Well, I'm in Virginia Beach this week, and on my regular stop at the Pick-N-Pull, I saw a pair of W123 300Ds. Both appear to be '85s, but one is a Euro, while the other is US-spec. Something I immediately noticed was that the Euro 300D had a driver's side airbag, antilock brakes and rear-seat headrests, while the US version had none of these items. In veiw of Mercedes history involving auto safety, and the comments from some on these forums criticizing our W123 cars for their lack of modern safety features, does anyone here know why these features weren't availible on the US-market W123?
Is it the same lame excuse as for how some obscure DOT regulation wouldn't allow us to have trunk-triangles?

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

reminds me of the movie, Tucker...

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1985 300TD Turbo Diesel Wagon
273,000 miles

The only thing I can think of is that the DOT stepped in like always and started biotching about something...

A w123 with a drivers side airbag, ABS and a trunk triangle would be pretty awesome! Maybe the Germans wanted to hog all of those for Europe? Anyone know?

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2007 BMW 328XI

As some of these active safety features don't age well after over a quarter-century, I'm not really lamenting their absence on my '82 240D or '84 300TD, but I believe that BMW started offering antilock brakes on all their US-models in '85. However all those BMW models were continued for a few more years, not discontinued soon, like the '85 W123.

Happy Motoring, Mark

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DrDKW

Never seen a 123 here in the UK with an airbag, they only became standard on later-model 124's as far as I know. But I know ABS was an option on later 123's, along with headrests etc, and warning triangle standard i think.

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1993 320TE M104
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past:

1983 230E W123 M102
1994 E300D S124 OM606 (x2)
1967 250SE W108 M129
1972 280se 3.5 W108 M116
1980 280SE W116 M110
1980 350SE W116 M116
1992 300E W124 M103
1994 E280 W124 M104
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"music and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business" -Pepys

Some issues were with the specificity of DOT regulations for "passive restraint" systems. VW, for example, had airbags on europeans models that were too small for the DOT-required minimum so US-model VW's had the ridiculous "auto-seatbelt" that was connected to the door. IIRC, the requirements were some sort of auto-seatbelt or an airbag that met DOT minimums.

Remember the motorized the shoulder belt?

I don't care much for air bags. It gives the insurance company an excuse to total a car then do a little body work and replace the air bag.

I do wish I had anti-lock breaks however. I'm not sure how such a feature would age especially from the 80s.

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-Typos courtesy of my mobile phone.

Factors for delayed or no deployment in the US include:

- lack of US standards for the feature
- lack of American understanding of the feature. Who pays to educate the public?
- competing features under development by US manufacturers
- manufacturer liability vs US laws

Some of it is the grass is greener syndrome. People complain that US cell phone coverage isn't as good as in Europe. Part of that is because in most of Europe the government mandates where cell phone towers should be to ensure coverage. In the US there is often local, environmental and political resistance to new cell phone towers. Maybe trunk triangles blind the endangered yellow bellied sapsucker.

Sixto
87 300D

I agree. But the warning triangle was standard world-wide for all 123 cars. Mine is a '77, US version, and came with the triangle. As far as why the US has so much added junk to imports, it's not about safety. It's about politicians doing business as usual.

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Don't Chrome them; polish them

here's my faux attempt at 'security':





yeah, i'd never actually use the fire extinguisher, and the airbag's not connected (car didn't originally come with one). i've got a triangle in the trunk, too, but again, prolly will never use that either. as for abs, i believe it came out in, what, 1981? which makes half the w123's uneligible for it.

but i was always under the impression that it was the other way around--that in the US, we got all the avaialable options standard, whereas in the rest of the world, each item was a la carte as an individual option

they age very well. all the '80's vintage MB's in our family with ABS still work just fine. and i do test them once in a while. the airbags seem to work most of the time too, in the accidented models i've seen at the junkyard. after a certain model year, the SRS 'brain' module doesn't even expire. i think it was 1991 and later models. previous models have expiration dates, but i've still seen the airbags on those model years successfully deploy

in fact, i bet you could take the ABS right out of the w201 or w124, and retrofit it to the w123. just upgrade the w123's brakes to w126 brakes which have the ABS sensors, then grab all the hydraulic lines and abs unit, and the wiring harness that goes to the instrument cluster. i bet it's been done before

disagree. in the US, the triangle was a little-used option not standard. i'm not even certain it was standard for 'rest of the world' models, but certainly more common.

I've yet to see a Mercedes in Europe that doesn't have a triangle in the trunk. Although there its the law to place it a good distance behind your car if you stop on the side of the road (150 meters or something like that)

Demonstrated at 2:02 in this video....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhFQGfTv-xk

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1982 300GD Carmine Red (DB3535) Cabriolet Parting Out
1990 300SEL Smoke Silver (Parting out)
1991 350SDL Blackberry Metallic (481)

"The thing is Bob, its not that I'm lazy...its that I just don't care."

That is incredibly awesome.

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-diesel is not just a fuel, its a way of life-
'15 GLK250 Bluetec 118k - mine - (OC-123,800)
'17 Metris(VITO!) - 37k - wifes (OC-41k)
'09 Sprinter 3500 Winnebago View - 62k (OC - 67k)
'13 ML350 Bluetec - 95k - dad's (OC-98k)
'01 SL500 - 103k(km) - dad's (OC-110,000km)
'16 E400 4matic Sedan - 148k - Brothers (OC-155k)

I'm GLAD I don't have Airbags & Anti-lock brakes! More "stuff" to break! Simple & effective . . .

I do carry 3 triangles though . . .

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82 240D Manual 277K and still rolling!
02 Volvo S60 AWD For Sale