Please help my 240D out...

[83MB240D]

Hi everyone!

I'm the proud owner (and only owner) of an 83 240D with 256K miles. I've had this car for 21.5 years and have become very attached to it. Therefore, I plan to do everything possible to keep it running and owning it for as long as possible.

The Problem: For the past 4 weeks or so, the car hesitated to start when it was cold (sitting for at least 5 hours). I would put it in the glow light position for 5 seconds, then turned the key and it would crank and crank for anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute before it started. However, when the car was warm, it wouldn't have a problem starting. It would crank once and start. Last week, the car decided not to start at all no matter how long it cranked. I bought a new battery and still had the same problem. Thinking that it might be the starter, I took it to a shop to have it checked. They checked the starter, battery, alternator, and everything was fine. They even replaced all 4 glow plugs (apparently they went out from me trying to start it so much). Now, the shop is telling me that the ENGINE COMPRESSION might be low, and that they need to do a compression test on the engine. However, they said that they need to do a VALVE ADJUSTMENT prior to the compression test. This compression test will tell whether the engine is completely gone, or if it does start after all this, that the engine just needed a valve adjustment.

Any way, my questions to all you knowledgeable owners are: Does all this make sense? I thought that they could do a compression test without a valve adjustment. The other question is: What else could be the problem? If I agree to let them to a compression test and valve adjustment, it would run me about $200 in addition to the $120 for the glow plugs, and only to find out that the engine is gone. That means ~$320 wasted.

I really hate to give up on my 240D that I've owned for 21.5 years, and hope that I can fix this starting problem.

Thanks to all of you for your input! This is a great forum!

Cal