By-Tor

Sell the fat lug ugliness and keep the classic, beautiful and perfect 16610.

I have nothing against heated debates. But it's always disappointing to see a lot of good members turning against eachother. Because of politics. That's why we originally forced this rule. Guns is another topic that's a no-no. PS: Our posts were not directed at you Mike. Not at all. Just a general observation about these threads... at some point... at page 3 or 4 they always get this same "turn". It's amazing how that always happens, regardless of the forum. PS: Did anyone check that Farage vid I posted in the previous page? It's hilarious. You guys are lucky that you can actually vote for the prez. We don't have that luxury in the European Union. We have to accept an unelected talking head like Van Rompuy... or whatever the deeply corrupted EU bureucrats, Rotschilds, Goldman & Sachs bankers and the Euro Parlament choose to decide. This is not a controversial statement because nobody really gives a shit about this guy. But he's actually the "prez" of 500 million people. I bet you haven't even heard of him.

I've been on the Internet since 1992... from the old Usenet newsgroup days. And I've never seen a politics/religion thread that didn't "get personal". Actually it's against our forum rules to have this kind of threads because the outcome is always the same: Friends turn to enemies. I thought about closing it when I saw it. But then again it was such a big issue for the Americans and I thought it'd remain civil (for once). But it never happens. Never ever.

Totally agreed. 500E is awesome. And it looks better than 99,9% of the new cars.

@altesporsche: No idea who makes the turbo. I thought it was "inhouse"? Not sure. Porsche could have superior quality eletronic parts, compared to Merc and BMW. Well at least Porsches have been documented to be much more reliable. PS: I'm a HUGE Porsche fan... and I always had a fetish for 928 GTS and 933. And I might have something to show you next summer. 997 is very nice too... never liked the 996 because of those boxster-lamps. Boxter and 924, however, are the gayest Porsches ever made.

When you smoothen the bracelet edges "rounder" there's no way to tell (without opening the back) unless you're an absolute no-life geek (like a few of us).

I actually did that with my Beemer. I had an airbag passenger light flashing. First I googled the problem and found it to be very typical among the E39's... the fix was to spray CRC to the wires under the seat. Then I downloaded INPA-software for BMW, bought an adapter for the laptop for €45 and resetted the light. Voilá. They charge €80 for just resetting it in the official BMW repair shop. Don't ask me why but I always had a strange fetish for this model (1996-2004) so I had to get one. Cars and watches... they're expensive hobbies but fun.

I have WM9 v2 with pretty much the same mods + gen insert & crown. It's as close to perfect as a Chinese replica watch can be.

Yep. Salt. That's the problem here as well. Most W124's are all rusted to pieces already. Same thing with W210... awful. W211 had all this fixed. And it was also one of the best sedans ever made. Very balanced drive... very similar to my BMW E39 actually. I loved my '2003 model. Maybe it didn't look as fancy but overall it was much better car. I wish I still had that.

Actually I think it's the same problem with all modern cars. They have so much electronics, it's insane. Take the windshield wipers for example. In the old days that was controlled by relays. Never any problems. When I ran into a problem I had to drive this car to the official Merc repairshop... they spent two hours with it and finally "fixed" the problem by resetting the "CPU central memory". That's laughable. Why make simple things more complicated with all this new technology? I live in Scandinavia and we have pretty tough weather conditions, like Nanuq has. Well almost anyway. Winter, snow, moisture, etc. That's bad for all the micro chips... and that's why the older cars worked so much bettter. The rust problems are gone though... new cars are mostly aluminum or use zinc, whatever.

Yes. 2 years. That ended in March. Yes. That's what the image is. My car has been a prime example of the opposite.

When I bought mine I thought the black panels in the cabin were plastic. But no, I heard they're actually wood... ash. But I'm old school and love the traditional wood panels. That was definitely a downgrade. @Ken: Yeah that's a classic.

This was written back in 2006 but amazingly, it's still valid.

500E is very nice. Generally older Mercs had much more "something". Take the W140 for example. Yeah it was blocky and oversized but it had "spirit". A real mammoth among the cars. Or the classic 80'S SEC. Holy crap that still looks beautiful. Unfortunately rednecks and village idiots have molested most of them to this condition already.

Hey at least you in the US have a real, elected president. Look what we got. Herman Van Rompuy. An unelected bureucrat, running a comission that adopts its approach from the former Soviet Union. Nigel Farage sums him up nicely.

This was the best and most reliable E-klasse there was (W124) I drove 200.000 kilometers with (similar as) this one and never had ANY problems. 1995 model year. Great car (if you just forget its very poor power/capacity). After this model they started to add all kinds of electronics which was just downhill from there. More powerful diesel engines and smooth automatic transmission have been the only real improvements. @hartdoc: BMW I like... but Audis... hmm... I know they're good cars but for some reason I always feel that they're just Olympic versions of VW. Front wheel drives... yuck. quattro would be ok though.

Best option would probably be Toyota Corolla. I've heard they're reliable. But then again there's just one life to live you know... and I'd like to enjoy the ride. Somehow Ford Mondeo doesn't quite rhyme nicely with that, either.

I dunno Ken. Could be a lemon. But either way it doesn't have a SINGLE improvement over its predecessor, which was better car in all aspects (imho). Especially handling and chassis were better (more "German").

My company car is this one. E-klasse Merc 200 CDi automatic, model year 2010. So far it had these problems: 2 wire harnesses exchanged (the other was broken because the engine cover had rubbed it) the whole ingition system changed camshaft sensor (left me in the middle of nowhere, didn't start) windscreen wiper electronics was broken Front shock absorbers have already lost their hardness (after 100.000+ km) and now this:. I was driving normal 80km/h and suddenly the power was gone. When I looked at the rear mirror I noticed a black, thick smoke coming from the rear. TURBO had just exploded, it was like Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren (this car is just as reliable). Total destruction. Estimated cost: 7000 Euros. What a piece of shit this car is. It has had more problems than my 3 previous Mercs put together. On top of this my hobbyist car, a BMW E39 525i can run circles around this car when it comes to handling. This feels like a French waterbed. Here's me reading the bill. Cheers. That helped.

Are there any documented scams by Antiquorum, or where does this shady reputation come from?

Ok, that explains it. This watch proves what kind of superb frankens we're able to build these days, thanks to WM9/TC cases. Frankens of this quality were impossible just a few years ago.

Sold including buyer's premium: 490,900 CHF

Really nice. I wasn't aware that 16800's came with the super luminova dial (SWISS MADE). The last ones apparently did. I learn something new every day.

Not my photos. Found somewhere on the Web. Cool watch. Definitely.

I agree 100% These 007-special editions look cheap and cheesy. Omega is only tarnishing their brand image with these. And how many Special Editions they do have? Is it really anything special when you put out a new one every year?