Quote:
Originally Posted by liquiddog
The market in my local areas already is drying up. It's hard to find decent samples in the Austin/Dallas/Houston areas. Especially if you want stock "rims". (Lol)
The rubber on my 1990 was terrible all around. But had over 150k on it, and probably hasn't been garage kept in a long, long time. The steering is easy and cheap to work on. The ball joints are a difficult repair. I haven't tackled the rear subframe bushings yet, but it looks like it's going to need a $300 tool and a few hundred $ in parts.
I like my car. My wife hates it.  |
My wife hated my E300D until I repaired the entire undercarriage, now she always sneaks away with it, Her reason - it drives amazing.
The undercarriage repair.
front control arm bushings + ball joints (lemforder)
front roll bar bushings (MB)
Bilsteins all around
rear link kit (meyle)
pushing like (genuine MB updated part)
new subframe bushings (collapse them with chisel and use a jack to remove them)
new diff mounts (I used a threaded rod setup (pain + cussing job)
new general tires.
By comparison - a worn out W124 drives like a new Honda Accord, a well sorted W124 drives like its suspended on elastic rubber and the road is incredibly insulated from the cabin - its taut yet supple. Her car is a 13 Altima - driving it after driving my sorted out W124 is like wheeling yourself on a red wagon.
Personally I have experienced that owning a MB W124 is a good car even by today's standards, its very solid built and is a real workhorse - The american definition of workhorse usually is a beat up Ford f100 pickup truck with jiffy lube/walmart maintenance. a MB cannot survive like that in USA - its got a great deal more parts in it than the F100 - or in this case your volvo. So before you buy one ask yourself - are you upto owning this sort of car?
They are very durable - meaning they will run pretty nice even in bad service condition, but then repairs would not be a 20 dollar part. The good thing is that you can get it to 100% service spec again, I have never had any car that could do that.