I have a "what could have happened " car pickup
Last May,after I had arranged to have the 82 240d flatbedded to Vermont from Florida, my wife decided she could not wait till the end of June for the delivery, so along with our daughter she arranged to have it put on the Amtrak car train from Orlando Fl to Virginia and then driving it the rest of the way home.
In Virginia the car was off loaded and the two intrepid travellers piloted the bue beauty 480 miles home in one day with zero, zilch, nada problems.
Keep in mind this was our first foray into the world of Benz so there was minimal practical MB knowledge to fall back on and all that was in my head not the girls so the "what ifs" were not even in my head.
While the car was mechanically relatively sound, they made the trip with absolutely no spare anything but a tire
When they got home, I pulled it into the shop and crawled underneath.
All the rubber boots on the front end parts were either torn or non -existent and the axle boots were dried out and cracked but only beghinning to weep oil.
I guess in this case ignorance was bliss.

The 81 was driven home from 1 mile away with no problems.

__________________
1981 240D 143k 4 spd manual -SOLD

2004 VW Jetta TDI 5 speed 300k -still driven daily