I am going to look at a 1981 240d this afternoon. The owner says they had the transmission (manual) replaced in 1995 and then again 3 years ago. Would this be normal or is there something else that I should look at to see if car is prematurely going through transmissions? The car also has the vacuum leak issue and a/c out but I can get it for very low price. I know "nothing more expensive than a cheap Mercedes."

Thanks for any input

Ok,,,, the trick would be to find out what was wrong with the trans...

If it was the rear bearing on both.. or the front... then the car might be causing it... in which case you would deal with the driveshaft or the clutch parts, etc..

If he wore out internals of the manual trans then you need to find out what lubricant he was using..and see if a leak or something like that caused him to run it low on lube...

It would be interesting to know if both trans suffered from the Same problem.. which could be a very big clue.

If you buy it drain the lube and put the proper amount of Redline MTF or whatever the guys on here have recommended.... there are acid/brass synchro issues to deal with.. it is all in the archives..

O.K. Thanks. The woman that is selling doesn't apear to know a lot of details. They have always taken it to the diesel shop. I am hoping she will have the service records so I can tell. Anything else I should be aware of with this year model etc? I've been getting a lot of info off this forum but there is SO much info I am getting overwhelmed as to what things are deal breakers and what can be fixed reasonably.

Thanks

where are you located? rust, heater, A/C, paint, cooling system, starting issues and more vary in importance depending on where you are and how you drive it. A lot.

__________________
'82 300SD - 361K mi - "Blue"

"Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement."

listen, look, .........and duck.

Hi,

I would ask the driver to take you for a ride and watch them drive.

I'm absolutely shocked that you'd even blow one manual trans in this car. The 4 speed is a tank in this car. I have 240,000miles on mine and it is just starting to whirr a little in 3rd - which it'll probably do for another 200,000 miles.

My gut feel is the person doesn't know how to drive a stick and beats on the car.

Yoko

Want to bet the previous owner drove around with their hand resting on the gear shift out of habit.....


A sure killer of shift forks and syncro hubs......I rebuilt a triumph GT6 transmission that was messed up when I bought it for that very reason.

__________________
Proud owner of ....
1971 280SE W108
1979 300SD W116
1983 300D W123
1975 Ironhead Sportster chopper
1987 GMC 3/4 ton 4X4 Diesel
1989 Honda Civic (Heavily modified)
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Section 609 MVAC Certified
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"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

O.K. so if the car had not been driven correctly could this screw up a tranny in just three years (date of last replacement?) The woman says she never took it on long trips just drove her kids around. I am only going to offer her $500.00 for this car but I'd really rather not have transmission issues.

Well I didn't even offer $500.00 for this car. It had zero acceleration. I had test driven an automatic 240d and it did WAY better than this one. My son went with me and said it just needed an adjustment for the throttle. Anyway that wasn't the deal breaker it was the "small" amount of rust. The "small" amount of rust was like chunks of car that would breal off if you touched them. I think the engine could be tuned and fixed up but I don't think the body could be repaired inexpensively. Rather put the $500.00 toward something that wouldn't give so many headaches.