Most horror stories I hear are from my relatives, neighbors, friends, etc who buy new cars every 3 or 4 years - none want one that is out of warranty. They love all the convenience but hate the failures and trips to the dealers. Most cited is the central display system. Cars are everything from hyundai sonatas to bmw 8 series.

I dont like to think of myself as opposed to new technology. 50 years of studying, researching, publishing and obtaining patents in biophysics gave me , I think, a pretty fair grasp of tech in computers, linear acclerators, ftir/quadrupole mass spec, etc instrumentation. I did acquire a pretty fair sense of when equipment manufacturers new offerings were useful innovations, or changes to make things cheaper to manufacture (and usually more expensive to maintain), or just done differently so that old spare parts and expendable supplies were no longer available and required new cap equip expenditures.

at any rate, it can be argued both ways. New cars are complex, old cars have hard to find parts and more difficult diagnosis. My brother told me today that one of his fav shops in san diego cant work on his 300d any more. Apparently they feel it is too difficult and time consuming to get parts, to difficult for the younger crop of mb techs to diagnose, and too often multiple issues, all leading to unhappy customers and low profits. So they arent doing 85 or older mb or bmw cars anymore.

thanks everyone for the input, probably selling the 202 at this point as a first step.

__________________
John

2003 Firemist Red/grey leather SL 500
2015 Palladium Silver/black mbtex GLK 350
1987 Smoke Silver/burgundy mbtex 300E Sportline (SOLD)

Click to see 87 300E