Well, no car. I tried to get to the computer sooner, but here goes.
I called the Chuck to make sure it could be o.k. and he was more than happy to accomadate, super nice guy. Then I called the dealer and asked if he could take it over to Chuck, he said sure. Before I hung up the phone, I asked what price he was asking, he said $3,000.
So, now I'm thinking $3,000 minus whatever TxBill and Chuck mentioned would need to be done on the car.
About 45 minutes later, the dealer calls. "Well, you see, it's like this I talked with my manager, and we would like to make about $500 on the deal and we've already got $3,250 in the car, so the price is $3,750." I said, well, be sure to let your manager know the items that are going to need to be done on the car, so I mentioned a couple of things, and he said "O.k." and I haven't heard from him since.
The only $3,500+ 300d I've seen was on e-bay and it was sweeeet compard to this one. So, no car.
But, there has been this old, brown, 1980 240d that I've seen for sale for a while. Didn't think much about before, but after the crap with the dealer, I thought, "Well, I might as well go take a look at it."
It's pretty rough. Looks like it was hit in the drivers side rear corner. Bent up the fender. Truck still close, but it makes a little bit of noise moving down the road.
Brakes are good, tires are o.k. Engine look o.k., too. The bottom of the oil pan was pretty wet and the bottome of the oil cooler (ATF cooler?) was wet as well.
Also, the engine seem to make a tapping sound...couldn't tell for sure. I've hear a few diesels, but the tapping sounding a little different. Didn't smoke. ATF fluid was nice and red/pink. Radiator was green, didn't seen any oil or oil scims.
Engine seem strong, shifted a little hard out of first, but after that, it was too smooth/slow. If you pressed on the gas pedal good, it would kick down just fine and move...no really it would
Rear door locks are messed up, front are o.k. I checked the vacuum lines and they looked new. Also looked like a new fuel filter and a new vacuum three-way regulator/distributor. I mean, you can hardly force the rear door locks down.
So, the back end is messed up, interior isn't so good. Oh, and the odometer doesn't work
How many miles could one expect on a 240d before a rebuild? I've heard about 175k miles. He was asking $1,250, I offered $750 and he said $800. I'm thinking about it.
I figure if it runs for 6-months with little or no $$$ put into it (I would like to adjust the valves myself, I'm sure that would be a good job for a newbie
then I would be ahead of the game so to speak.
Couple of questions (by the way, I'm going to post all of this as a new topic in a minute), how could I tell if the frame messed up from the rear-ender? How hard are parts for the interior to come by? I've looked at SilverStarRecycling and they have a few 240d's in their yard. Do 300d interior/exterior parts swap out with the 240d?
So, no 300d, looking at a 1980 240d for $750 that does drives down the road.