Well, I finally did it. Putting the E300 up for sale…
 

I simply MUST thin out the herd; too many cars here! After years of internal struggle & debate, I finally succumbed to sanity and have put my E300d up for sale on Craigslist.

Now I get to enjoy the freak show circus of scammers and mouth-breathing troglodytes that will undoubtedly start hammering my email & phone. I’m posting this here just in case anybody would be interested. It would be a shame to part this car out or let one of the Craigslist turds destroy it. The chassis is absolutely 100% rust free and straight, so it would be a great candidate for a cheap paint job and then drive it until the wheels fall off. Here’s a link to the ad:

https://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/cto/d/sherman-oaks-1995-mercedes-e300-e300d/7603008917.html


Wish me luck… please! :rolleyes:

Good Luck!

FWIW, when I sell on Craigslist I never put my phone number or email or physical address in the ad. I tell folks to use the CL Mail Relay to contact me, and to give me their phone numbers or email addresses, or to keep on using the Mail Relay if that makes them more comfortable. If any messages I get seem weird or flaky I ignore them. When I do connect with people who are really interested in what I'm selling I arrange to meet them somewhere other than my property. So far good with this system.

Almost no rust in SoCal, but the sun can be brutal, especially over the hill in San Fernando Valley. Even a little failed clear coat on black paint really shows. Painting is tedious and thus expensive. Somebody could vinyl wrap it, but also pricey (>$2K). As you say, many want flat black and chrome-delete today.

I got about another 5 years out of the black paint on my 1985 300D by wet-sanding the failed clear-coat "skirt" w/ 1000 then 2000 grit. Inside the skirt, I scraped off the remaining clear-coat debris w/ a dull putty knife. Each time, it looked OK until an outer skirt formed. Some here said (at least my year) M-B didn't use a normal clear-base paint, but rather what could be a final coat of black, then protected with clear. The underlying black wasn't perfect, but probably because of uV damage too. Anyway looked acceptable.

So, if you spent a morning you might get shiny paint, especially if a DA-polisher like I now have. Just let prospective buyers know they might need to repeat in a few years to keep it shiny. I repainted 3 cars this summer in a home-made booth so the $70 DA was justified. My 1985 300D because I replaced half the body during a crash repair, moving over fenders, hood, and trunk from a recently-repainted 1983 salvage car , so painted that color to match, which is now a modernish grey-blue. Had left-over paint so also repainted my 1996 minivan. With that fad grey color, people do a double-take, "Look at that new cross-over, it even has a sliding door. Brilliant, got to get one."

Thanks for the tips gmog220D - I definitely use ONLY Craigslist's "relay" email system to communicate with people. I even went so far as to get a separate temporary phone number just to avoid problems with spam text and calls in the future.

And thank you to BillGrissom too - sounds like you've been down this road before! One of the things I did after it started to oxidize several years ago was to use that silicone based 'wax' product called NuFinish on the paint. It worked surprisingly well to hide the oxidized surface for several months at a time. I eventually stopped using it out of both laziness and also with the thought that I may eventually repaint the car - and any silicone residue is a huge no-no when prepping for paint.

The response I've gotten is overwhelming. Out of a full a dozen replies, 3 sound like potentially legitimate people who would give her a good home. For the septic tank of humanity the IS Craigslist, a 25% batting average is pretty darn good. :rolleyes:

Great ad...enjoyed reading it. I'd buy it for the fun of it if I were nearby. Had one of these with "only" 300k on it some years ago.

she's a beauty. I'd snap it up if it was nearby. love that model car.
you are giving it away.