I swear, the drivers side cladding on my car is a dark grey where as the passenger side is a light grey.. pics will follow soon

Probably sun faded.

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1999 w140, quit voting to old, and to old to fight, a god damned veteran

Yeah if it was always parked in the sun in the same place, one side probably got hit a lot more by the sun.

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-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

no its cant be, it would be impossible to have one side dark grey and one side light grey since the car is outside all the time(well in a garage when hatty had it)

If for a large part of its life it was parked in an outdoor parking lot during the day where only one side of the car faced south and the other north, then it could very well be sun faded, doesn't matter if it was garaged with hatty or how you have parked it, the prior 15+ years to that are unaccounted for.

__________________
-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

the lighting isnt good right now to do it but seriously something is amiss.

I know someone who has matching cladding.....

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daw_two
Germantown, TN

Links:
Sold last car --- 05/2012 1984 300D Light Ivory, Red interior
Cluster Needles Paint
New Old Stock (NOS) parts

Past:
3/2008 1986 300SDL "Coda"
04/2010 1965 190D(c) "Ben"
& many more

i cant afford shipping all of that cladding.. my best bet it so just watch the yards for a LWB W126 with perfect cladding(and front bumper) buy it all and swap it all on.

Sounds like a "previous owner" may have replaced some things.......

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

Some people take the cladding and bumpers off and have it all painted.

My mom scraped her front bumper, ruined a wheel, and scraped her side cladding one day on a tall curb - at freeway speeds. Anyway it messed up the look of her car pretty bad. When her insurance repaired it they filled in the gouges, painted the entire front bumper cover and all the side cladding on the right side of her car. Only the front fender and front door sections got scraped, but they painted the whole side of her car, except for the rear bumper section. It was never a perfect match with the rear bumper on the passenger side, or the front bumper on the driver's side. Most people never noticed, but I did every time I walked up to to her car. The newly painted sections were always slightly darker and glossier than the original, which still resided on the driver's side of her car.

Anyways, what I'm trying to get at is that one side of the car could have had the cladding repainted or replaced at one point.

The other point I'm trying to make is that repainting them is a good idea. And not particularly difficult.

It's even something that's not that difficult to do on your own. I'm going to tackle it this winter on my Lexus. I repainted my alloy wheels 2 winters ago. The only damaged part is a bad scrape on my front bumper, but I've bought enough paint and clear coat to do both bumper covers and all the cladding, so it all matches. I've seen it done many times when I sold cars. It doesn't look that difficult. What could possibly go wrong?

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1979 240D, 4spd manual, Power Sunroof, manual windows, 147k miles, Pastel gray/Black MB Tex.
1991 300D 2.5 - Smokes like it's on Crack!

Yeah, why not just pull the cladding and repaint it all? My dad did that on one of his SD's....looks pretty decent.

__________________
-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

Personally I like the monochrome look of bumpers/cladding matching the body, ... if you're spraying anyway.

Which side matches the bumpers?

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff

There is a 380SEL in the Jerry's Auto Salvage yard in Orlando as of yesterday. I don't recall if it had early or late style cladding though...

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1979 240D- 316K miles - VGT Turbo, Intercooler, Stick Shift, Many Other Mods - Daily Driver

1982 300SD - 232K miles - Wife's Daily Driver

1986 560SL - Wife's red speed machine

A 380 is a Gen I car right?

-J

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1991 350SDL. 230,000 miles (new motor @ 150,000). Blown head gasket

Tesla Model 3. 205,000 miles. Been to 48 states!
Past: A fleet of VW TDIs.... including a V10,a Dieselgate Passat, and 2 ECOdiesels.
2014 Cadillac ELR
2013 Fiat 500E.

I do think my SDL is GENII...

with 10 hours a week at work(stupid economy) I cant really repaint them.. which ever is cheapest for when I have spare money..

I need to pretty much replace all of the cladding since all of them are wrecked in some form. But I can probably repair them all(except the drivers side rear(smallest piece)) with fiberglass. The front bumper can probably be glassed but I am not sure.