How to, or how not to, buy a car (My C32 Experience)
Disclaimer: I am not a professional mechanic, nor a professional driver. My interest in cars is purely a hobby. I don’t have a license to advise anyone on anything. Also, I have a problem with becoming quickly bored with whatever automobile I have in my possession.
It started with a nagging feeling of wanting something different to add to the Porsche 911 CS2 and BMW X3 currently in our possession; something in the middle. Previously, we’d owned an E46 BMW M3. But it wasn’t quite in the middle of a sports car and a utility vehicle – it leaned much closer to the sports car side of things. I wanted something with four doors, but I didn’t want a boat. I needed a cruiser, something that required little to no effort to drive. It could be a little soft as long as it didn’t hurt on the curbs. It needed to be as fast as an M3, but adequate for someone lazy who wants to just get somewhere comfortably and quickly. I also wanted to be liberated from my fear of valet parking. It seems as if the X3 acquired a fresh ding with each trip to a parking lot. I wanted something that I wouldn’t worry over.
At first, I considered mainly BMWs. Pondered over a 7-series, then a 5-series. Still too big. The 3-series is a great car, but I’d had four in the past few years.
I was really curious as to what, say, $15,000 could fetch these days. I wanted something reliable. I didn’t want to have to take on any problems. Since regularly scanning Craig’s List had become a frequent habit anyway, this is where I began my search.
I started looking at older models of the Mercedes Benz AMG E55, but then I worried about going too “old man.” The newer ones were out of my $15K price range. A few AMG C32 models showed up on Craig’s List. I began to do some heavier research; it was the entry-level C-Series, sure, but it was also the fastest production Mercedes available when it was released. The years I was honing in on, 2002/2003, had it pegged as the fastest Merc on the road; approximately 349HP at the crank, and 332 ft lb of torque - most available at low revs, V6 with a super charger (Kompressor on the side gives it away). Car weighed in at around 3,540 lbs - which is pretty heavy in my book. But power to weight was great and I wasn’t looking for a sports car this time around.
My biggest concern was that most Mercs available in the US have automatic transmissions. Driving an auto has proven to be a fairly disappointing experience overall for me, but then again, this car was about ease-of-use. It was to be the effortless beast that you take to the store in the middle of the night and not worry about. It would to be abused by valets, who will, in most cases, take years of life off your clutch. I also wanted my wife to drive it, since, even though she can drive a manual just fine, she prefers an auto. For this exercise to remain unselfish, the car would have to be an auto.
So I reached out to a few of the sellers on Craig’s List. One of them, who I will refer to as “The Scotsman”, had posted photos of nearly every single angle of the car. I gravitated to this one since I could plainly see that there was nothing cosmetically wrong with it beyond some very light road rash on one of the wheels.
I asked The Scotsman some random questions, and his email responses always came back within 10 minutes. He was never pushy or asked if I was serious, he just answered the questions as thoroughly as he could. It turned out that he had put in an aftermarket SAT-NAV head unit, and a lot of the questions revolved around that. Ultimately, I got the sense he really loved his car, and decided to give it a test drive on a Saturday afternoon. It turned out that The Scotsman did love this car and had take great care of it. He continued to be as carefree about the whole thing as he had been over email. Again, he never asked me how serious I was. No off-putting hard sell tactics.
Since I had read about some of the potential problems with this model, I asked if he’d known whether or not some of the mechanical issues had been dealt with. He had all the paperwork from the first owner, and could refer to it by heart. During the test drive, I tried to see if any of the issues were apparent in the way it drove. No hesitation, no weird shifts, that’s good.
All and all, besides the suspension being worn down, I couldn’t sense anything weird going on. Then we went onto the highway. I strongly recommend picking a route you’re very familiar with while test driving a car for the first time. I knew every curve and bump of the route, so the only new variable was the car. The first thing that got me was when I floored it, it went without any hesitation. At about 50MPH, flooring it forced a quick downshift, and I actually thought the tires were going to spin. It was as fast as described. 60-100MPH was exhilarating, but weird - as there was no shifting to do. This was in line with every review I’d read. There was no doubt about it; the car was fast, up there with the 911, probably faster than the E46 M3 I used to have, definitely quicker than my old Boxster S.
After a pretty lengthy ride, I was in love. This was dead-on what I was looking for. It was an easy drive, super-Euro in feel, the cabin was solid - no creaks, doors shut with a nice “thud”, and materials felt nice. I could do without all the plastic, preferring more leather, but the carbon fiber inserts didn’t look completely lame and made me feel like a much younger man - which wasn’t half bad.
I did my own “do I really want this?” test, and thought over a few other cars, including going back to the E55 that my brother recommended, but the E55 didn’t match up to my price point.
Next step was taking the car to a Merc technician - diags run, all the checks done. Car seemed fine. Maybe needed an oil change soon, air filter, cabin filter, etc. Tires had around 10k miles left on them, brakes at about 45% wear. I could live with all that. After very little haggling with the owner, we agreed on a price that was totally acceptable. It was a quick transaction, within a week of the test drive. When I picked up the car, the owner had everything ready, and seemed genuinely sad to see it go.
I quickly noticed on the drive home that the headlamps (I’d only driven during the day) were not working very well. When I got home I manually adjusted the lights best I could - and then self-diagnosed that the auto-leving sensor for the bi-xenons was faulty. I’d have to take it in to a Merc dealership for that fix in the upcoming weeks. There was some roughness to a few of the convenience features, as well - the setting that moves the steering wheel when you get in/out was not 100% reliable (so I turned it off, since I could actually get in and out just fine with the steering wheel in place). The right mirror self-adjust for parallel parking had some issues - but I had this same problem in a brand new X3, and by now have become used to Germans randomly failing in the electrical department.
Otherwise, the car was perfect, and I’ve been driving it non-stop. Even had it cleaned by the car wash guys who come to our offices, which is something I would NEVER do with the Porsche. This was quite liberating: I wasn’t super worried about this thing, which was the whole point. I even went to Sunday brunch, and valeted it!
After reading the manual for the built-in computer as well as the manual for the aftermarket SAT-NAV, I was able to configure everything pretty much as I wished. I even got the SAT-NAV to boot up with the AMG Logo, which was pretty awesome.
All and all, feeling pretty damned good about this purchase.
1 month ago • 3 notes
