California Members Question
 

I have been buying cars in the numbers since October. I just was gifted a 1993 Silverado 2500 Diesel for trade in doing electrical work at a dentists office. I want to put this 3/4 ton truck to work. I'm considering driving to California and going on a junkyard scavenge for rust-free body parts and engines and transmissions with a roll of cash in hand and trailer also. What's been coming thru PNPs lately? No W124s come through here in PA, NJ or DE. Never see 210s either in the yards though I see them daily on the road.

There are a number of W 123 cars(sedans, coupes and wagons ) in the Pick n Pull yards located in the SF Bay Area. Sign up on Row52.com and they will send you an email alert whenever a certain model of Mercedes that you want has been placed in one of their yards.

The best location in So Cal is the Ecology Center in Fontana (right off Highway 10). They are import cars only.

Well I can tell you what's at Sun Valleys Pick your part, and european pick a parts. But a word of warning, they go through cars very fast so these wont be there for long and the choice parts are usually gone the second they hit the yard.

Pick Your Part currently has one w123 300d, quite a few w126 gasolines with one 1 diesel, very few w124 300E. I also saw about 4 sets of BMW BBS rims if anyone cares.

European Pick-a-parts has a Heckflosse, 2 w123 one 300td and one 300d, a few w126, a decent amount of w124s. That's all the models I look at so that's all I know.

Sounds like I'm driving to California this April. I'll bring back all the W124 stuff I can fit in the bed and trailer for my two 300Ds and if I'm lucky my E300s.

Depends on which part of CA, N or S. Check with Charmlu in the North and ROLLGUY in the South. They will map out a route for you.

be sure to pass through Las Vegas, Phoenix and Tucson. The cars never rust there.

FYI, at least two yards around here have plenty of W124s... I can get you some pics of the "scene" if you want.

EDIT: We also have some 210s, although I think they are all gassers. About 80-90% of the 'Benzes in the yards around here are 124s or 210s. I can vibe you a tour if you want to come up at somepoint.

i haven't lived in so cal in many years but i'll second ecology, it was always the best yard

You can go to www.picknpull.com and do a search, but you have to search for each model type, IE 240, 300, 450 etc...

Use www.row52.com I put in Mercedes-benz, my zip, and the max distance of 500 miles. then every MB that is listed comes up by the date they came in. this is the current list from my zip...

http://row52.com/Search?Year=&ZipCode=95073&Distance=500&MakeId=182&ModelId=&LocationId=&Page=1

They are getting a little lazy getting their pictures up.

The cars in the SJ yard north usually keeps the cars about 30 days, but sometimes in 2 weeks they are pulled, and they come in so fast, they get crushed w/o being set in line.

I am amazed that there is still a 80 300SD in the Carson City, Nv yard since Aug 27. it was still there last night.


as Bwhitmore said, get signed up on row52.


Charlie

We got stuff!
 

Hey Jake! Here's what my favorite area yard has. I counted 12 W210s (12!) and about five W124s -- the other big yard in the less than fifteen minutes from me has at least five more W124s.

Here are pictures:

A white W210 E320:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...ps2241b684.jpg

4MATIC #1:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...ps944053f7.jpg

E320:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...ps3deba976.jpg

300E with a spoiler:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...psfd61a56c.jpg

Two black W210s:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...psee5da5b6.jpg

One black, one tan:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...psad058556.jpg

Another 300E. You can see two W210s in the background -- a wagon on a sedan:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7a694f11.jpg

This W124 has a beautiful red interior :cool::

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...psa3bc4981.jpg

4MATIC #2 and W124 300E:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...pse7aa9186.jpg

W124 420:

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...ps52b72e9c.jpg

...and another W210 (Is that a W124 on the bottom? Looks like it):

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...psf912d3f6.jpg

There's at least two more yards that I can think of that would also have plenty of both cars. This particular yard has a slightly windy short private road leading to it that makes for great drifting fun in the winter :D.

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...psb31fe45d.jpg

Oh, and do you need parts for the Rolls, too?
 

We got it covered!

http://i1303.photobucket.com/albums/...ps84670fc1.jpg

Jooseppi, I appreciate the pictures. I could drive up to MA in probably 4 1/2 hours on a perfect day. I would like to take the interior from that W124 with Maroon. My 87 300D has that Burgundy color. I noticed that 300E with the spoiler was bought new at a Jersey dealer close-by to me. Small world. A lot of these cars don't look picked apart either at all.

How the hell are you even supposed to pull parts from cars piled on top of each other like that?

Go here.
LKQ Corporation - Parts Search
Search inventory based on zip code. SoCal is your best bet.

Damn, those care in a deep freezer.:eek: You would kill your self trying to pull parts from that pile of iron. Do they let you crawl up on those cars?

Also I thought you wanted rust free parts, isn`t Massachusetts in the rust belt?


Charlie

Well, in a yard with limited space, you can either stack stuff or crush stuff. At least with stacking, cars can get much more picked-over before they get crushed. This yard is one of the two largest in the area despite its size, not because of it.

I'll grant you that 4MATIC #1 may be a bit out of reach :D -- still, since our stock of old 'Benzes is a little sparse, I don't mind the yards stacking so that they can hang onto stuff longer.