First Time MB Owner
 

I recently joined the ranks of MB owners with the purchase of a 1991 300CE with less than 25,000 miles.

What should I check for regarding age and/or lack of use deterioration as opposed to use deterioration?

It had spent all of its life in downtown Chicago in a heated parking garage, but it was not an easy life. There are plenty of door dings, chewed up wheels, and a sunroof dent that is not terrible but annoying.

I'm (almost) looking forward to doing some of the maintenance and maybe repairs myself with the help of the good people here. This will be the first car where I have done anything more than oil, filter, and plugs.

Thanks.

It's a little late for this advice now, but for future reference here's what I did. I bought a used '97 MB C230 from a few months ago, but before I signed on the dotted line, I brought it to a MB dealership and had it looked at thouroughly. I cost <$100 Canadian, but they discovered over $3000.00 dollars worth of work which should be done. The dealership that I got it from agreed to pay $2000.00 and I made up the balance, otherwise I wouldn't have bought it.

This was a kind of rush situation. My co-worker has a friend who lives in Chicago with me in Indianapolis. He said on Wednesday if you don't want it, I'm going to trade it in on Monday. So I bought a one-way ticket and drove it home.

I figured that it was worth the chance I was taking for $15,000; I could probably break even if I didn't care for it.

So far, it seems to be the right choice. Even if I were to break even, it would have a better return than the stock market over the past year.