Suprising when I thought about it. I cannot remember any member reporting an accident relating to a 240ds performance. At the same time there might have been some pretty hairy situations occur. Also not mentioned..

Some traffic merges are still difficult. When you have all kinds of power.

I purchased one from a fellow that claimed he only had the power until I repaired it. For the five years he had owned it. It had about 50 percent of the normal amount.

Any owner of one should do the 0-60 test timed to see if theirs is at least in the average range. They are so different I always thought they will become a collectable car.

In the right enviroments they are still just fine.

I've owned a manual 240D for about a year now and it's been my daily. No issues with the stick on hilly terrain. Be gentle with the clutch and its got plenty of torque for hill starts. Just expect everyone including 18 wheelers to go around you.

Hats off to the Los Angeles members driving a 240d. I once had a friend helping me navigate getting on the Pasadena freeway with those super short on ramps with the stop signs. She said, “we can take the freeway just pull in here.” I had forgotten all about those silly twenty foot on ramps and got in line with my 240d. Very stressful.

The car worked very well in the Bay Area except with the crazy hills in San Francisco and Berkeley Hills. It would happily climb them but the engine would churn away as the car climbed like a tractor slowly.

After commuting many years I had a road rage incident when a guy in an Acura stopped on the on-ramp in front of me on the 237/101 interchange in Mountain View. The guy chickened out on the cloverleaf and just stopped because he was too scared to merge into traffic. I’d commuted this route ten years and knew I had to maintain momentum around the cloverleaf in my 240d. Once a year I’d get one of these cowards who’d just stop at the last minute because they didn’t know how to merge. It was a situation that could ruin my whole day. I’d installed super loud air horns just for this. I came up on him without braking and I hit my horns. He freaked and accelerated from 0-60 and merged. I followed him.

Then he slowed down to a crawl and got behind me. Giving me the finger. Honking. Flashing his lights. I did something really dumb at that point. I started coaling him. He started buzzing all around me like a hornet in the Acura. In back nearly touching my bumper, in front slowing down to a crawl. I was helpless in the 240 and just had to sit there taking it.

It got serious as we started to drive through the city. The guy wouldn’t quit. I thought about pulling over and just seeing how tough he was outside his car. But then I realized that could be a life changing moment.

By the time we were three blocks from my house I realized I better not let him know where my nest was. I went to the police station. He broke off when he realized where we were going.

The funny thing is since I commuted that route everyday, I saw him again. Pulling out of his driveway going home. I got to see exactly where he lived. It took some serious self control to leave it at that. He wasn’t worth it.

All in my 240d. I took sticking to my commute “strategy” too seriously that day. Having a guy stop on an uphill on-ramp right at the merge put me in an awful situation that just got worse and worse.

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles

Because my 84 wagon is in the paint shop and my 85 wagon has a front end shimmy I haven't gotten around to fixing, our 240 has been our main family interstate travel machine since the start of the year.
I have never had issues on the interstate with it, but its also currently getting good reviews from my wife and my 17 year old son.
Sure its not the fastest off the line, but it merges with traffic and does fine at highway speeds. It does get loud above 70, but I have no issue running with traffic. My son recently admitted getting it to 90 and he said the motor was completely wound out, but its designed to do that.
I guess I am not seeing the issue. It doesn't go to Atlanta or Nashville much, but when it does its fine.
I actually drove through LA traffic in my 85 a couple years ago towing a trailer. That was probably equivalent to a 240 in the same traffic. Maybe it was my TN plates, but people laughed more than road raged at me.

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1985 300 TD 448K
1984 300 TD 278K

1983 240D euro 240k
1994 f-250 idi turbo 330K
1986 f-350 IDI
1987 F-350 IDI

1985 JD 1050 4wd
1965 IH 3660

you gotta do what you gotta do.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

When in Europe I saw a vw air cooled (back in 73) towing a 16' or so caravan. (travel trailer). They don't even build pickup behemoths like ours at all over there I don't think.

If you have a hill, you must shift down.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

Years ago I had a '86 Jetta diesel non turbo that was frustratingly slow to get up to speed. Is the 240D better or worse in acceleration?

Automobile Catalog gives the 0-60 time for the '86 Jetta Diesel 5-speed as 18-19 seconds. The same gives 0-60 time of 21-22 seconds for a 1984 240D 4-speed manual or a 0-60 time of 23-25 seconds for a 1984 240D automatic. In other words, the acceleration of any of these cars is better measured with a calendar than a stop watch.

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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!)

The diesel engines Volkswagon used I felt where built under license from Mercedes. Just a suspicion.

The natural aspired ones where slow. Starting in 1985 they sold the same size engine with a turbo. For whatever reason they continued selling the Natural aspired ones as well into the 1990s. Installing higher gear ratios in the transmissions to give them a little more acceleration eventually. Personally I never liked that attempt.

The turbo versions did much better and they at least equaled the fuel millage of the Normal diesel engine. Volkswagon had an interesting formula. The total parts count for the vehicle was very low,

Easy and cheap to repair. Perhaps one of the more durable cars of that time. The best years we found where the 1985s and 86s .

Unfortunatly they would not self start reliably in really cold weather. You had to resort to the block heaters.

The vw diesels from the 80's were belt driven, had a rotary pump and used prechamber "inserts". MB didn't build their engines like that.

VW did inherit a MB designed gas engine from the Audi F103 back when VW bought Audi from Mercedes and then supposedly used some of its design when they were making their EA827 (their diesels were based on it) but Im not completely sure about that.

The vw diesels had much in common between the gas and diesel engines. I believe they actually used the same short block with a small combustion chamber head on the diesel. Mercedes used the same strategy in their diesels, but the vws were vws and the benzes were benz based.

Back in the seventies a lot of other brand cabs had Mercedes diesels in them.

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[SIGPIC] Diesel loving autocrossing grandpa Architect. 08 Dodge 3/4 ton with Cummins & six speed; I have had about 35 benzes. I have a 39 Studebaker Coupe Express pickup in which I have had installed a 617 turbo and a five speed manual.[SIGPIC]

..I also have a 427 Cobra replica with an aluminum chassis.

I just did my first extended road trip in my perfectly running 1982 240D, almost 800 miles which was mostly rural roads but several hundred of interstates with 80 mph speed limits. Before, that high speed limit was an ordeal with the 65-67 hp diesel just howling. I put in a 3.07 rear end to replace the 3.69 and it is like night and day. I even ran up the engine to see how fast it would go and I was over 90 when I ran out of straight road. Very quiet at 65-70. A little slower accelerating of course but no problem keeping up with the speed demons. The 3.07 would have been a better choice for American roads . The 3.69 is nice for taxis in the city. Gas mileage went up as well.

My old 240D had great gas mileage. In fact the gas mileage was so good that I've never had to put gas in it because it didn't need any

Family of 4 in our 1981 240D, got a running start at this hill on the 73 toll road in So Cal, this was our speed as we approached the peak. The car runs perfect.

I hope this clears things up for you!

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1981 240D Four on the floor, Orient Red over Parchment, bought with 154,000 but it's a daily driver and up to 180,000 miles, mostly original paint and all original interior.

This may help too.

If you’re in a hurry this is not the ride for you.

I love this car.

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1981 240D Four on the floor, Orient Red over Parchment, bought with 154,000 but it's a daily driver and up to 180,000 miles, mostly original paint and all original interior.