Thanks! The color and the manual trans/windows/climate control and lack of sunroof are why I picked this one - can’t WAIT to get it back on the road this spring but this damned weather is keeping it locked up another week or so.....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is the mentality that causes others like me and OP to have to spend the big bucks to keep these cars in the proper shape

Something else to think about.

The OP started out with a rust free car and is tending to repairs to keep it nice. This is far different than starting with a rusted mess and trying to make it good.

Some spend much more on a car restoration that sits in the garage most of the time, what sort of return on investment calculation would justify this over something he is driving?

Given the $ put into the car, I've have a very detailed conversation with your insurance agent. Many on this board have thought their comprehensive / collision insurance would cover the car but have found it was nowhere near able to make them whole again.

Some coverage is just a limit with ( sometimes lower ) market value determined by the adjuster, other is a limit regardless of what the car is " worth " on the open market.

Once our guy gets the car up to standard, he will get many miles out of it.

Sure, it is possible to minimally maintain a car in order to say it is costing nothing, but there is a finite end point for this kind of car.

FWIW, I wouldn't have bought my car if I knew it was going to cost me what it has so far. But, I bought it as a disposable car to drive while looking for another vehicle, and ended up loving it. That other dream car has since been sold, the W123 is still here.

If you don't change that timing belt prettydarnquick you're going to suffer a catastrophic failure that'll easily pass the car's value in repair co$t..... .

My Son makes handy money picking up the pieces after many Subaru owners (He owns a WRX Wagon and loves it) fail to change that timing belt by your mileage .

-Nate
(stupid **** who buys raggedy sow's ears and never quite reaches the silk purse standard but loves every moment behind the wheels of various W123's)

FWIW...

I kept a spreadsheet to document the costs of running my dear departed 1984 300D.

This was a car that started out as a nice clean rust-free example with a few minor flaws. I lovingly maintained that car, rebuilt the front end, brakes, and changed out various bits & pieces over the years. In addition to the usual w123 stuff, like motor mounts, injector nozzles, and fluids, filters, belts, vacuum pods, I pulled the head to do a valve job and installed a new water pump, thermostat, and radiator. I also tweaked a few things here and there (boost controller, trans vacuum system, etc., etc.) so that it drove like a proper w123 should.

I did (almost) all of the work myself, using good quality parts.

When I sold it (which I shouldn't have done!) I received almost one thousand dollars more than I originally paid for it. So, the bottom line:

Over approximately 14 years of ownership, my actual monthly cost of ownership, minus registration, insurance, and fuel was....

__________________
Current rolling stock:
2001 E55 183,000+ Newest member of the fleet.
2002 E320 83,000 - The "cream-puff"!
1992 500E 217,000+
1995 E300D 412,000+
1998 E300D 155,000+
2001 E320 227,000+
2001 E320 Wagon, 177,000+

Prior MBZ’s:
1952 220 Cab A
1966 300SE
1971 280SE
1973 350SLC (euro)
1980 450SLC
1980 450SLC (#2)
1978 450SLC 5.0
1984 300D ~243,000 & fondly remembered
1993 500E - sorely missed.
1975 VW Scirocco w/ slightly de-tuned Super-Vee engine - Sold after 30+ years.

My axioms:

1) 'similes per mile' is good until you need to fork out $$$ on a 30+ years old car. Or roll underneath the car if you DIY.

2) I would not buy 'comprehensive' insurance on an old 30+ car. It does not make sense.

3) Restoration and 'daily driver' do not appear in the SAME sentence. Restoration = garage queen, if you really sink big money.

4) You cannot have ONE 30+ years old car as a daily driver. You are taking your chance big time. You need more than 1 as a back up for whatever reasons.

5) You can claim MBZ has 'character' all you want. It is a bad investment, old or new, period.

A 2005-2006 CDI can be had now for under $8K or less. GLK250 $15K. Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Hyundai for much less. They all make good daily driver with little worry and minimum maintenance. I would not call it 'smiles per mile' but 'worry-free per mile'.

Sinking money into an old MBZ is BAD investment no matter how you cut/spin it. The bottom line is that it is your money, spend it whatever shape and form you like. Enjoy the car while it runs good but stop crying when it is in the shop AGAIN. May be my mentality is much different from others, all these cars are disposable cars. You try to maintain it the best you could to make it run good, in you spare time. I meant spare time as life is too short to roll underneath them all the time. If you find you cannot justify the repair costs then just move on to another.

p.s. don't get me wrong. I enjoy all my MBZ and they have given me great service and extremely low running costs. I use 'running' costs as I add all insurance, license, fuel and maintenance costs together. I started with 1 MBZ in 2008 and have never pushed one over the cliff yet.

__________________
Not MBZ nor A/C trained professional but a die-hard DIY and green engineer. Use the info at your own peril. Picked up 2 Infractions because of disagreements. NOW reversed.

W124 Keyless remote, PM for details. http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/mercedes-used-parts-sale-wanted/334620-fs-w124-chasis-keyless-remote-%2450-shipped.html

1 X 2006 CDI
1 x 87 300SDL
1 x 87 300D
1 x 87 300TDT wagon
1 x 83 300D
1 x 84 190D ( 5 sp ) - All R134 converted + keyless entry.

Hmm, Subaru spec is 105k miles / 105 months. I'm at 85k miles and hitting ~120 months.

Might bump this up the priority list a goodly bit. Thanks for the warning.

__________________
617 swapped Toyota Pickup, 22-24 MPG, 50k miles on swap

Hmm. You are referring to these cars as disposable vehicles and I don't understand why? A honda, kia, GM, ford is a disposable throw away/huge junk loss trade in car. Not a Mercedes-Benz of any model, especially the 80's and earlier.

I'm not judging you dude, I'm just saying, I see W123, W115, W116 etc as masterpieces of engineering that should be restored but owners can treat them however they want to. It's their possession and they can choose to maintain, drive, store, daily driver it etc. I don't have the freedom to do everything myself because I live in a nice area near lakeshore Toronto condos and don't have the space to do so, even though I want to. There's old school German mercedes benz shops here in Toronto to do that for me and I don't mind forking out some money to have someone do a nice clean job while I'm at work (Forli Motors Toronto). When I can, I'll visit the parents and do small things in their garage.

In my opinion, these cars should not be some piece of junk that was bought for $500-1000 and parts thrown in it just to keep it rolling down the street cuz it's 'cheap to own diy' and can be driven forever with huge neglect. I've seen these cars neglected for decades and they still drive fine but the abuse shows over the years. These cars are VERY DIY friendly because they are semi easy to work on and there is a lot of documentation on how to do so.

I'm young and have multiple vehicles, as well as a large budget for them per month. Instead of driving a safe, new, reliable daily driver (which I have), I choose to drive this one because I'm not one to let it sit in the garage 4-5 days a week to pet it. If I crash it, I crash it meh. I have a proper appraisal and I'd be given the amount I've spent on the car including maintenance. I'd probably buy a W116 from texas or the south if it were to get written off TBH.

I made this post to show others what the true cost of maintenance/ownership is for a daily driver and not doing everything yourself. Keep in mind I've only spent over 2K CAD (1547USD) in labor. The point is that it's less expensive to restore one of these cars then to invest your money into a Kia, Honda, Ford etc. The loss alone over those cars in the first 5 years would surpass restoring one of these older benzes. I really wish more young people and the new generation would invest their money into finding good models and restoring them, themselves or by shops. People want to feel safe in a brand new Kia, Honda, Ford though. Not everyone has the benz bug.

Check this guy out - Mike Finn on instagram. He's someone who owns a W123 model and spent 10k+ USD restoring it. Another example of the same generation as me spending some good money restoring an older benz. He does more stuff himself as he has a big house in Cali. Could he do it for much less? Could he source the parts used so it only adds up to 2k total instead of 10? Sure. I guess but we choose to buy new (Mercedes Benz only parts) if available and have some bigger jobs done by professional shops.

https://www.instagram.com/therealmikefinn/

__________________
1976 Mercedes 240D (Sold)
1985 Mercedes 300D Turbo Diesel: 500,000KM
1986 Mercedes 300E (Sold)
1988 Mercedes 300E (Sold)
2002 Mercedes C240 (Sold)
2008 Mercedes C350 4matic

A great site for purchasing industrial rubber products!

Industrial Rubber

Once it snaps, and it will ere long, the valves will crash into the pistons and about 1/2 of the time destroy not only at least one cylinder head but also break the block .

Not to mention they've cleverly designed it so the $$ plastic timing covers all go crunch at the same time .

As I said : #1 (and only) Son buys either dead cars or two junkyard engines to make one, it's easy bench works and good $ .

Don't delay and DO NOT use anything but the Dealer belt ! .

-Nate

You know, it's funny you say this. I compare DIY car work to weight lifting/working out. I loathe the thought of it until I get my blue overall dickies on and get into the thick of things. Then partway through, I revel in the mucky, oily gritty, glory of it all. When I'm done, I get a deep sense of satisfaction. Agree though, these cars are poor investments.

My wife for some odd reason loves me covered in grease. I lucked out on this one.

With that said, I'd like to share my tale of woe to the group.

I purchased my 380sl sight unseen from Ebay. The seller was a retired salesman of a dealer in SoCal. The car had a stack of dealer repair receipts, recent restoration, and all sorts of goodies. I thought everything was hunky dory and I decided to just take ownership of it for $8k.

Well fast forward a few days, my heart sank when I discovered that the subframe had the infamous r107 crack in it from worn suspension components. I don't have the equipment to handle such a repair so I had to farm it out.

Next up, turns out the car sat for a long time and the gas tank had gummed up, clogging all sorts of fuel delivery components. Another $1k there (my own hard work).

Oh but wait! Turns out that the same "dealer" who had done a bunch of repair work ended up f*cking up the rebuild by putting RTV on the intake gaskets causing an air leak. Instead of RTFM, they drilled two holes into the thermostat and retarded the timing to get it to pass smog. This caused the car to drink fuel and run like utter $hit. Another $1k there.

Oh and that "restoration"? A really ****ty paint job and the redone MBTEX is starting to fray. Just enough of a restore to pass it along to the next sucker.

I'd also spent bits and bobs here and there. I'm probably about $14-15k into my ride. Realistically, I need another $2000 to make it mechanically sound. Need a new radiator, belts, power steering rebuild, and a soft top because the old one is crap. I get depressed seeing otherwise well-sorted r107s with all of the bits i'm replacing selling for that $8k.

However, about a year ago I went to a GTG where I met an interesting fellow who has a startup here in Los Angeles. I did some work for him and met another guy through him who asked me to sign on with him. A few months later, we landed a few clients and are now getting paid some real money with the opportunity for a metric ton of cash more.

So as the old Knight in Indiana Jones would say, "I choose poorly", the outcome from buying my 380sl has been fortuitous to my career which has jumped by leaps because of the people I met through this crazy hobby. I also adore driving this thing, I get a lot of love from people giving me thumbs up for driving the old beast. Much more than I did with my 300D.

I'm firmly in the, "I drive it and fix it because I love it" territory. This is my only bad investment and I just DGAF because I look so cool driving it.

It's also our only car, but I work from home so it only saw 6-7k miles last year.

This is me everytime I get in my car:

Moral of the story: don't buy cars sight unseen without a pre-purchase inspection.

Edit: I should also add, a photographer in my neighborhood uses my car for photoshoots. Here's a teasing sample. You all should recognize that interior.




The most recent one was a bit more scandalous I'm waiting to see those pictures.

__________________
-Typos courtesy of my mobile phone.

I have owned my 85 300SD since 08 use it as my daily driver for commute of 100 miles/day in the heaviest most dangerous traffic in this country route 94 Chicago. When I first purchased the car I dumped about $5,000 into it because it was the 1st benz I ever owned and knew nothing about them I have since learned or I would be broke by now. The main reason I use this car by choice is that I can travel 1400 miles on 1 gal. if that of diesel it burns wvo very well as far as the ride and comfort it's hard to beat. I have about 333,333 on the clock now 3rd engine 2nd trans. so I guess what I'm saying is if you don'nt work on them there are better options out there but they do kind of grow on you. This is a wonderful site full of very helpful members of which I have relied so much on.

Third engine how?!

__________________
1976 Mercedes 240D (Sold)
1985 Mercedes 300D Turbo Diesel: 500,000KM
1986 Mercedes 300E (Sold)
1988 Mercedes 300E (Sold)
2002 Mercedes C240 (Sold)
2008 Mercedes C350 4matic

A great site for purchasing industrial rubber products!

Industrial Rubber

I have had three 190d. Paid varying amounts for each. They always need sorting, even the good ones. It always seems to cost around 5000 total for me to get the vehicle into a state I can call acceptable: it has to be something I can drive anywhere at any time without a lot of stress, and that includes at least one road trip a year without a weeks worth of planning. No winter driving however. I budget in my mind about 500.00 dollars worth of something a year for 5000 miles of driving, after the 5k spent “restoring”. All cars cost something to operate, leaving aside that one lucky 500.00 toyota that went 50,000 miles without an oil change. For the record, I use my car like a car, not a gear head trophy.

__________________
617 swapped Toyota Pickup, 22-24 MPG, 50k miles on swap