Hello,
Better than a 240D would be a W123 300D(NA, not turbo). My former 1978 300D is still on the road with 1.34 million miles. Only major repair has been a new head at 1.1 million miles and a few driver's seats!!It has manual transmission, plain a/c and central locking only. Present owner has never had any other car and wants to be buried in it, he is not joking.
Have a good week.

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Nachi11744

Lets put it this way, the only diesel I would ever buy are the MB with W123 chasis and OM 616/617 engines, the newer ones have no appeal to me and the other one strongly on my list would be the Accord diesel which promises to be a heck of a car.

Don't forget that automobile prices have been essentially unchanged for the last ten or so years, while the cost of everything else has gone up considerably.

Everyone has take the route, more or less, of reducing quality to keep the price from rising. Add that to the current addiction of the US market for gadgets and extreme performance, and you get the current crop of "luxury" cars.

Note that until the mid 70's, Mercedes didn't make even electric seats on production cars, let alone any of the other gadgets common on US cars. Only the 600 was full of that kind of stuff (hydraulic instead of electric, too!), but that was a limosine, not actually a production automobile.

I wonder what's gonna happen when gasoline is $6 a gallon in the US, and people don't have piles of money to spend on disposable automobiles!

Peter

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1972 220D ?? miles
1988 300E 200,012
1987 300D Turbo killed 9/25/07, 275,000 miles
1985 Volvo 740 GLE Turobodiesel 218,000
1972 280 SE 4.5 165, 000 - It runs!

The Gurkha is more like the SWB Pajero wheras the Judo is closer to the Chevy Suburbian.