I bought the car in question a few years ago with my then-girlfriend. I did a lot of fixing the car up, eventually, she decided she hated driving the car. I ended up selling the car to a friend of mine who lives in the same town as me. I was at the gym, today, when he informed me he hit a deer with the car.


I went and checked it out in person:










He was going about 50 mph and hit the deer straight on. While the damage looks bad, up close its not horrible. The euro bumper is unscathed and the fenders sustained no damage.

When examining the car I concluded it needs:

Hood
Grill and insert
Radiator
Probably a water pump and radiator fan, the impact pushed back hard into the front of the engine.
Aux fan, although ac is not working anyways
Oil cooler looks a bit mangled, I'd assume need new lines too
Euro headlights, both got completely shattered unfortunately
The core support for the radiator is triangle-shaped now as you can see, probably find one from a donor
The middle piece that connects both fenders




Anyways we can't really get the hood open, one of the corners is about to dig into the fender if we lift up at all so we will most likely have to cut the hood off in pieces. Maybe once the hood is open, there will be more damage who knows.

Overall the car itself is in great shape its a 300d Euro with a turbo mated to a 4 speed swap. The car runs great and it was 250 miles away on a road trip when this happened. Big bummer, but what do you all think? Any thoughts, please comment. I'm trying to help get this car back on the road if I can.

You have no idea how relieved I was to see that the title of this thread wasn't in relation to your gorgeous burnt-orange W123 Euro. It sucks that it happened to another though.

For a deer strike, the damage looks surprisingly localized, at least superficially. You covered most of what I immediately thought of in your post, so not really any need to recap it. Since the hood is junk anyway, cut it off however you have to. I'd expect the hinges to be junk too given how bent up it all is.

As a personal aside from someone who lives in an area with more deer than fleas, this is my single biggest fear driving my car at night. I typically drive the Honda at night for that reason, it's disposable! Hitting a deer seems to be a rite of passage here. I've been driving for over 20 years at this point and have yet to hit one. I really don't want it to be in my Mercedes when (not if) I do.

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Current stable:
1995 E320 149K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 120K (SLoL)

Black Sheep:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

looks like a pretty easy fix unless it worse in person.....unless you think you can use it, i would cut the rad support with a sawzall and the hood should be able to be opened....carefully of course....good luck with the fix and keep the forum posted if you can!

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0o==o0

James 4:8

"...let us put aside the blindness of mind of those who can conceive of nothing higher than what is known through the senses"
-Saint Gregory Palamas, ---Discourse on the Holy Transfiguration of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ


Centrally located in North East Central Pa.

Yeah, I should have made a spoiler alert about that. Didn't mean to scare you.
I rarely drive mine for reasons like this, definitely not at night.

The car in question is kind of a Frankenstein car. When I got it it had a turbodiesel trunklid albeit it was a Euro 300d 4 speed naturally aspirated. The trunk lid must have been replaced in a rear end accident. I noticed a while back that the entire back half of the car was repainted prior to my ownership and I presume they stuck on a parted out trunk lid.

Fast forward about a year and a half, my buddy bought the car and the engine blew up on the highway in our town. Shrapenel flew everywhere and there was a massive hole in the upper oil pan. The engine wasn't even seized somehow but anyways the engine got replaced with a turbo om617. Then the trunklid matched the car, as it infact was a turbodiesel. Keep in mind the engine had been rebuilt right before I bought the car by a local diesel shop. Clearly they screwed something up big time.

Now we are here, I think it would be "funny" to keep this car going based on its tough past. Its had essentially 3 engines, a significant rear end, and now a deer.

Unfortunate. The car can be repaired. Especially unfortunate for the deer.

Same...

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1981 240D 4sp manual. Ivory White.

These things are surprisingly good when hitting animals. Sure as heck would rather be a so so w123 than anything new. Animals + new car = expensive damage

As for yours, that one's fixable. Just find a cheap w123 on CL and rob it for parts. Sometimes they're even free! Not uncommon to find for $500 that'll limp home. Hood paint won't match - That'll be your biggest expense.

This looks like Classic White (737)?
I have the same and it seems to age better than many other shades.

Surely pulling a hood from a junker would be a pretty close match?

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1981 240D 4sp manual. Ivory White.

Speaking of hitting deer, cows, armadillos, etc. I've read that the best approach is to hit them head on rather than trying to swerve to miss.


I suppose if you can get on the brakes fast enough you could avoid a collision. I have read about more than one fatality where someone swerved either into oncoming traffic or off into a ditch trying to avoid hitting a deer. Better to sacrifice the car than yourself!

Start pulling it apart and see how bad it is? I'm sure you can find the parts if it isn't too bent up.

If you can afford to, fix it .

Much of the works you may be able to do your self .

Glad no one was hurt .

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-Nate
1982 240D 408,XXX miles
Ignorance is the mother of suspicion and fear is the father

I did then what I knew how to do ~ now that I know better I do better

Update:

A friend of mine told me he recently saw a white 300d in a Pick n Pull in Sacramento so my buddy and I decided to jump on it yesterday. We took my '88 Toyota pickup and loaded up all the tools needed.

It was about 105 degrees when we got there and we did bring a bunch of water but it was gone in short notice. Thankfully the hood was still intact, the grill and insert was missing however but that is not hard to find compared to the matching color hood. Looks to be original paint and has the typical cracking/crazing which my friend's car had too. No dents as far as we could tell.






Pick n Pulls don't allow power saws I assume because of people being trigger happy with cutting through stuff. We brought a hacksaw and a few fresh blades to cut off the radiator core support:





We looked insane shirtless in the Pick n Pull but we got all the parts needed to fix this car and it was hot as hell. No doubt both Steele and I were dehydrated after all of the work we did out there in the yard. In theory it was simple stuff to dissamble but that heat makes everything 10x worse.

We ended up snagging what appears to be a brand new water pump with fresh bolts, oil cooler, radiator, updated plastic radiator fan and fan clutch, the plastic left and right spoilers, also the white panel that connects both fenders together and of course the hood and radiator support.




All that's needed is some euro headlights and a grille. At least I hope that's all we need. I'll update once we start cutting the old hood off and get working on the car which should be soon.

I'll keep you all updated

Good job.

I just rebuilt a 71k mile 02 E320 that had hit a deer. Including paint I think I ended up with about $2k in it and did use used parts that I had to drive to ATL to pick up - hood, fender and grill $150.

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Jim

I used to hit deer with my trucks. I got tired of fixing the truck and slowed down just a little. No dead critters in many years. It's a good indication that you're driving too fast if you hit things like rabbits, possum etc.

People say Things like "the dear, rabbit, armadillo, racoon, whatever jumped out in front of me". Animals aren't driving the car, aren't responsible for what the car hits or doesn't hit and will move out of the way if you give them a chance. You need only slow down 5 mph unless you're an asz and going waay too fast in which case, you (one) really need to slow down and deserve to total the car.

One deer, one car, one chance to learn the lesson.

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85SD 240K & stopped counting painted, putting bac together. 84SD 180,000. sold to a neighbor and member here but I forget his handle. The 84 is much improved from when I had it. 85TD beginning to repair to DD status. Lots of stuff to do.

Wouldn’t sweat it. Everyone else at PnP usually looks waaaay worse. Try pulling a head of an engine in that heat, with limited tools, and no air/power. Then walk the stuff back 1/4 mi to buy it.
And... cordless Sawzall! Just use it. Not gonna get kicked out for that.