190e, the grand father of the C class

Actually the car above is not my Mercedes but a picture I got from Wikepedia when I was researching about my car. The irony about it is that, the car above is the same model and color of my car. Same two tone paint, same alloy wheels, same beige leather, same sunroof and even the steering wheel is on the left side. However my car has a spoiler on its boot. Maybe the model above is the 2.0 litre model.

My Mercedes is I think more than 15 years old but is still okay. My lecturer who rode with me, praise the smooth ride of my car compared to his 7 year old Iswara. There is a unique history of this car. This car duped the baby Benz when it was first developed in 1982. It was design to fill in the void under the E class Mercedes. This was admitted by Mercedes Benz to be over engineered so people will know that the developers were not joking in developing a relatively more affordable Mercedes Benz for the masses. My car has many component that is on par with todays vehicles on the road. Airbags, ABS (anti lock braking system), 4 wheel disc brakes, 5 link rear suspension (still used albeit in improved form in the current E and C class), and seat belt tensioner.

"Over engineered" was the pharse Mercedes used to describe their cars, they were not kidding. Look around and look at the old Mercedes still on the roads in Malaysia. My car is over 15 years old, and I still have access to spare parts both used and new. Mercedes wanted to make sure that their products is at their best quality. However sometimes in the late 90s, Mercedes decided to stop "over engineering" their vehicles and they got plenty of backlash from the media, public and journalist. Europe journalist are very frank and blunt when commenting about automobiles. However the newers models now have returned to their over engineering status and now are many journalist favourites.

Tomorrow I will finally send the car to the workshop. My transmission oil need to be changed, that is about almost RM 200 with the filter (the car used like 7 litre of original mercedes gearbox fluid), the coupling (some part in the automatic geabox) because you can hear and feel the car shifts gear, check up on the radioator (the car tempeture rises to high, to quickly and too soon), check the fuel injectors and sparkplugs (the car only goes 300km on a full tank, that is less than the 400km its supposed to go), the aircond gas needs to be refill and finally I want then to check of the fuel line that we had replaced is supplying fuel properly. Oh yes, not to forget, my rear tires are bald, although great for drifting, practical for the current downpour that we have been having.

Total cost : Enough to make a grown man cry,...