I picked one of these up at Advance Auto Parts but found that there was not enough room to install it in my 300D. It looked like the hood bracket was going to hit it when I closed the hood. Even it I could have wedged it in, it was too close for me to feel comfortable. I ended up using a different type that lays flatter and has a black threaded knob that spins off and releases the connection. It is similar to the one bgkast pictured earlier in this thread.

I offer my condolences as well as all the others. I know the feeling somewhat from when I smashed up the front end of mine. Fortunately, I was able to rebuild. It's currious that you car's final moments were in front of a cemetary.

Your sad experience also makes me happy to know that I replaced my CC w/manual HACV years ago. The idea of the current cut-off from Advance Auto Parts seems like a good one. I'll investigate and report.

I promised an update so here it is... I have to say that Nationwide did come through for me. Particularly the claims agent Sarah Brockington who was exceptionally good to deal with and went the extra mile for me.

A little bit of fill:

When she first sent me the packet to fill out I was asked to provide anything I wished, in addition to the material statements they asked for. And I did. I, of course, had taken many pictures of all the stages of restoring the car for my own satisfaction. So don't be lazy and not do this because you never know when you might turn out to need them for some unexpected reason. I included a CD with many of them and even printed out a couple in color to include. And I included a copy of the Evaluation from NADA Classic cars. And I was able to retrieve many of the receipts for work that had been done to the car and parts bought for the car. Many of those had been destroyed in the glove box so it took some work.

Sarah called me the other day and she wouldn't even tell me the evaluation she had come up with using the normal methods they use (I don't exactly know what those are) but she told me she was just going to turn it over to an Appraiser and let him come up with a better value. She just simply bypassed the normal stage where they offer you "their" value and went to the next step. And she told me it was primarily because of the pictures I sent and how passionate I spoke of the car when I talked to her.

Today she calls me and tells me they are evaluating the car at $8500.00

Now... this is probably near what I did have into the car when considering my time even which you normally lose.

I can't say enough good about the way Nationwide and its claims people handled this and I cannot stress enough how important it is to take the bull by the horns right out of the gate. And how honesty and frankness do indeed make a difference. But most importantly is to be proactive if you ever find yourself dealing with such a tragedy.

Even still... I would rather have the car back. It may not be possible to find such an example to start with and to finish with. It may not be that I ever have such a specimen again. But this helps me think about starting over again.

What did I learn? I will be staying with Nationwide. I will always have a Fire Extinguisher in every car. I will continue to document every thing I do and I will periodically have the car appraised. I got lucky this time, sort of, but nothing is worth losing so much of your effort and satisfaction. Money doesn't cover that.

Statefarm has always been there for me. 2 car fender benders 4 motorcycles 1 car broken into. So I pay and pay and pay.

I have my battery terminals on only tight enough to start the car and loose enough that I can pull it loose fairly quickly. I'm so glad this worked out for you and I'm with Met Life and hopefully will never have to go through what you did. If I could make a suggestion here too, put a 1 amp fuse in line with the Aux water pump and one in line with the Monovalve. Everytime someone has had serious "Oh god can I save it?" electrical issues, it is usually one of these 2 things!;)

Certainly! If your talking about these specific cars there would be these specific additional things.

My list was to apply to all cars. Its not just old Mercedes Diesels that burn up.

This was obviously Mercedes fault; I think Mercedes should pay for it.

Congrats on a fair settlement at least. I know the car would be better,
but you will sleep better tonight.

maybe they will just send me a brand new AMG55 or something? :D

WOW more than I thought you would get without a fight. This ins. co. walked away from me on a claim, when I was hit by someone else. So I am glad that they did right for you!

Now.. to find the best one you can and start over!

It seems there are multiple areas to be concerned about re: fires in 123 - can anyone summarize the issues for a non-mechanical guy so that I can take my massively restored beast to someone to review these issues? Prior to complete rebuild I had recurrent alternator/battery/short issues that kept getting "fixed" - one of the pseudo-mechanics no one remotely competent here in Roswell, NM) said he found a cluster of wires roughly atop the passenger's side wheelwell that had gotten hot enough to melt some plastic housing and leave burn marks on the metal - all I could see was a bundle of wiring with a lot of electrical tape over it. He was one of several who had "for sure found the short" and the latest in 3 new batteries/alternators didn't die or fail for a couple months before timing chain meltdown. But now that I have her back with damn near everything new from motor, radiator, battery, alternator and entire suspension (as of last week - a year later) I'm petrified of a fire. Blower motor, ACC, auxiliary water pump.......... I'm esp. worred because today I couldn't begin to figure out what was going on with the various (unlabeled) air controls - seemed entirely random pushing the buttons - blow full force, stop blowing - it seemed random. I actually never really figured out what those five buttons did before and I don't have an owner's manual.
Can anybody do a 1-2-3 summary of all the good advice on this thread (apart from the fire extinguishers? I'm buying tomorrow).

Assuming your 123 has the system with temperature wheel, five buttons with hieroglyphs, and fan controls all in a row. From left to right the unlabeled buttons are: Full defrost; defrost/heat mix; normal (automatic heating/cooling without defrost), economy (like normal but the A/C compressor doesn't run, so no cooling other than that provided by outside air); off. Set the temperature you want in the middle of the blue/red wheel and it will be automatically maintained, like a house thermostat. Don't put the temp wheel at one extreme or the other unless you need to override the system; the endpoint settings don't make the system cool down or heat up any faster. Same for the fan speed control, leave it on automatic and it will change speed by itself as necessary.

This is all assuming the many parts of the system are functioning correctly. Many people curse the ACC system in '80s M-Bs and wonder why they can't just have manual controls like other cars, but it's usually because theirs is broken. When sorted out the sytem is a thing of beauty---does a great job of keeping driver/pasengers comfortable, interior temperatures equalized throughout the car, and the windshield clear all at once.

Very informative post for any new W123 owner such as I am. Should be a mandatory read for anyone like me.

Once again my thanks to all who share their knowledge here !

Agreed, sadly after all these years failures are quite common.

Sorry for bumping this old thread up, but I wanted to comment about something after dealing with this on our LeMons car... A disconnect like that one will not kill all power if the engine is running. Yes, the battery is disconnected, but the alternator is still spinning and still making current. If you want to be sure that all power is disconnected you'll need to do a little reworking of the alternator wiring.

-J