What do you guys think of this 87 300TDT?
 

http://tinyurl.com/22qlcdp

I pulled the trigger on it already but would love to hear what you experts here think about it. Good purchase?

I want an '87 TD in a horrible sinful way


but I'm not huge on the color, altho it appears to be a nice example, something I don't see around here :(



mileage looks decent as weel

The car looks good and seems to have been well cared for. A hard find with no rust and many working features. It's a rare car! $5800 was a fair price IMO.

Many that you can buy for $2000-$3000 need at least a couple grand in work or so anyway.

Hope you enjoy it!!

Nice looking car.
While you dont qualify for the cheap wagon club, You probably paid a fair price.

Good Luck with your new wagon !!

nice text from the ad. for posterity!

here is quite possibly one of the nicest Mercedes Benz turbo diesel wagons available. Also known as the Touring Sedan, this vehicle is a classic and becoming more difficult to find in the diesel model. For those of you in the market for one of these, I don't need to convince you of the qualities that this car exhibits. For all the rest, the following is a brief highlight of the 300 TD. Out of a total production run of approximately 2700 vehicles, about 1000 were imported into the United States. This diesel model has a powerful 6 cylinder turbo-charged engine designed for autobahn travel. These engines (and their transmissions) have legendary reliability and fuel efficiency (31 mph - my average). They also have been known to easily reach 500K miles. Because the vehicle is fairly heavy, the chassis is very stable at high speeds and it was produced with a robust suspension system. As is typical of Mercedes, this vehicle has responsive steering and plenty of comfort and minimal noise. These vehicles came standard with many features found only later in subsequent makes and models. Included standard are anti-lock brakes, automatic rear suspension adjustment, airbags and supplemental restraint system (SRS), power windows, power memory seats, power sunroof with tilt and slide features, heated windshield wiper fluid jets, headlight wipers (which have been removed), automatic rear hatch latch, motorized antenna, fold-down third row seat for a total of 7 passengers, 110 volt plug-in engine oil pre-heater, emergency kit (never used), aluminum wheel rims, and adjustable roof rack.

MECHANICAL

This car is mechanically in great condition. Everything works as it should - yes, including the clock! It starts well and idles very smoothly. The head was removed and rebuilt in 2003 by European Motorsports. New head gasket, EGR valve, catalytic converter and electric radiator fan installed in 2010. There is no slop in the steering and the suspension is still solid. As owners of older Mercedes may realize, MB transmissions (although extremely reliable) sometimes shift "hard" in lower gears. This vehicle also exhibited this tendency between 1st and 2nd gear. I have had all the vacuum lines replaced with genuine MB parts and this has solved the majority of the problem and the shifting is much smoother. The plug-in engine oil pre-heater allows for easy winter starts and quick warm up time. The turbo charger still performs as it should. The air conditioner works very well. It has been known to disengage itself if one tries to accelerate the car too quickly from a standstill. It eventually resets itself. This is probably normal but I've never bothered to look into the details of how or why. This car was not designed for racing but it is beautiful at high speed and is a pleasure to drive! I have all the maintenance records.

VEHICLE CONDITION

A picture is worth a thousand words. As you can tell , this one is in very good shape. It has been garaged and covered when not on the road. There is no rust on this vehicle. It has spent the majority of its life in California. The paint is in good condition with some haze on the hood and some minor dings and scratches as is expected. There is one small dime-sized nick in the right wheel fender as noted in the pictures. The interior is absolutely near perfect. There are NO cracks in the dashboard, the leather steering wheel is perfect as is the leather shift knob, and the console and dash is perfect. All the wood work is beautiful. No tears in any of the upholstery - including the headliner. I have had the front seats professionally re-upholstered and firmed-up slightly along with the front headrests. The car comes with the brand new MB genuine sheepskin covers (if they fit any of my other cars I wouldn't let you have them!). The structural pillars between the front and rear seats have also been reupholstered. The rear seats and the 3'd row seat are perfect and firm. The carpets are exceptionally clean. All the interior door panels have been removed, inspected, and reinforced where necessary and found to be in structurally good shape. I installed a mid-priced CD player but have the original Blaupunct radio/tape player that was reconditioned. The motorized antenna works well. Some of these chassis have had a propensity to corrode or rust along the rear quarter panels near the lower edge of the rear windows. This is usually evident as the paint begins to blister but not always easy to detect otherwise. I have had both rear windows and rear hatch removed for inspection for this reason. No problems were encountered. I have also had the 5 rear windows professionally tinted - with lifetime warranty. They make a big difference in the heat-gain and protects the interior from the harmful effects of the sunlight over time. Although the tires have lots of tread wear available and look to be in great shape, they are about 5 years old and you may want to replace them due to their age. The original "doughnut" spare tire was replaced by a standard tire and is therefore a rather tight fit in the spare tire receptacle - but it does fit acceptably. This car still has the original, never used first-aid kit. How good the contents are I couldn't tell you! As I mentioned previously, both headlight wipers were removed as one had failed completely. I have not bothered to replace them - that's something you can do if you're a purist.
This car is not perfect, but it's probably about as good as you'll find for its age! I'm only parting with it because of the times we all find ourselves in. Otherwise, I'd just as soon keep it.
Mercedes-Benz : 300-Series
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I think Tylers up in that area. I hope he chimes in on this one. he may know of the car

Looks decent. Same color as mine.

if you want a set of headlight wipers, i took mine off when i put depo lights on.

PM me if interested.

At this age, if the ride is bouncy instead of firm, change the spheres. (accumulators)

sweet ride !

I certainly have a soft spot in my heart for the 87TD, I LOVE mine, and while I've paid significantly less than you did, Mine has needed several improvements, and several more still to be done.
I've got about 3K in mine so far.
keep us posted on what you think of the car after you get situated in it, and let us help as you run into the inevitable problems with the nearly 25 year old car.

Thanks for the great feedback so far!

I couldn't be more thrilled to finally get one of these...thrilled to get back into a diesel and out of my mind thrilled that it's a 87 wagon. I've been dying for a wagon for quite a while.

I'll have to fly into ICT and then drive her back to the Southern California coast. It's 1400 miles if I take the 54 out of Wichita to 40 route. If anyone has any recommendations on the best route to take so that it breaks up into three 8 hour driving segments (not sure that is possible) that would be stellar...and any tips in general on cross country driving in a newly purchased USED car would be very welcome. =)

87 300TDT in Wichita Kansas
 

Can you tell me the user ID of the Tyler to whom you are referring? I'd like to PM him for tips on traveling through Kansas etc...

I can see it being an excellent daily driver for you. I love the exterior color of it. I would not have paid that much for it, especially since the seller eluded to the strong likelyhood that it is already rusting. Sight unseen, there's no way in h___ that I'd buy a car this old for that much money, without a complete inspection in person with the aid of an indy mechanic and a lift. But if you're happy, that's all that counts. I can see where the seller could stand firm and get the asking - if $5,800.00 was what it took to buy it now. So, if you wanted it, you either had to pay his price or walk.

His user ID here is: TylerH860
 

Tyler actually put out an alert here on this very car earlier this week on these forums.

Tyler is a resident of Wichita, KS. He has a dandy indy mechanic that does work for him, but I don't know if the guy would do work for anyone else like he does for Tyler, though.

With the right indy, you could keep that TDT on the road for a long, long time. I have limited (very limited) mechanical skills, so a good indy is valuable. One that won't break you financially that is....

That's the route. Through Flagstaff, Kingman, AZ into So. Cal.

I sent Tyler a PM, thanks a bunch. As soon as I get her back home I'm taking her to my mechanic, Enrique, at MR MB in Tarzana for his evaluation.