edge,

Congratulations! I have allowed life with a 1982 240D to convince my daughter it is a uniquely awesome machine too. When I speak of retiring it after she gets back from California later this summer (probably most of August will be spent driving back) she gets defensive and threatens to cry. In the beginning it was just a car, and an old one at that. Now it is definitely HER car, and it has earned a good measure of loyalty after providing unfailing service while she was in college for four years where it became the sorority house's favorite car for trips around New England.

She is determined to see it to the 500,000 km badge mileage (it is just over 300,000 miles now), and if she lived in a less aggressively corrosive part of the country on a permanent basis she would probably begin to fight back at the rust. Most of the rust is merely cosmetically offensive, but it won't be long before the jacking tubes need to be addressed, and at that point I am figuring it is time to let Mother Nature take it back. When that happens I am sure my wife, who drove it for ten years or more before my daughter, will also shed a few tears (but they both cry watching TV shows, so I am not as impressed with those tears as I used to be).

More so than even to Life Cereal, I think the "try it, you'll like it" phrase applies perfectly to these cars.

Good luck to your son on his new outlook, Jim

__________________
Own:
1986 Euro 190E 2.3-16 (291,000 miles),
1998 E300D TurboDiesel, 231,000 miles -purchased with 45,000,
1988 300E 5-speed 252,000 miles,
1983 240D 4-speed, purchased w/136,000, now with 222,000 miles.
2009 ML320CDI Bluetec, 89,000 miles

Owned:
1971 220D (250,000 miles plus, sold to father-in-law),
1975 240D (245,000 miles - died of body rot),
1991 350SD (176,560 miles, weakest Benz I have owned),
1999 C230 Sport (45,400 miles),
1982 240D (321,000 miles, put to sleep)