. suspension got confused with u fannying on with wheel off, reset itself when car saw correct signals from OSF height sensor. there will be a "jack mode" setup in car software somewhere to prevent repeat i work at a main stealer, thought they did well, but were u recognised off the telly, so getting "special" treatment? splits in rubber doughnuts usually start around bolts, in a circular pattern, so worth another look keep the good content coming, onwards + upwards!

Oh, I'm so ready for a laugh with this... bring it on!

Don't forget - Mercedes are not going to tell their customers "We took the air valve out and gave it a bit of a blow-through with the WD40. Give it a go and see what happens". Mercedes are going to fix ze car! Immediately!

I have a Citroen C5 with the hidropneumatic suspension. Its not exactly the same as your car, but it also auto levels. When you are changing a tire, the procedure is to first set the height to the highest position because if you don't, the car will try to go down as you are jacking it up, because it thinks the car is too high. It measures height based on the position of the roll-bar. Your car probably deflated the front right strut while it was hanging loose because it thought it was too high.

Hi. I bought a 2002 S320 with 183k km in March. As far as I've understood water in the Airmatic system can get in because the rubber pipe between the compressor's air filter and the compressor perishes and splits.This can let water in, which can damage the compressor but also the solenoid valves in the air distribution valve block. Mine's at an independent Mercedes specialist right now for a similar issue and I'm waiting for their verdict...

The reason the suspension went down was because you took it from its level and it let's air out and then resumes to auto level

Your front left airbag leaked because when you jacked it up, it stretched the rubber airbag out further than it has usually been flexing whilst driving along. And thus let all the air out! The airbags 'roll' inside of themselves like one of those kiddies snake toy things, thus often the leaky bit is hidden inside and sealing against it self.

The W140 s600 had cylinder deactivation, it was a first on a production Merc like so many other features on that car, totally amazing! Also the suspension will sag at the corner where the water is in the lines, the fluid absorbs water like brake fluid does so check when it was changed, Mercedes dealer shudve suggested this

So little really wrong, not a bad bill for a Mercedes main dealer especially for the essential repairs. You definitely bought yourself a truly excellent car.

Love your videos, Jack! Take the 308 out to get some tacos and do a review!

Air leak could be from valve block, not necessarily the strut. There is also a level sensor behind the wheel, if you accidentally moved this it could have deflated strut to compensate for it thinking the car is sitting too high

Same nice content you can make out of this car 👍, waiting to see how you go about fixing it 😉

Methinks we have a budding British Hoovey in the making. Now to find an equivalent wizard😊

That air suspension warning did happen because You did lift that right front corner. It happens always when changing tires and goes away after waiting a minute after start.

The fact that you are willing to.drive.70 mph in a £900 car is the most gutsy thing.

Your air strut must have that self-healing feature :)

On the suspension matter, those airmatics always lose air when jacked up, somehow the valves are releasing the air so all the weight doesn’t push on that strut. Just start the car and set up the suspension on the higher setting and will level itself

£5,400. Just for Chuckles & Giggles, go back and ask for a quote on moving the Steering Wheel over to the proper side of the Car. 😂🤣😂🤣 Cheers Mate!

Some of the older Mercedes (avoiding the W210 like the plague) are really well put together. Where Mercedes upset me is when I came to service an SL350 (2014) - they quoted changing the 6 Bosch Iridium spark plugs at £350. The car had done 30k miles and an iridium spark plug is good for nearly 100k. The plugs from Bosch are £10 each and are as easy as any plug to change. It was listed as “optional” so I declined it (on environmental grounds as much as anything). Mercedes said “That’s fine but you’ll lose your Mercedes breakdown cover if you don’t have it done”. It was at that point I stopped buying new or recent Mercedes and stopped using main dealers. On the whole I prefer not to be blackmailed 😉 As with others, it would be great to see what a non-franchise specialist would charge though maybe not fair if you have no intention of getting them to do the work.

The 900 quid bangers are always a cracking car. I have run some great cars at this price point, and have given me brilliant service. The old merc doing you proud..