I've done some searches on high mileage, lifespan, longevity, etc. of MB diesels. I've heard tales of very high mileage vehicles (say greater than 500,000 miles).

Some specific questions related to my 1992 300D 2.5 Turbo:

1. Is there any reason it shouldn't be able to go as long as some of these earlier diesels?

2. If it won't, why not? What specifically is less reliable? What's likely to go wrong that would be cost-prohibitive to fix?

Thanks!

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14 E250 Bluetec 4Matic "Sinclair", Palladium Silver on Black, 154k miles
06 E320 CDI "Rutherford", Black on Tan, 172k mi, Stage 1 tune, tuned TCU
91 300D "Otis", Smoke Silver on Tan, 142k mi, wastegate conversion, ALDA delete

19 Honda CR-V EX 61k mi
Fourteen other MB's owned and sold
1961 Very Tolerant Wife

there's no such thing. a $3000 repair on a $6000 car is perfectly reasonable, as long as its a Mercedes!

i think i'll be able to put 500,000 miles on mine, but it will probably need a rebuild between now and then. replacing the a/c evaporator coil is expensive because its under the dash, you might have to do stuff like that.

some of the other guys will tell you the '87 and up wont last as long because theyre aluminum blocks instead of iron, but i dont know about that. i used to drive an '87 in high school that was my dads, we had over 300,000 miles on it when we sold it for $7000 and it was running great.

the electronics also go out sometimes, which the older ones dont have, but that wont keep the engine from running.

keep up on the maintenence, take care of it and it will take care of you.

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1991 300 D 2.5 Turbo, 220k
also in the family:
1981 240 D 185k
1991 350 SD 185k
2006 S 500
2005 SLK 350

When I got my 92 300D 2.5 Turbo, some of the first things I did was to make sure that the some potentially troublesome areas of the 602/603 engines were taken care of: vacuum pump and timing chain.

I know the vacuum pumps can be problematic and dump their bearings into the sump. So, I replaced mine at 150k miles. Wasn't bad at all to do. I'll do it again in another 150k miles.

I also replaced the timing chain at that time, because it was 150k and I would feel better knowing it had a fresh chain.

Other than that, I can't think of another thing specific to the 602 engine that would keep it from running a long long time. Keep an eye the belt tensioner

Once you have those areas addressed, you're back to dealing with the stuff that all W124 have problems with, like evaporators, etc.