Originally Posted by kendogg

I'm still learning about MB Diesels. I had a W123 300D years back, and HATED that car, haha. I don't blame MB though, I bought a cheap, crappy car. BUT, it was slower than death.

My question is 2-fold. If I were looking for a slightly older, maybe W124 or W210 era diesel equipped car, is there a particular engine to be looking at? I know there were model-year changes made to some engines, but I can't find much of a comprehensive list of what to look at. I'd prefer turbo diesel for obvious reasons. What are the differences, and what should I be looking at?

Reason I ask, is because at some point, I'll be looking for a car for myself, and for my mother. I want something for my mother thats able to be reconditioned, serviced (mostly) by myself and able to be taken to the local indy for things I either don't have the tools for, or simply don't want to work on. Will stay mostly stock, except for light mods that will help serviceability and long life, like EGR-delete type stuff. She doens't drive much, and I'd like to get something we can put another couple hundred thousand miles on reliably. For myself, I'm looking for much the same thing, except I may be a bit more willing to go for power mods. I'm young, what do you expect? For reference, my current project is a '95 Volvo 960 wagon with an LS swap, that I'm planning to take to One Lap of America in 2015. Thanks for reading, hope this is coherent enough to make sense.