A friend with a diesel benz wagon recommended your site, and told me he found your community very helpful. I found a 1987 Mercedes 300D for sale locally. The poster is extremely light on details in the ad- essentially saying it has 245,000 miles, he invested a few thousand dollars in it, but he is selling it for $2000. The pictures make the car look VERY clean inside and out. In fact, that's what made me consider going with the sedan instead of a wagon. I did some searching of the forums for the 300D but I mostly found very specific questions and some tire/wheel talk and pictures (which looked very nice btw!).

I found the following on wikipedia: "The W124 chassis 300D (pre E Class facelift) has the OM603 engine, which is a 3.0 litre six-cylinder turbocharged engine that appeared for one year only, 1987."

So it seems that would be the car I'm looking at. Straight 6, turbocharged, correct? Could you please help me better acquaint myself with the common trouble areas of this vehicle? I'd like to go into the test drive etc. with a little background, so I know what to look for. If the car looks good cosmetically, what should I look for mechanically?


Here are the pictures of the car

Any help is greatly appreciated