Everything's a trade off. If you buy a new car, you stand a good chance of not having to replace things like water pumps, t-stats, wheel bearings, ect for a few years. Instead, you'll have to deal with the payment and higher insurance. Plus it'll probably be made out of what was last month a soda can. Most people who drive these cars have no payments and enjoy relatively low insurance rates. Parts aren't that bad and if you get quality German parts, you won't have to worry about replacing the thing for quite a while. If you're the kind of person who loves to work on cars, this is the car for you. Plus you've got a 240D, one of the easiet and simplies cars to work on from what I've heard. If you don't like to work on cars, sell it to someone here and go buy a reasonably new Honda because believe me, you're going to have to do some work to keep it going.

__________________
Seth

1984 300D 225K
1985 300D Donor body
1985 300D Turbo 165K. Totaled. Donor Engine. It runs!!!
1980 300SD 311K My New Baby.
1979 BMW 633csi 62K+++? Dead odo