From: owner-diesel-benz-digest-at-digest.net (diesel-benz-digest) To: diesel-benz-digest-at-krusty-motorsports.com Subject: diesel-benz-digest V1 #60 Reply-To: diesel-benz-at-digest.net Sender: owner-diesel-benz-digest-at-digest.net Errors-To: owner-diesel-benz-digest-at-digest.net Precedence: bulk diesel-benz-digest Saturday, December 26 1998 Volume 01 : Number 060 Forum for Discussion of Diesel Mercedes Benz Automobiles John Meister Digest Coordinator Contents: Re: Diesel vs Gas MB E model vehicle license costs seattle drivers guide Re: diesel-benz-digest V1 #59 Re: diesel-benz-digest V1 #59 a message from Pieter... Diesel Benz Digest Home Page: http://www.digest.net/diesel-benz/ Send submissions to diesel-benz-digest-at-digest.net Send administrative requests to diesel-benz-digest-request-at-digest.net To unsubscribe, include the word unsubscribe by itself in the body of the message, unless you are sending the request from a different address than the one that appears on the list. Include the word help in a message to stag-digest-request to get a list of other majordomo commands. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 22:49:15 -0800 From: john Subject: Re: Diesel vs Gas MB E model don't know... I'm about 15 years behind in the car scene... :) My newest "Benz" is an 81 300D. I just recently started looking at the Mercedes again and am gonna head to the dealer down in Seattle on Tuesday to return a starter I didn't need and will pick up a brochure on the new E300 Turbo Diesel. :) john At 07:21 PM 12/24/98 -0800, Dr. Mack wrote: >So what's this I hear about the new 6 cylinder benz design problems? When >did they start making those? > >Scott >----- Original Message ----- >From: john >To: >Cc: >Sent: Tuesday, December 22, 1998 11:36 PM >Subject: RE: Diesel vs Gas MB E model > > >>At 04:46 PM 12/22/98 -0600, Alec Cordova wrote: >>>Although Peugeot and Mercedes have bantered over the years as to who first >>>mass-produced diesels, suffice it to say that Mercedes has been designing >> >>One thing is for certain. The Germans build much more reliable Diesels >>than do the French. How many Peugots do you see in the paper for >>practically nothing? >> >>My 85 xj jeep cherokee had a Renault 2.1L Turbo Diesel. Impressive little >>motor, wet sleeved all aluminum jewel pumping out 85 hp, 115 ft lbs of >torque. >>However, the sleeve KIT alone was $800!!! Compared to a Benz it was junk. >>My Rabbit Diesels were of better quality. >> >>Alec is also right about the DIESEL sound. There is nothing, NOTHING, >>like it. IT's addictive... :) I've had about 56 cars and trucks, I'd >>guess a little bit more than a dozen of those have been Diesels. :) >> >>Now, if they'll just put a Diesel in the ML series... :) >> >>john >>============================================================= >> The just shall live by Faith... >> Der Gerechte wird aus Glauben leben... >> Mas El Justo vivira Por Fe... >> Le Juste vivra par la foi... >> >> Habakkuk 2:4b, Romans 1:17, Galations 3:11, Hebrews 10:38 >>============================================================= >> john-at-virtual-cafe.com http://www.virtual-cafe.com >> http://www.wagoneers.com/LivingByFaith/ >>============================================================= >> >> > > - ---------------------------------------------- john-at-virtual-cafe.com http://www.wagoneers.com Jeeps don't rust in Snohomish, WA, they mold... ------------ http://www.virtual-cafe.com/~john/saved.html Jesus - don't leave life without him... - ---------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 23:03:29 -0800 From: john Subject: vehicle license costs Ok, I'm curious... just what does your state nail you for tabs? I'm up in Washington state. Sometimes refered to as taxington. :) Fritz is an 18 year old 300D. (only 132,000 miles). A 1981 model. My tabs come up in February... $98.xx!!! Plus I have to take him through an emissions test, another $12!!!! My 88 xj wagoneer limited runs about $140 or so a year, will have to look again. My 81 SJ Wagoneer Limited only ran about $61 a year, which is still obscene for a rig that old. Oregon tabs are only $20 a year!!!! (of course they have an income tax...) A friend just bought a 98 Range Rover, his tabs run $1,200 a year. The sales tax on the rig ran $5395!! Man, I could almost buy a nice early 80's 300 for that!!! So let's hear what your plates cost. I guess we'll need to figure out how they base the tabs, what method of valuation is used... My 80 Olds Cutlass LS Diesel only cost me $55 the first year I moved up here from Portland in 85!!! The tabs went down to $31 and then they kept adding local options until it was up to $61, which I think is now the minimum. BTW, Hope you're having a great holiday. I'll be off line tomorrow, we have some friends coming over for dinner and if I were to sneak out to my office to answer email... shudder... I'd be in big trouble. :) Remember, the reason for the season is Jesus, and we wish you Him. :) ttyl, john - ---------------------------------------------- john-at-virtual-cafe.com http://www.wagoneers.com Jeeps don't rust in Snohomish, WA, they mold... ------------ http://www.virtual-cafe.com/~john/saved.html Jesus - don't leave life without him... - ---------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1998 23:56:13 -0800 From: john Subject: seattle drivers guide I found this at: http://www.drizzle.com/~james/seattle.html Seattle Driver's Guide (not to be taken seriously) Introduction Seattle was recently ranked in a three-way tie with Los Angeles and SanFrancisco for having the worst traffic in the whole country. I've lived in this area since the 70's, so it only seems appropriate to assemble my experience on Seattle driving to share with others who are having to deal with it for the first time. We'll start with a review of your automotive equipment. The Brake Pedal This is the most important device on your car. For the most part you can go without an engine, but the brake pedal is essential. Use it early, often and liberally. Always slow down twice as fast as you think you need to, because those cars in front of you with their brake lights on are probably slowing down in severe panic. Don't be afraid of the idea of coming to a complete stop on any freeway at any time of day for any reason. The Clutch For the unfortunate ones who have a standard transmission, this will become the bane of your existence. Yes, Seattle is a hilly place, but that's not why a stick is bad. The main problem is that you spend most of your time crawling along between 0 and 5 MPH, which means that you're constantly needing to engage and disengage the clutch. This can lead to cramping. My advice is find someone who is moving out of the Seattle (good luck!) that might want to buy your car, and get yourself an automatic. Otherwise you could end up with overdeveloped muscles on your left thigh, and a lopsided walk. The Turn Signal An invitation to failure. A turn signal gives other drivers a clue to your intent, which will draw every effort possible to prevent you from reaching your goal. More about this when we get to maneuvers. The Accelerator Overrated. After a while, you may forget where it is. Many drivers already have. You'll see them at green lights looking for it. Great for revving your engine while you're sitting there going nowhere. In rare cases you may get an opportunity to use the accelerator - savor these moments. Most of the time when you do have an opportunity to accelerate, it will be short lived. Expect on average roughly 1/4 mile. Some drivers will view acceleration as an act of aggression, and position themselves so as to prevent its continuation. For instance you will typically find that when you accelerate, another car magically appears in your blind spot. This car will pace you in order to prevent lane changes and eventually, you'll run up behind someone who is going to force you to decelerate (See "Brake Pedal"). This brings us to the topic of maneuvers... The Left Turn Loads of fun. Slow down, engage the turn signal and watch the on-coming cars speed up to prevent your execution of the turn. This is of course excluding the usual case of the left turn in gridlock. If you ever need to make a left turn in gridlock, just go home and go back to bed. Often times there will be a left turn lane. Some drivers don't use this feature - they contribute to road rage, which is outside the scope of this web page. For those who are unfamiliar with it, a left turn lane is that center lane with outer yellow solid stripes, and broken yellow stripes just inside each edge, and curved "left turn" arrows painted in the middle. The great thing about the left turn lane is that it gives you a place to stop and wait indefinitely for an opportunity to complete your turn. This is a great place to change CD's, fix your hair, read a book, etc. while you're waiting (more on passing the time later). Merging While it is rare, I'm only going to address here the situation of merging into moving traffic. Merging into a traffic jam is too similar to lane changing in a traffic jam, except that it helps to have a bottle of valium handy to deal with the shock realization that you could be on the freeway for the rest of your natural life. Merging into moving traffic is similar to a game of chicken. You will notice that the drivers in the lane you're trying to get into, for the most part, will act as though you're not even there - even in situations where your merge lane is rapidly become "concrete wall". Its either the wall, the other cars or the brake pedal, and this is one case where the brake pedal can spell your doom, so its best to just to floor it, jerk the wheel over and force the car rushing up behind you to use their brake pedal. Changing Lanes This is a very tricky thing to do. Like a basketball player, you want to give as few clues as possible about where you're headed - - until its to late for the cars around you to react and block your way. Head fakes can work wonders. The other drivers will be watching your eyes and head. If they see you from behind, checking for clearance they'll accelerate to keep you from changing over. So be very careful not to be too obvious. Quick glances and minimal sudden head movements are best. At the moment that you're ready to switch, hit the turn signal (unless you don't want to be mistaken for a native) and hit the accelerator and switch over. When done properly everybody will be shocked that they couldn't get in your way fast enough. Aimless Drivers At times it may seem like the car ahead of you has no intentional destination, and appears to be varying speed - usually no greater than 15 MPH below the speed limit. At first glance one could assume that these drivers aren't really headed anywhere, however, this is not true. You've got to remember that at any given moment, roughly 75% of the population just moved to Seattle ten minutes ago. Most drivers don't know where they're going and will therefore drive very slowly looking for clues that might help them figure out where they are. Lights By lights, I refer to traffic lights. If all the traffic lights in Seattle were turned off for a day, the resulting savings in energy could be used to fuel a round trip to the Andromeda galaxy. Waiting behind lights is inevitable, so it must be dealt with. The best way to deal with lights is to take your mind off the fact that you're driving. Traditionally when you're behind the wheel of your car, you're focused on driving - i.e. navigating an automobile from one point to another, steering, avoiding collisions, etc. When you're stopped at a light while driving, you're basically waiting. To fix this problem, keep some reading material somewhere in the car. By doing this, you can get the lights working in your favor. For instance you can get yourself wrapped up in a really good article at one light, and then when the light turns green, make note of the page you're on, and set the article down. You will find yourself wishing for another red light. Don't worry, you won't be disappointed. Pedestrians Most pedestrians in downtown Seattle apparently want to get hit by a car. This is a fairly new and disturbing development. You can almost hear them screaming "Hit me! Hit me!!". This is evidenced by the fact that they will jump out in front of you while you're cruising through an intersection where you have the green. They'll be waving their arms in the air, as if your car was a soccer ball and they were a goalie trying to stop you. I have yet to find an explanation for this behavior. I thought most people understood that getting hit by a fast moving 4300-pound object could be dangerous to their health. Ramp Metering Ramp metering refers to lights that are placed on freeway on-ramps in congested areas (i.e. everywhere). The idea is that the light is red and then turns green allowing one car to proceed onto the freeway at a time. Theoretically, this reduces collisions at the on-ramp. These devices appeared in abundance in the late 80's and early 90's. Of course now, they rarely serve any useful purpose, since the on-ramps have become so stopped up with cars that the light flashes green at a faster rate than the cars can crawl bumper-to-bumper down the ramp. Remember - at any given moment, 75% of the population moved here ten minutes ago. Conclusion I'm sure there are more topics that bear discussion. They will be added as I find time. Don't worry, in time I'm sure you'll adjust to being one of the glazed over herd that spends one third of their life here behind the wheel. Related Sites If you have a site that you think should be added here, please e-mail me: james-at-drizzle.com 1.Driver's Etiquette for Seattle - very nicely done. http://www.oz.net/~susana/drive.htm ============================================================================ remember, I didn't write this. I copied the page for those on juno and other non-browser email type folks... ;) The scary part about this is a lot of it seems true... john ------------------------------------------------- john-at-wagoneers.com - http://www.wagoneers.com/ Snohomish, WA - where Jeeps don't rust, they mold... ------------------------------------------------- http://www.virtual-cafe.com/~john/MBZ-DSL/diesel-benz-list.html (81 300D) http://www.virtual-cafe.com/~john/JEEP/FSJ-list.html (81 J10) http://www.virtual-cafe.com/~john/JEEP/XJ-list.html (88 xj wagoneer) ------------------------------------------------- jesus, don't leave life without him... ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 11:33:36 +0000 From: Tony Wirtel Subject: Re: diesel-benz-digest V1 #59 Holiday greetings to all~! Just wanted to make an informal how-do as a new subscriber; I'm Tony Wirt= el and have just recently gotten a 1985 300TD. Owned since late October after t= wo plus years storage, on the road just recently. I'd been looking for something= like this for some time, a (relatively) economical Mercedes that's as handy as= a Swiss army knife. Plan to keep her for a long time! She has 224k miles but as of yet, no name. I've driven about 1800 miles = in the two weeks I've had her on the road, so I'm waiting a bit for a proper nam= e to fit her character. She's dark blue with tan leather, which has stayed in fantastic condition. This probably has something to do with Mercedes and= the care taken by the previous owner, but I've never seen leather look like t= his with as many miles. On the other side, most of the interior bits do look= worn. Carpets are faded and vinyl bits that cover door pillars and the like hav= e 'shriveled' in many places. At least the dash is still in good shape! P= aint will have to be re-done in the Spring, after I have a chance to attack so= me spots where rust is beginning. I've owned and worked on several VW diesels in the past, so this turbo is= really great and zippy. Have replaced all the diesel lines, filters and fluids,= had the timing chain condition checked and the valves adjusted. Haven't had = a problem starting yet, but it's only gotten down to abt 15=B0 Fahrenheit s= o far. Probably have one glow plug beginning to go (sometimes the light doesn't = shine when going through pre glow), but no big deal yet. Bunch of work done includes windshield replacement, upper control arm/bal= l joint, tail lens, reverse len. Now it's ready to be inspected. Good thi= ng on the windshield- she must have started to leak a bit when the previous own= er put her in storage; two years of dry storage accelerated cracking of the orig= inal gasket, so the first time I drove in the rain was a surprise to see (and = feel) my feet getting soaked!! Should be cured now. Good news was no rust surrou= nding the windshield as a result; I'd feared this after seeing it on several VW= 's in the past. John and all, thanks for being part of this forum. I predict this will b= e a great resource and place to share common experiences. Let's face it, we'= re diesel freaks. While probably not actively shunned by the rest of societ= y, we are different. We relish our cars, cars that get comments like 'you alwa= ys have the strangest cars', cars that most people don't think really came from a= real production line (I say this as previous owner of not one but 2 VW Rabbit = Diesel pickups) and/or can't understand the rationale for. Since I don't know t= he proper French, I say Long live the difference! Peace and Joy, Tony Wirtel ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 13:03:27 -0600 (CST) From: "M. Mason" Subject: Re: diesel-benz-digest V1 #59 Merry Christmas Tony, et al... a suggestion that worked for me: hold a hairdryer 6 or 8 inches from the shrivled vinyl pillar covers (interior -- experiment with distance as needed), and "reshape" them with the rounded end of a spoon, or a flat butterknife or something. I used a spoon -- with a little work you can get it looking decent. Best, -- Matt _____________________________ Matthew J. Mason mmason-at-blue.weeg.uiowa.edu '80 240D daily driver, '82 240D parts (in pieces) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 26 Dec 1998 11:17:51 -0800 From: john Subject: a message from Pieter... Pieter, et al, Please, no HTML, stylized text or special characters in messages, otherwise they "bounce" off the server and end up coming to me. Not a problem except that your mail doesn't usually make it to the list for others to see. I get messages like this: Subject: BOUNCE diesel-benz-at-digest.net: global taboo body match " / ^ Content-Type:. * text \ / html / i " at line 24 Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1998 20:06:26 -0500 So please send messages to the list as plain text. Thanx. :-) john ====================================================== Hi there, Yes, i'm from Nederland. Thanks for welcoming me John! (You were = speaking to me?) This seems a nice and pleasant list to me, and I will = probably be able to learn a lot here, as I am a Mercedes (and diesel) = newby. Since 2 months I own a '83 300TD, auto tranny, about 200K Miles = and already completely in love with it. OK some rust here and there, = some minor mechanical failures (rear wiper, powerlocks), but the way it = drives!! I was told that Mercedes diesel driving can be addictive and = now i believe it :-)) Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to everyone, Pieter =============================================================== Glad to see you on the list Pieter! With your Benz you should be able to drive from one end of your country and back several times on one tank of fuel. :-) Where are you from in Nederland? My wife and I used to drive up to Haarlem every spring to visit Keukenhof. Then we'd go up to Amsterdam, then Den Helder. We lived in Deutschland from 1975 until 1981. later, john - ---------------------------------------------- john-at-virtual-cafe.com http://www.wagoneers.com Jeeps don't rust in Snohomish, WA, they mold... ------------ http://www.virtual-cafe.com/~john/saved.html Jesus - don't leave life without him... - ---------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ End of diesel-benz-digest V1 #60 ********************************