Thread: RIP 1988 300E
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Old 03-02-2009, 07:42 PM
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greasybenz greasybenz is offline
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Location: San Francisco, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by babymog View Post

There are cars that have problems, and cars that do not. I don't beleive that your experience nor greasybenz's experience is typical, mine might not be either but somewhere in-between there is the typical of these cars that has one or two of these failures over a few years' ownership.

Still, back to GB's comments; if you only have one vehicle, need to depend on it for daily conveyence, and can't have it let you down, it does make more sense to buy something much newer.
Well most of the problems i listed that i had on my W124 i had on my other benzos as well. My 83 SD needed a few of the same replacements, granted this was a different engine and chassis but the parts were the same. Water pump, alternator, passanger side window motor, antenna, cruise control, etc. Although i didnt buy the car with service records and it was cheap ($800) My 81 on the other hand was bought with service records from day 1 and still had a problems which is why the owner wanted to sell it. But his excuse was the A/C being out.

He had the A/C system rebuilt 3 times and he lived in a fairly warm area of california. So no a/c with a a dark grey car and black leather seats was not ideal for him. Eventually i gave that car to the junk yard when the transmission gave out. But he had most of what i listed already done, including a full suspension rebuild which is what sold me and made me buy the car. But it still had other faults come up with the car like the cruise control, window motor/regulator, and alternator which were replaced/fixed as per the service records and by the looks of the parts (didnt look old and greasy) they were indeed replaced.

My dads 78 300D was fairly reliable for the first 2 years, but then the transmission went out, shocks went out, and all the suspension bushing were worn. But for a car with over 400K miles we expected this. He just went for the cheap and cheerful route and just replaced the shocks and transmission. Left the floaty worn out suspension alone and decided it was just a get to work (which in his case is 10miles roundtrip) and for going around town. Trips or far destinations he will take his newer truck instead.

Now with that i decided for my replacement car not to go japanese because i didnt want a common run of the mill civic or toyota. Because i still loved MB, which is why i decided to go for a newer MB that would give me less grief then my 20+ year old cars did.
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