my 1979 Milani Brown 300D's seats are giving problems at mileage 216,000. When I purchased this car from an auction in 1997, it had been sitting in the sun for 16 years at mileage 42,000. Now, the driver's MB Tex is splitting and covering me with horse hair on my suit. While the bottom pad is acceptable, the rear seat bench is completely brittled and hard. I went to a MB junkyard, they want $ 250.00 for a used seat, which might not fit the faded coloring of the others. What do you think might be a good idea, it is not the money as I love to keept this car for a long time

Junkyards that specialize in Mercedes are probably the most expensive places to buy seats. Check out Pick-Your-Part or Ecology instead. They have fixed prices for seats, dirt cheap.

thanks for the hint. You are in SoCal? I am contemplating to replace the fron two seats and rear bench with new, while at it, the carpeting could be replaced and I will probably find the gold necklace in the process which was lost in an endeavour in the vehicle. If you are in Los Angeles, let me know where you go for upholsery or would it be wise to buy used seating and having them leather coated at a reputable Tijuana car intereor specialist?

My take on seat rebuilding: (been there, done that!)

If the vinyl cover needs to be replaced, you may as well replace the horsehair pad and seat spring (the cover needs to come off to replace those anyway) and save yourself or whoever is doing the work, some labor. That is of course, unless your seat spring and horsehair pads are in great condition. The difference between new and old is great enough to account for the difference in price, in my opinion.

A *very* attractive approach is to get used seats, plain and simple. 300D's in that body style are plentiful in junkyards and you can often find seats in really good to excellent condition. You can use front seats from any 1977-1985 W123 sedan and wagon, although the rear seats are unique to the sedan (not interchangeable with coupe or wagon).

Even if the used seats are a different color, dying / painting vinyl is a much easier process than with leather. As for a good upholstery shop in Southern California, some other forum members had good experiences with Reese Upholstery. Link below.

Super Upholstery (seats) guy in Southern California

Good luck!