Quote:
Originally Posted by otto huber
After nearly 7 years and 102,000 miles of driving my 300SD I've been thinking of moving on to something else. I've taken great care of the car not just to enjoy it, but in the hopes that I would be able to sell it for close to what I paid for it($2500). After browsing through Craigslist for the past few months and seeing 300SDs sitting up there for well over 6 or 8 weeks, I get the feeling that nobody is really interested in buying these cars anymore, that goes for W123s as well. The biodiesel fad is long gone, it's hard to find a mechanic who will work on them, and it seems like only DIYers would ever want such a car. This is my observation from Northern California where there are still a fair amount of these old MBs running. What's it like in other parts of the country?
|
I think your assessment is spot-on. The spike in diesel popularity a decade ago was mainly due to high fuel prices at the time, $4+ per gallon. While diesels enjoyed high resale values, bloated gasoline SUV's took a huge hit, the used car lots had so many they stopped buying them.
I remember those days well, when a non-turbo w210 diesel was $10k and the turbo w210 was $15k+. Now the non-turbo w210 is $2k and the turbo is $5k.
Cheap gas means diesel is out of style, and gas guzzler SUV's are the fad once again. The only way these old Merc diesels will come back, is if there's another fuel shortage or crisis.
Until then, it's up to us nutty DIY tinkerers to keep them on the road.
