The worst place to be is in an ageing Mercedes-Benz, that you are getting a very favorable deal on, only to have repairs come up that tap you out of even being able to do the repairs, because of their costs, because you believed that the initial purchase price was it, with no big expenditures needing to be made. That's the rub. It's almost impossible to accurately predict the when of what repair surprises our ageing MBs will throw at us from time to time. No real help, just agreeing with you to beware of coming costs on a used MB.
The good news is that you know the previous owners, and how exactly they cared for it over the years. That is worth a lot, as well as maybe getting a price break because they're kinfolk.
