I'm closing a deal on a 97 C280 168 k ish miles for 1K. It has been in non salt states for all but a few years so it is rust free. Owner says car was parked due to bad throttle actuator, during the 3 year storage a mouse ate through the engine wiring harness. I can't hear it run but they had car shipped cross country _after_ the actuator failed as they intended to fix the car.

Visually it is in good shape showing some wear but nothing overly bad. I'll hang parts on a rust free body all day so not hearing it run is worth the risk. The trick to having a trouble free car is to replace parts when they are at the end of their life cycle, this way you are planing downtime rather than having the car fail at random.