Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

Well the timing chain on a 560/M117 is stronger then the 420 M116. The M116's would break the chain guides their plastic and get brittle with age. When they start to go bad you will hear it on start up, it sounds like a rattle. Now the M117 on the other hand didn't seem to break them as often. You can let the chain go for a little while if you have to. But on the other hand your better off just getting it changed and be done with it. M117's also seem to wear their cams kind of fast and all MB V8's of this era seem to need valve jobs between 150k and 200k. From your description it sounds like the kind of W126 you want to buy and that is a real good price. If he stuck that car on ebay it would probably go for around $6k. Maybe more because the mileage is real low.