First and Foremost, I want to thank EVERYONE that has posted in response to my numerous inquiries during the last few weeks. A debt of gratitude to you all!
I am absolutely thrilled to report that I have finally found what I was not even expecting to ever find. In the last three weeks, I have been looking for a fairly clean & decent running mid-80s 300D or SD in the relatively lower end of the price spectrum. As I recover from recent back surgery, I need a four door car that’s easier to get in & out of than my beloved 107.
Frustration does not even begin to describe the garbage that I ran across, both vehicular and human. After hearing numerous times over the phone how people were the “first owner”, how they took “meticulous care” of the car, the paint is “all original”, the car is “perfect”, etc., etc. – and then finding rolling garbage heaps that had been abused, neglected, revived from wrecks, paint that looked like a graffiti attack with cheap spray paint; dribbling smoking hulks with half the accessories not functioning & bondo applied with a trowel…Well, you get the idea – I was starting to lose faith in humanity when people lie to your face and expect you to be so stupid as to believe them. But I digress…. back to the car:
I called on an 84 SD, was told it was a one owner car that this guy (seller) had picked up in some sort of trade, perfect original paint, everything works properly, immaculate condition, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, uh-huh, right, sure. (Geez, am I becoming a little skeptical by now?)
We walk over to where the car is parked and at a distance, I see that it’s actually a D, not an SD. I immediately start to think the worst things possible about this guy – I mean, come on now, at least tell me what model it is before you drag me out here to lie like a dog. We walk up to the car: a 1984 300D with 197,000 miles. WHOA – TIME WARP! This car looks as though it was stored in a hermetically sealed vault, and was just now seeing the light of day after 17 years. I mean this car is unbelievable. The license rim says something about ‘worlds greatest grandma’, and this really IS grandma’s immaculately spotless car. Original paint. Barely any *very* light door dings and some minor stone chips in the paint at the leading edge of the hood. Grandma must have never gone more than 55 MPH and parked in the furthest reaches of parking lots, away from the door bashing hordes. And yes, it really has NEVER been resprayed anywhere at all. This car must have been in a garage at all times except when she was driving it. Unbelievable. (Did I already say that?). The front seats are absolutely perfect underneath the immaculate sheepskin covers. The wood, dashboard, floor mats, and rubber seals are all perfect. There is not one single thing that does not work in this car, and I mean NOTHING, all the way down to the light bulbs in the sunvisor. I think that any time this car so much as hiccupped, let alone something broke, she must have immediately brought it in to be fixed. The car drives beautifully, except for the really nasty-hard trans shifts (to be dealt with this weekend), the A/C probably needs a couple ounces of R-12, and, well, that’s it. Gee, do you think I should buy this car? DUH. $3500 dollars later, and now grandmas car is my indoctrination into the land of oil burners. It’s already growing on me in its own sort of peculiar way.
I am not writing this to brag about the car. I am just so incredibly ecstatic to have found a car in this condition! I could not have possibly done it without everyone’s help – I knew what to watch out for, and how determine a simple fix versus a major problem with the knowledge gained here at ‘MercedesShop.com’. I hope that this will be some inspiration to those people looking for a good car. They really are out there if you look hard enough. Kind of like… “Yes Virginia, there IS a Santa Claus”, only this is “Yes, there really ARE cars owned by little old ladies that maintain them in meticulous condition”.
Thanks again everyone!
06-07-2001, 04:38 PM
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