300SD: Good price?

[RudolfDiesel]

Hi folks,

I'm new to the board and I'm shopping for my first MB Diesel. I looked at a 1984 300SD today. Starts right up, drives nice. No rust that I could find (was alledgedly garaged its whole life). Paint is in good shape. Interiors are intact, but show reasonable wear (no tears in seats, but color worn off in some high wear areas. All electrics (fan, stereo, power windows, seats, sunroof, etc.) work. 270,000 miles, runs smooth and strong. There is a fair amount of oil in the engine compartment, which appears to be a leaky valve cover gasket. Seller is asking $2200. What do you all think?

Thanks.

[DrewGerhan]

I bought mine for $2000 last March and it came with a spare motor for an extra $100. It had 173k miles at the time. In hind sight I paid too much because the previous owner was a lazy mechanic who cut too many short cuts. If I were to to it all over again I would check out everything on the car and be sure to get a Carfax because the story he told us and the story Carfax told us were completely different. Oh well... hindsight is 20/20.

[bullwinkle]

If there's little to no blowby (loosen the oil fill cap & see if it blows off when the engine is running or puffs like a steam engine=bad/coked rings=$$$$$$$$!) that sounds like an OK deal, hard to tell without pics, though.

[JimmyL]

Well "Rudolf"
That actually sounds like a decent deal.

[BioBens]

Sounds OK. Don't be surprised if you have to dump a few $$ into it and your own wrenching.