We had a 73 220d with auto for close to 10 years..When I bought it , it had a bad motor and then I replaced it with a MB rebuild engine we put 350 k miles on that rebuilt motor..the trans was original,so the car I figure had a total of 550k miles on it..what caused the end of it was the mounting area for the steering gear box was totally fatiged ..the sheet metal holding it was just worn out..I welded it a couple of times but after that there was no way to fix it..the engine and trans were running great when I let it go..There is only two positions for the fuel pedal..Idle or floored..zero to 60 in about 26 seconds