If I were intent on keeping the car for the LT (long-term) more than one year, I'd have an LB (long-block) installed - if there is such a thing aftermarket for the car. I did that numerous times with V8 American cars in my youth, once their engine went KABOOM. I can see a LB install costing $3K or more all told, off the top of my head.

There's a honey of a '98 E300TD one-owner, garaged, near perfect condition on CL locally, with less than 85K miles, with everything working on it for $4.950.00 asking.


Depends on which way you want to go. The cheapest transportation for me, was always the old car I poured money into. When I needed to have a dependable car to get to work? I had to update out of the old ones.....if I couldn't get to work, there wasn't much sense in having the old one(s).