Not always true. And while inspections are great its impossible to determine by inspection if an alternator, A/C compressor or other part is about to fail (they give the car a once owner they don't take it apart). I got sucked into that "pay top dollar and have your mechanic inspect old wives tale" and ended up with a bad car once. Additionally most cars service records only cover the first 5-10 years of its service life. Many owners don't bother documenting service records on a 10-15 year old car. Service records are non existant and useless on a car that old. Just because you have some pretty booklet with service records in it does not mean that someone "filled in the blanks" with fake information to make the car's value higher. If you don't plan on inspecting and verifying every single line item in the service records yourself then all they are is an expensive little booklet to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. The unfortunate reality is you can't predict the future. Cars break and its impossible to predict which ones will cost more to maintain. Mechanics inspections and service records are just as effective as waving a chicken bone over the roof and doing a voodoo dance for determining the future.

Look at a LOT of cars. Get an idea of what 15-20 years of wear looks like on many of these vehicles and then make a decision based on the individual cars. While the old wives tale says the new cars are always better you might find an early model car that was taken care of by an owner that knew the car well. You can also end up with a pretty newer car with low miles that was ignored entirely by its owner who cheaped out on all the service its whole life. Drive one of every model and then decide what you want. When you get to know the differences between the cars you can make a better decision that suits your needs.

If I were going to buy another 126 (I won't be anytime soon). I would look at a late model 300SE. The Short body S class cars handle better than their longer siblings and you get a much better value because many 126 owners don't know that these cars even exist. The Later model cars do have nicer interiors and the "updated" interior with more modern looking seats.