I've got a total of about 100,000 miles on 2 240Ds. My average over those 100K miles is 27.6 mpg. A few people might get a little higher--maybe up to 30--but I drive the cars year round and winter fuel consistently lowers the average.

Anybody who says 40 mpg for a 123-model 240D is either unable to calculate averages or lying. I've never seen the 40mpg claim made except in a used-car sales ad.

The auto and manual models have the same power. The manual is usually a little faster because users wind up the engine more. I like the manual model and wouldn't own an auto-trans model (as long as I could find a manny tranny). The early models had 62 hp (through 1979) and the later ones 67 hp.

These are not rocket ships!