Free guide · 1998–2005 · M113 E50 · 306 PS
Mercedes S 500 W220: what to check before you buy
What this car is, and the six questions that decide whether the one you are looking at is a good buy.
In this guide · 6 chapters
Who built it, and what they built
The S-Class that dented the Mercedes myth on quality, with the engine that kept proving it. The M113 E50: 4,966 cc, a naturally aspirated V8, 306 PS (299 PS on cars with the optional cylinder shut-off, offered until April 2003), from 1998 to 2005. A five-speed automatic until August 2003 and the seven-speed 7G-TRONIC from September 2003, with rear-wheel drive — except the S 500 4MATIC, built from the autumn of 2002 with four-wheel drive, which kept the five-speed. Air suspension on all four corners.
What is unusual about it, specifically
Not the shape, and not the badge. What is unusual is that a car this size and this quiet is now within reach of almost anyone — and that the reason it is cheap has nothing to do with the engine.
The W220 sits on air, not on springs. Airmatic replaces the steel spring at every corner with an air strut, fed by a compressor. It is why the car rides the way it does, and it is the single largest line in this guide. Airmatic is standard on the S 500. Active Body Control — hydraulic, and standard on the S 600 — was also offered on the S 500, at least on the facelift, and a car with it is not described by the Airmatic chapters of this guide: an Airmatic car has an air strut at each corner, an ABC car a coil spring with a hydraulic cylinder.
Two pieces of genuinely good news, before the rest
The M113 is not the risk. The same V8 family went into the CL, the SL and the E-Class of the period. Its camshafts are driven by a double roller chain, not by a belt. Expect oil leaks with age — rocker covers, the oil separator — and little else that is specific to it.
And this car does not have SBC. Sensotronic Brake Control, the brake-by-wire system people fear on Mercedes of this era, is what Mercedes recalled on the E-Class, the SL and the CLS. The W220 has a conventional hydraulic brake with a vacuum booster. If someone warns you about SBC on a W220, they are describing a different car.
And one warning that shapes this whole guide
The rust on this model is not a sign of neglect. A W220 buyer's guide puts it down to cost-cutting: poorer steel, and a switch to water-based paint without solvent. Whatever the cause, a looked-after W220 can still be rusting, and a shiny one is not automatically a sound one. The rust starts underneath the paint and arrives from the inside.
How the figures in this guide work
There are no prices in here, and that is deliberate. A workshop rate differs by a factor of two or three between countries, so a figure we cannot verify for you is worse than no figure. What does not move is how much work a job is — that follows from what has to come off the car.
So every item says whether it is an hour or two, half a day, a day, two or three days, or a week or more in the workshop, and whether the money sits in the part or in reaching it. Ask any garage one question — what is your hourly rate? — and every item becomes your own number.
The six questions that decide whether this car is a good buy
If you read nothing else, read these. Every one can be asked on the telephone, before you spend a day travelling.
1 · Has it stood overnight, and does it stand level in the morning?
This is the Airmatic test and it costs nothing — but it is easy to spoil before you have even arrived, and the buying guide has how to do it so that it actually tells you something.
2 · Is it a pre-facelift or a facelift car?
The facelift arrived in 2002. Facelift cars rust less — less, not never — and got bi-xenon headlights and DVD navigation instead of CD.
3 · Has anyone looked at the suspension turrets?
Arches and bootlid are bodywork. The turrets are structure. This is the one rust question that can end the conversation.
4 · Has the Airmatic compressor been replaced, and was the relay replaced with it?
A compressor is not a bolt-on. Mercedes' own procedure says the compressor relay should always be replaced with it, because its contacts may be damaged, and a faulty relay can overheat the new compressor. An invoice for the compressor alone is worth a question.
5 · Does the battery hold when it is parked for a week?
Battery drain is a known characteristic of this car, not an exception. An owner who has dealt with it understands the car; an owner who has not may be about to find out.
6 · Is there a folder, with names in it?
Airmatic work is specialist work. An invoice from a Mercedes specialist reads differently from one from a general garage — not because the general garage is bad, but because this system is not ordinary.
Which years, which specification
1998 to 2002 — the pre-facelift car. M113 5.0 V8, 306 PS, Airmatic. This is the car that earned the W220 its reputation for corrosion, and the one whose bodywork needs the closest look.
2002 onward — the facelift. Bi-xenon headlights, optionally with a cornering function. COMAND moves from CD-based navigation to DVD. Bonnet, grille and bumper are reshaped — subtly, but on the facelift the bonnet ends shorter and the bumper comes up to meet it. From September 2003 the rear-wheel-drive S 500 has the seven-speed 7G-TRONIC in place of the five-speed.
Which to buy. If the budget allows, the facelift, for the corrosion reason alone. But a well-maintained pre-facelift with documented rust repair and recent Airmatic work is a better car than a neglected facelift, and that order matters more than the year.
What to check rather than trim. Standard ride height and standard wheels. A W220 that has been lowered has had its Airmatic geometry interfered with by somebody who did not understand it, and a car on very large wheels has been asking more of those air struts than the factory did.
What it is worth
Not in money — see above — but in the only currency that matters when you are standing next to one.
A W220 is priced as an old car and repaired as an S-Class. That is the trap, and it is a specific trap: the two big costs, air suspension and structural corrosion, are both invisible from a photograph and both obvious to anyone who knows where to look.
So the value of a specific car is not what it is listed at. It is:
- what it does after standing overnight, and
- what the suspension turrets look like, and
- whether there is Airmatic paperwork that says what was replaced.
A car with recent struts, a replaced compressor and relay, and a body that has been looked at properly is worth substantially more than its advert suggests. A car at half the price with none of those is not half the car — it is the same car with the bills still in front of it.
What it is actually like to own one
Quietly extraordinary, and quietly demanding.
The V8 is effortless and almost silent, and the car covers distance in a way that modern cars of twice the price do not improve on. On good air suspension it floats. The interior is enormous and the seats are better than most furniture.
What you do not get is the ability to ignore it. This is a car with a great deal of electronics and a battery that resents being parked, a suspension system that fails gradually and expensively, and a bodyshell that needs looking at rather than admiring.
The honest summary: a W220 rewards an owner who drives it regularly and inspects it seriously. It punishes one who treats it as a cheap luxury car, because that is exactly what it is not.
The buying guide — €24
Everything above is what the car is. This is what you check.
Five faults that belong to this car, taken apart one by one, with how much work each repair is and how to tell which of them you are looking at. Ten things that are simply twenty years old, every one with how much work it is, what tells you about it at a viewing, and whether it has to be done now, within a year or two, or not at all. Why a W220 rusts from inside the panel, and which corrosion is bodywork and which is structure. Why the year on the registration changes the corrosion odds, and why standing overnight is the cheapest test you will ever do. The viewing in eight steps, including the two moments that come only once. The sentences you say to the seller, and how to build an offer out of what you found.
And a card you print and take with you — eighteen lines, in the order you do them. That comes as a separate file, because nobody wants to print a whole guide to take a few pages to a car park.
This is what one of the ten looks like
8 · COMAND, and the display
An hour or two · the facelift brought a newer COMAND with a larger screen Pre-facelift cars have CD navigation and it is obsolete; the facelift moved to DVD. Expect to live with it or bypass it.
Leave it until it annoys you enough.
And this is how the card reads
- Standing, before it is started
- Running
- On the move
What €24 buys, put next to what it saves
The suspension turrets are structure, not bodywork. If they have corroded, the repair is a week or more in the workshop of structural welding — the largest job in this guide. It is also the one thing you can only find by putting it on a ramp — which is why this guide keeps telling you to. The guide is €24. It will not stop any of that from being needed — but it does tell you which of them you are looking at before you agree a price, and that is the whole of the difference between paying for a car and paying for someone else's postponed maintenance.
Why there are no prices in it
Because a price we cannot verify is worse than no price, and because a price would be wrong for most of the people reading this anyway. Workshop rates across Europe differ widely, and so do parts prices. A quote from a specialist in one country tells you nothing in another.
What does not change is how much work a job is — that follows from what has to come off the car. So every point in the guide says whether it is an hour or two, half a day, a day, two or three days, or a week or more in the workshop, with a labour figure where a source gives one. And it says whether the money sits in the part or in getting to it, which is what lets you tell a fair quote from a bad one.
If you want a figure, ask any workshop one question — what is your hourly rate? — and every effort level in the guide becomes your own number, in your own currency. One question, and the answer is actually true for you.
How this guide was put together
Because you should know before you pay for it.
- Every fault and symptom comes from a source the guide names, the manufacturer's own documents first. The effort levels are our assessment, unless a source gives the hours.
- The guide says plainly that the M113 engine is the least of your worries on this car, and that the rust is not a sign of neglect — which is why a shiny W220 is not automatically a sound one.
- The effort of every job is counted item by item and checked against the list before every edition.
- It says as plainly what you can leave alone as what you have to do. Two of the ten age points start from leave it.
Leave your email address at the checkout and both files arrive straight away: one guide and one card, as two pdfs. No subscription, no account.
The full guide · €24
16-page guide, A4 and phone · 2-page inspection card · instant PDF · VAT included
Have every car inspected before you buy by someone who knows this engine. This is general information about the model and not advice about a specific car.