I’m Robin better known as “Robs”. I have a passion for older Mercedes Benz and vintage cars in general. I currently own a 280CE w123 for fun and daily drive an S600 w140 1996 Japan Spec. The Mercedes brand have circulated around in the family as long as I can remember. We are talking SL’s to S-Class and the more beater cars such as w124 E-class, C-class and the G-wagon. In the army I got acquainted to the old GD240 all terrain version.
I started writing about Mercedes Benz after I had to “restore” my now vintage 84′ W123 280CE back in 2012. Before this I was learning the hard way to wrench on my daily beater student car, a non-turbo Diesel 300TD wagon 5-speed in a very special Olive green color. Due to limited money during studies I had to just learn and do it myself. The few coins I had to spare went to acquiring basic tools and spare parts. I found it very hard finding resources on how to do maintenance on these cars and Mercedes in general back then. Now there exist a bit more resources out there, especially on Youtube, iFixit, the old forums, but it’s still is a bit tricky to find detailed articles and know-how, especially on the more advanced topics.
The conspiracy is that Mercedes are very complex cars, wrong! Mercedes are not space ships, although the early electronics can be a pain to fault search without OBD ports. Mercedes are however one of the best engineered cars ever made hands down. With that I mean they are made with longevity and ease of maintenance in mind (e.g. you can change the light bulbs and various other stuff even without any tools). One would think that more material was out there available for the public on how to fix your Mercedes, but sadly no. I have yet to see a detailed “Wikipedia” for Mercedes maintenance. Car manufacturers in general does not want you to meddle with your own car for many reasons, many of them economic and legal. Of course there are detailed mechanics handbooks (if you can find them at mechanics schools or on Ebay), but these are written for and by the engineers at Mercedes (usually in German on older models). These books can make pretty advanced reading for the common DIY folks and Mercedes enthusiast. It is usually not the best learning tool.
All this lead to the idea of making a simple to use web page where I could share my learned knowledge and take you on a journey on the topic. This should be simple for me as well, otherwise it will take too much time to produce content. I also want to give inspiration both new and seasoned enthusiasts so they could see that fixing their own Mercedes is in fact very manageable.
Raising maintenance costs is a common reason for people to not get involved into the classic car hobby. In contrast the cars themselves are often not that expensive compared to new ones! Especially considering the value loss and used cars do not follow inflation very well. I do not mean invest in a rare classic car, since it is usually one of the worst investments there are except the utter most rare models (which you most likely cannot afford anyway). And then it is the regular upkeep of owning such cars. If you still are interested there is always an opportunity to pick up some great deals though. As I focus on older models here, newer model are often made for easier maintenance and assembly overall, but it require you to be acquainted with the electronic diagnostic tools like the OBD2 reader. With older cars you have to do most of the fault diagnostics yourself which is a thing of “feel” and years of experience. Then you have the in-between cars in terms of technology from the late 80s to the late 90s, which have very Mercedes specific electronic diagnostics tools with a 38-pin connector. The mechanical maintenance is pretty much the same for new and old cars, except you have to often reset electronic sensors after as an extra step on the newer ones when it involves safety features such as airbags.
I learned working on cars mostly by reading, trying (many times failing) and doing it myself. I also got great resources of knowledge from family, although none are mechanic experts. Other resources have been various forums on the great web and of course and the classic Haynes car manuals if there is one for the particular model.
If you have questions, large or big, I will do my best to answer them if I can manage.
info@mercbenz123.com
Short Bio
Currently working and living in Norway which is my home country, although I also have family from Yorkshire in England. Currently working as a development engineer in the Defence Industry. I have a background with MSc. Electrical Engineering and Space Technology from the Technical University of Denmark.
Personal interests other than vintage cars and Mercedes includes reading about history, astronomy as well as outdoor activities such as hiking, MTB single-trail, skiing, and scuba-diving.
LinkedIN profile: linkedin.com/in/robinkjernet
