It's going to run $450 to repaint the hood on the taupe `88.

Neither the car nor the hood had been repainted. Both the body shop and the MB indy I spoke with said it can be as simple as a tiny speck of dirt landing on the hood when the car was originally painted.

The owner of the car had two 560SEL's, his and his wife's. According to the indy, he maintained them meticulously. This one was his wife's and he'd bring it in whenever she heard anything. I'm going to get the PPI done either tomorrow or Wednesday. If all's well, I'll buy it.

I also looked at a car owned by the indy. I'd mentioned this one in another thread.

This was a black `89 with 110k for $5295. It was a beautiful car, very clean Palamino interior but it had a rust spot on the back window in the corner. A piece of trim that sits in front of the rear wheel had come off but they had the piece and were supposed to replace it. The chrome trim around the driver's door was loose.

It had an ancient in-dash Whistler radar detector mounted to the right of the headlight switch. No cracks in the console.

The wheels and tires were replaced with 16" rims and new tires from a later S series. Probably the bigger issue for me was that the car has had four or five owners. Records are incomplete on it, they couldn't even tell me if the timing chain had been replaced.

They've replaced a window regulator, the left tie-rod end, the hydroshock for the rear end and the A/C condenser. The car drove well and the AC was ice cold. On the freeway, I heard a slight squeal when the A/C kicked in.

Even though they're an MB indy shop, they didn't object to me taking it to another shop for a PPI. In fact, they even offered to have their runner drop it off for me since I live about 45 mintues outside the city.

Even though I prefer black to taupe, I think a 2 owner 88 that's been well taken care of and has service records is a rarer find for under $5k. The `88 needs the hood painted and the rims need to be refinished or replaced. Either of those projects can wait until after I replace the timing chain.

Whereas I would need to take care of the rust problem on the `89 right away. The `89 looks sharp but I'm worried that it might be a money pit and the rust scares me.

~Bill