[W126 Coupe] wheels for E430

[Jim Nowak]

David,

I've owned a '98 E430 and currently own a '99 E55. 
I've heard that you should get the updated 98 and
later 210E over the earlier models.

Common problems on these cars are bad MAF's, rust,
crack's in the dash, strut mount failures, crank
dampner failures, rear window regulator failures, fuel
sender failure, and a few others that I'm sure I
didn't mention.  All in all, the 210 is a good car and
was recently rated the safest vehicle on the road from
1999-2002. 

Here's the story:

 Is the Car Unsafe, or the Driver?
By DANNY HAKIM
Published: March 15, 2005
One way of reading the new report by the Insurance
Institute for Highway Safety is that the Mercedes
E-Class sedan has the safest design of any car or
truck and the two-door Chevrolet Blazer the worst.

Another way to read the report, to be released
Tuesday, is that E-Class drivers tend to drive more
carefully than Blazer drivers.

The report, which analyzed the driver death rates of
199 vehicle models, gave an uncommon level of
specificity for a crash study. Such studies tend to
focus on the death rates in different classes of
vehicles, like small sport utility vehicles or midsize
cars, as opposed to giving data for specific models in
each class. But the study found that in almost every
vehicle class "the death rate for the worst vehicle
was at least twice as high as the rate for the best."

For instance, among four-door midsize cars, the
Volkswagen Passat performed best, with an average of
16 driver deaths per million registered vehicles
annually. At the other end of the spectrum, the
Chrysler Sebring had 126 driver deaths. Among midsize
S.U.V.'s with four-wheel drive, the Toyota 4Runner had
12 deaths per million registered vehicles annually,
compared with 134 for the two-door Ford Explorer.

The analysis by the insurance institute, a research
group financed by car insurers, found that many of the
best-performing vehicles were expensive luxury models
with the latest safety technology, while many of the
worst were cheaper models with older designs. Over
all, luxury sedans, as well as midsize and large
minivans and station wagons, tended to have the lowest
fatality rates.

The report examined how 1999 to 2002 model cars and
trucks performed on the road from 2000 to 2003. Only
relatively popular models were studied and one
critical demographic adjustment was made. Because
female drivers aged 25 to 64 are less likely to be
involved in crashes than male drivers, the study
considered women of those ages in equal proportions to
men, no matter the vehicle. That way, if one kind of
vehicle attracted more women buyers than another did,
the prevalence of women did not skew the results.

But other personality factors could not be adjusted
for, for instance, minivans and stations wagons having
low fatality rates both because of their size, which
makes for larger crash-absorbing crumple zones, and
because of who drives them.

"They tend to be driven by soccer moms and dads," said
Adrian Lund, the chief operating officer of the
institute. "They tend to be conveying their families
and are careful when they are doing that."

Automakers expressed a range of concerns about the
report.

Alan Adler, manager of safety communications at
General Motors, said, "It is impossible in looking at
these statistics to know what role driver behavior,
such as drunk driving and driving without a safety
belt, played in these deaths."

Studies by model are also rare, because they sometimes
involve relatively modest amounts of crash data.
Researchers from one major automaker, which declined
to be named, said the limited amounts of data for some
of the vehicles gave them pause, and they also found
the age range of 25 to 64 used in adjusting for women
to be arbitrary.

Russ Rader, a spokesman for the institute, said women
who were younger than 25 or older than 64 tended to
have higher death rates than women in the middle,
making an adjustment less germane.

So how should a safety-minded consumer weigh the
report?

Mr. Lund said his group's study of actual traffic
fatalities should be considered alongside the results
of its crash tests, as well as those conducted by the
government. The government's test results are
available at http://www.safercars.gov, and the
insurance group's tests, which are intended to
complement those of the government, and the full
report, are available at http://www.iihs.org.

Another limitation of the report is that it does not
include models that have had their debuts in recent
years, and some existing models have been recently
redesigned.

"What you want to do is look at crash test results of
vehicles as well and pick vehicles that have good
frontal crash ratings, good side-impact ratings, good
head restraints, and check these results and see if
that model has had a good record in the past," Mr.
Lund said.

The average model in the study had 87 deaths per
million registered vehicles annually.

The two-door Chevy Blazer had 308 deaths per million
registered vehicles annually, the most of any vehicle
in the study.

"The two-door Blazer is an old design, so it doesn't
have the latest crashworthiness features built into
it," Mr. Lund said. Further, two-door S.U.V.'s tend to
be less stable than four-door versions. On the other
hand, "two-wheel-drive S.U.V.'s are cheaper vehicles
and they tend to get driven by younger males."

Young males are the highest risk group of drivers, Mr.
Lund said. They tend not to wear their seat belts as
much as other drivers, they are more likely to drink
and drive and more often are speeding. 

But the Blazer - not to be confused with the more
recently designed Chevrolet Trailblazer - has also not
performed well on crash tests, where driver behavior
is not a factor. The S.U.V. received the lowest of
four ratings in the institute's frontal crash test and
only one out of five stars from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration in its most recent
rollover test.

The study reinforced some well-known traffic trends
and also suggested that good design can trump them.
Pound for pound, cars are safer than S.U.V.'s because
S.U.V.'s ride higher off the ground and have a greater
tendency to roll over than cars. Rollovers are
particularly deadly, leading to one of every three
deaths in motor vehicle crashes.

Large cars, and particularly luxury cars, have lower
than average fatality rates. The Mercedes E-Class
sedan, the best performer over all with 10 deaths per
million registered vehicles annually, was one of the
first vehicles to have electronic stability control as
a standard feature. Stability control is a technology
growing in popularity that helps drivers regain
control of their cars when they swerve or spin.

"We feel we're on the forefront of safety technology,
and this test, because it uses real world data,
underscores our leadership," said Rob Moran, a
spokesman for Mercedes.

Pickup trucks tend to have higher than average death
rates. Among other factors, pickups are a challenge to
design because their beds are sometimes loaded with
cargo and sometimes empty.

Smaller cars and smaller S.U.V.'s tend to have higher
fatality rates than medium-size and large models.
Large S.U.V.'s tend to perform well because of their
girth, though other studies have shown that that also
makes them particularly lethal to the occupants of
vehicles they strike.

But the Ford Excursion, one of the largest S.U.V.'s
made, had 107 driver deaths per million registered
vehicles annually, significantly above average. By
contrast, the Toyota RAV4 was among the best
performers, with only 18 deaths per million vehicles
annually, even though small S.U.V.'s are a vehicle
type that typically does not perform well in crash
studies.

"We think this reflects changes in how these vehicles
are being made," said Mr. Lund. "And we're seeing
changes in driver demographics, with more women and
fewer young males, who used to dominate small
S.U.V.'s. 
 

--- David Fatovic <coloradocroat at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Are there any pitfalls with the W210 E class?  They
> were introduced in 96 correct?  Are there any years
> or
> models to avoid?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> David