Hi all. I'm new here, and new to the Mercedes marque in general. Sorry for the super long upcoming post, but I feel an intro is in order.

My background is mostly with BMW's (1996 318ti & 2010 128i) and a few VW's before that (1991 Corrado G60 & 1972 Super Beetle). My DD is still the 128i, mostly built out for autocross (see build thread here) and we also have a 2014 4Runner as a "family" car.

Recently, the circumstances of our lives changed a little. When my wife goes back to work in the fall (she's a teacher), I'm going to start dropping the kids off in the morning, and she'll be picking them up in the afternoon. Packing up the kids each morning in my coupe is less than ideal - frankly, every time I've had to transport both kids in the Bimmer coupe has been sort of frustrating, and the idea of doing it every day on my way to work sort of stresses me out. At the same time my wife, who stands to have a longer commute and will cross a bridge daily, has expressed concern about driving the SUV all the time (she wants better gas mileage and also a vehicle that won't be buffeted by the wind so much). At this stage of my life (approaching 40 with two young children), daily driving a coupe doesn't make too much sense - but I've got too much time and money in the BMW to give it up, plus it's the main "toy" in my life. All of this is a long way of saying that I'm in the ridiculous position of considering a third car.

My first thought was to lease an economy car, a Ford Fiesta or something. But I'm a dyed-in-the-wool car guy, with an affinity for European brands - and I've always wanted something from what I consider the "golden age," the 70's to early 90's. My dream car is a BMW 2002tii, but of course it doesn't make much sense to buy another coupe - we really need a sedan for our purposes. But the excuse to pick up a fun project car, something that wasn’t just an appliance that met our day-to-day needs, was too great to resist. I just needed to find the right car.

The natural choice was another BMW. I've always admired the E28 chassis, but I also felt like I needed something economical to sort of justify the additional expense in the first place. I started searching for a 528e (a detuned economy variant), but they're few and far between, especially since I was in the unenviable position of needing to find a used car within a certain time frame (i.e., before the school year) and relatively close by (too busy to search nationwide). Really, looking for a specific older car should be done patiently without too much regard for time and distance, but it is what it is. I only had a matter of weeks to make it happen.

That said, I had no luck finding an E28 528e. But then one day, I saw a nice W123 300D cruising around locally. I didn't know too much about Mercs, but I knew the design was classy and timeless. This particular example was a beautiful light green - my wife would’ve loved it, and I decided finding a car in a nice green or even blue (her favorite colors) would be ideal. The fuel efficiency of a diesel would just be icing on the cake, and it started to seem like a no-brainer.

The search for a W123 was unsuccessful, but I started to see a few W124's around. The more modern chassis, plus the idea of a driver-side airbag, started to really appeal to me. And I liked that the earlier models had the big-honking classic grill that the W123's had. A little more reading, and I was sold on the W124. Before long, I found one with relatively low miles (~221,000), only two previous owners, and in Seafoam Green Metallic (so many others were in white or black, and I really wanted a "color"). The car I found was a 1992 300D 2.5 in Portland, OR, less than 300 miles away, and was listed for less than $5K. It seemed perfect, so long as it wasn't a lemon.

I emailed the seller, sort of a shady used car lot, and tried to set up a pre-purchase inspection. They were more or less amenable, but it was difficult because I couldn't get down to Portland on a weekday because of work. The dealer was open on the weekends, but no reputable MBZ shops were. In the end, I hired a mobile inspection guy to look at the car. He definitely wasn't a Merc specialist, but he (along with clean CarFax & AutoCheck reports) gave me enough confidence to at least make the 300-mile drive and see the car in person.

It definitely had some issues. It turns out the car was picked up at auction almost a year and a half prior, and it had obviously spent much of the time since just sitting. It ran well enough, but I knew right off the bat it needed to be caught up on maintenance. At times, it idled a little rougher than I would’ve liked, and there were a few cosmetic problems. But it felt super solid, there was no blow by, and the transmission shifted buttery smooth. I took a leap of faith and made an offer - I was able to talk them down a little from their already recently reduced asking price, with the knowledge that I was going to have to put some more money in the car right away.

So suddenly I found myself in the position of owning a 25-year old neglected (but hopefully not abused) Mercedes, and I was 300 miles from home. I was able to contact a local indy (they answered the phone on a Saturday!) and get them to agree to an after-hours drop-off, with instructions to change all fluids and filters, and basically check the car out. I knew I'd be changing glow plugs, maybe injectors, that sort of thing. I hoped it wouldn't be too much worse than that.

That was two weeks ago, and the car is still at Lakeside Mercedes Repair in Portland, OR. So far, there has been nothing catastrophically wrong with the car, just what you'd expect under the circumstances. Still, it's not cheap to rehab an older Mercedes, but at the end of the day, I think we'll end up with an elegant and interesting car for about the same cost (or less) than a lease of a generic econobox would’ve cost us.

Of course, I've got big plans for the W124. Right now the focus is mainly on getting it to be a reliable and safe daily driver, but I'm planning some suspension and cosmetic upgrades as well later down the line. Maybe even some power mods, if the OM602 is amenable to any (I’m getting the car primarily set up for my wife, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to have fun with it!). I'll keep this thread updated with details as they come.

For now, here are a few pics of the car at baseline, on the dealer's lot. It's far from perfect, but I think it's got potential, and I'm enjoying the build process so far. Stay tuned!