2006 Mercedes-Benz E320 CDI

tikal

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2001
Location
Southeast Texas
TDI
2004 Passat Wagon (chainless + 5 MT + GDE tune)
Greetings, a friend of mine recently purchased this vehicle from a private party. He was asking me regarding any worthwhile tunes for the car to improve mileage. Is there such thing or they tend to do more with increasing power/torque?

Any other tips/suggestions/preventive maintenance regarding this car would be also appreciated.
 
Last edited:

rocky raccoon

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2020
Location
Greater metropolitan Beaverdam
TDI
2014 Jetta Sportwagen
We have a 2008 E320 bought new. It has been almost dead-nuts reliable with only one failure in the past 12 years. That was a serp belt break that took the harmonic balancer with it.

It is a very fast accelerator and gets at least 30 miles to the Diesel gallon. I have seen 39 mpg on a long non-stop trip. It is also a great place to sit while tripping.

It is an excellent car-engine combination and I would counsel to not modify it in any way.
 

wonderwilley

Active member
Joined
May 17, 2014
Location
San Jose
TDI
02 Jetta 5spd
There’s quite a few good tunes out there for these cars. I had mine done by marcin Hoski and was really happy with the results. These are absolutely amazing cars, unbelievable amount of torque, great mpgs, and the reliability is off the charts. I’d watch out for Black Death on the injectors. If your aren’t sure when they were resealed I’d plan on doing that soon. Really happy with my CDI. If you want me to go over a few things, pm me and maybe we can have a chat. Best of luck
 

soot1

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2009
Location
Houston, TX
TDI
Currently none. Formerly: 2010 VW Jetta TDI 6M, 1993 Dodge Ram W250 Cummins 5M 4WD, 1990 VW Jetta Diesel 5M, 1986 VW Jetta Diesel 5M, 1980 VW Uabbit Diesel 4M. Currently driving 2018 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4WD.
We have a 2008 E320 bought new. It has been almost dead-nuts reliable with only one failure in the past 12 years. That was a serp belt break that took the harmonic balancer with it.

It is a very fast accelerator and gets at least 30 miles to the Diesel gallon. I have seen 39 mpg on a long non-stop trip. It is also a great place to sit while tripping.

It is an excellent car-engine combination and I would counsel to not modify it in any way.
The 2008 model has completely different engine from the 2005/2006 models - yours is a V-6 engine, the 2005/2006 engines were straight 6 design. Also, 2006 was the last year when MB made non-DPF diesel engines, and these are the two most important reasons why these 2005/2006 are the favorites of MB enthusiasts.
 

soot1

Veteran Member
Joined
Nov 6, 2009
Location
Houston, TX
TDI
Currently none. Formerly: 2010 VW Jetta TDI 6M, 1993 Dodge Ram W250 Cummins 5M 4WD, 1990 VW Jetta Diesel 5M, 1986 VW Jetta Diesel 5M, 1980 VW Uabbit Diesel 4M. Currently driving 2018 Toyota 4Runner SR5 4WD.
Greetings, a friend of mine recently purchased this vehicle from a private party. He was asking me regarding any worthwhile tunes for the car to improve mileage. Is there such thing or they tend to do more with increasing power/torque?

Any other tips/suggestions/preventive maintenance regarding this car would be also appreciated.
Considering that you can easily get 40 mpg HWY out of this vehicle, I'm not sure there is much that could be done to increase the fuel economy any further. It is the last MB diesel that didn't have the DPF, or any other emissions crap for that matter (with the exception of a catalyst), so the exhaust gas flow is as unrestricted as it can be. I ran across a U-tube channel earlier this year set up by a former MB mechanic who buys old MB vehicles on the cheap and does all sorts of modifications to them. One of the vehicles he bought was this exact machine, and he describes in fair detail the most common pitfalls of these cars, plus how he fixed these issues. He also did some mods to the exhaust (removed the catalyst), got bigger turbo, some gadgets for the transmission, etc. etc. If you want to check out his channel, it is called "legit streetcars". BTW, he didn't have much praise for the V-6 diesels that came in 2007 and thereafter. I'm not sure how active he is nowadays, but I found all his videos about the 2005 E320 CDI very informative. He also lists places from which he is getting all his parts, so if you want to get exactly what he uses in his videos, you don't have to do any searching, he will tell you exactly where to get them and how much these parts will cost you.
 

wonderwilley

Active member
Joined
May 17, 2014
Location
San Jose
TDI
02 Jetta 5spd
There’s quite a few people, including myself, that ran out and bought one of these cars because of that guy. Alex of legit street cars really sold me with some of those videos. Good stuff..
 

tikal

Veteran Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2001
Location
Southeast Texas
TDI
2004 Passat Wagon (chainless + 5 MT + GDE tune)
Great folks I will convey this information to my friend. I apreciate it. I personally would not feel comfortable taking out the catalyst. Just to keep a balance between efficiency and improving local air quality.
 
Top