I saw an ad in the paper for an 1985 300D California car with 168k on it. It was close and only listed for $1600. It was a rainy Sunday morning so I went and looked at it. First I was really surprised at the condition. It was grey with a black MB tex interior. The wood was close to perfect, the peice on the glove box was broken, the seats were good no rips, cracks. There were a few small trim pieces off here and there but overall very nice. The exterior paint needed a buff jub and there was a little rust under the rear bumper. All the windows and sunroof worked.

Mechanicals: It was in the low 40's and the car had sat all night. There was no block heater on this car. It fired off instantly after the glow plugs were on for like 15sec. No smoke, idled nicely. Oil pressure pegged on 3 bar. This car is owned by a MB mechanic who is selling it because he bought an SDL.

The bad: This is a Cal. car complete with EGR and Cal. style air cleaner. But it has been it CT since 1996 according to pretty good service records. The cruise control and AC don't work. There is a clunk comeing from the back. Aslo the steering rack needs to be replaced. It is harder to turn the wheel left then it is to turn it right. Not noticeable on the road but when sitting you can tell. Owner offered to split cost of repair. The car also felt very slugish. Even the owner said it felt slugish. You had to floor the peddle to go and keep it down. It almost felt like the turbo was not spooling up. It would only go up to 4k before it would shift. I think these engines should spool up to like 4.8k?

Other than these issues it drove nice with good firm shifts. I have a few questions though. Can the steering wheels be adjusted on these cars? My knee kept hitting it. And there is no room down by the peddle's my shoes kept hitting something. These two things made it kind of uncomfortable to drive. Also do you have to keep the peddle down to the floor all of the time? I thought it was a very good car for the money, even though it is not the model I really want if I could have gotten comfortable behind the wheel I would probably have bought it. I think I will keep looking for the right W126.