I just bought a 240D: And get this, 30 years/162,000 miles of car maintenance records came with it, absolutely free!

I was thinking about putting together a fairly extensive and easily readable excel file laying out the regularly scheduled maintenance intervals by miles and date. But then, I remembered that there are Benz-Heads that might have shared my frustration with the maintenance booklet and made their own already!

If you have any cool ideas on how to keep up with your maintenance (other than "Change it when it needs changed") - post here!

Welcome to the forum. I think a few of us will want to see pictures of the car and the stack of maintenance. That's quite a find. Did you buy it off the original owner or were they passed from owner to owner?

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1987 300TD 309, xxx 2.8.2014 10,000 mile OCI


Be careful of the toes you step on today, as they may be connected to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow. anonymous

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind.” Dr. Seuss

Free for you, maybe

Have you added up the stack yet?

Thirty years. Wow. I wonder if that's a record. Even when I got my '83 240d, which was two owners from new, it was missing second owner's contribution (which probably wasn't a lot) and many years of the first owner's tenure.

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Mac
2002 e320 4matic estate│1985 300d│1980 300td
Previous: 1979 & 1982 & 1983 300sd │ 1982 240d

“Let's take a drive into the middle of nowhere with a packet of Marlboro lights and talk about our lives.” ― Joseph Heller, Catch-22

Good point! I've attached a few photos, and here's some information:

The car was bought from the grandson of the original owner and had an entirely garaged life. I'm just not getting into the W123 game and have a few questions if anyone can help out:

1) Where is a good place to get a good match on paint? I went to the dealer, and they were only able to sell touch up pens - I'll need a bit more than that to fix a few rust spots.

2) I am aware of the recommended valve adjustments every 15k, but where's a good resource to make sure I'm keeping up with my 240D properly?

3) Any general words of wisdom?

In regards to the maintenance papers, both the grandfather and grandson seemed pretty anal about caring for the car. They even kept title/registration papers with all maintenance.

I haven't added it all up, but there were a few pages that deserved their share of raised eyebrows.

Attached Thumbnails

     

1. Try paintscratch.com

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Present
1987 300SDL
1991 300SL
1990 560SEL
2001 ML320

Past
1969 200D 1979-82
1983 300SD 1984-85
1972 250C 1982-02
1995 S350 2011
1997 S320 2012

Nice find!

I keep a log in Excel. I columns for date, miles, what was done, and cost. Nothing fancy but it works.

I keep a much fancier MPG log though, calculating MPG, Highest, lowest, running averages, cost/mile, etc. Pretty interesting to watch the fuel price over time.

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I do exactly the same - logged everything into Excel, pretty simple: Date, Mileage, work done, and who work was done by. I added in the spotty records from before I owned the car too.

I don't keep a mpg as my odometer sometimes stops working for a few dozen miles & then starts again, plus my speedometer is about 4 mph fast. Someday I'll fix those things, but....the one thing I'm really bad about is procrastination, and no computer program has been able to help me with that yet.

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1976 240D "Katja"

nice!
welcome to the forum, THIS is the best place to discover all that's needed to maintain or restore your vehicle to whatever lever YOU want it in!
just ASK us!

are your hubcaps paint free? they look it in the pics, the center is supposed to be body color. I'm not sure how I feel about them that way. part of me likes the stainless look, part of me likes the body color...
what do you think?

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
1987 300TD
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

Nice car! I have a pretty huge stack of records for the 300D because my dad did a good job of saving them. They only go back to 1995 though ... not sure where the records before that are, but I know it was serviced at the dealership (mostly) until 2002. The last dealership service invoice I have recommends the car be "retired." Everything I do now, I keep in an Excel log. It's not the fanciest thing but it's easy for me to follow: Date, mileage, items or fluid replaced, brand of replacement parts and where I got them from. I actually keep a separate one for just oil changes on the 300D (not sure why; I guess because in the beginning it was the only thing I did myself). I also have one on for my 240D, which came with zero records. I recently started one for my Jeep but I've been pretty bad about remembering to enter data, probably because I work on it fairly infrequently.
Now, I had a really cool fuel economy Excel sheet for the 300D ... but I haven't updated it in about 30,000 miles. I HAVE kept almost every receipt from every fill up with the mileage written on it. So someday I'll actually go in and enter all those receipts. Haha.

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1987 300D, arctic white/palomino--314,000 miles
1978 240D 4-speed, Euro Delivery, light ivory/bamboo--370,000 miles
2005 Jeep Liberty CRD Limited, light khaki/slate--140,000 miles
2018 Chevy Cruze diesel, 6-speed manual, satin steel metallic/kalahari--19,000 miles
1982 Peugeot 505 diesel, 4-speed manual, blue/blue, 130,000 miles
1995 S320, black/parchment--34,000 miles (Dad's car)

Nice looking 240, looks like maybe a 82 or 83. same color as our 80 240D.
You can go down to the PPG automotive paint store, and they will mix you up some paint of your paint code. think your car like my 80 is the same paint code. the plate on the radiator support will have a 3 digit number. probably 623, which is Ivory.

As far as the painted hubbies or just polished. I like the shinny look, then I like things that are chromed or polished. my Hubbies have good paint on them, but I do have some other sets that are in bad need of some TLC. been thinking of removing the paint and polishing them out. then I can have it both ways.

We got our 240 from the original owners, they had it for 30 yrs, but got no records, but did get the original invoice when they bought it. $19,000 cash.
I just started from scratch and have gone through the whole car replacing things so I have a base starting point. still have more to do.

The 85 300D was the same way, but did get a pre purchase inspection list of things needed done by the seller. guy I bought it from was selling it for a guy out of the country. maybe he was in Nigeria, HMMMM . wish I knew of the forum back then.

anyway, stick around the forum, and you will get the best help and guidance around.

Charlie

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there were three HP ratings on the OM616...

1) Not much power
2) Even less power
3) Not nearly enough power!! 240D w/auto

Anyone that thinks a 240D is slow drives too fast.

80 240D Naturally Exasperated, 4-Spd 388k DD 150mph spedo 3:58 Diff

We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics. Funny how that works

I bought my 240D new and have a WORD document detailing everything ever done on the car since Day 1. The WORD document is updated every time I do something on the car. It is easy for me to use and easy to search for when something was last done. In addition to that I also note in the service book when a routine service is done. I also have a record of every single tank of fuel and the mpg since it was new. That's 29 1/2 years' worth so far.

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Len
'59 220S Cabriolet-SOLD and living happily in Malta
'83 240D 351,500 miles original owner-SOLD
'88 560SL 41,000 miles - totaled and parted out
https://sites.google.com/site/mercedesstuff/home
'99 E300 turbo 227,500 miles
'03 SLK320 40,000 miles - gave to my daughter
'14 Smart electric coupe 28,500 miles
'14 Smart electric cabriolet 28,500 miles
'15 Smart electric coupe 28,000 miles

I do the same thing. Also, on a second worksheet I list all the mileage-based services, and have slots for when they were last performed. A few simple formulas let me enter the current mileage and get the mileage 'till next service for each item.

I'm a little jealous of the OP; usually when I buy a used car I'm lucky if they haven't lost the owner's manual. I did once buy an '89 VW Cabriolet that had *everything*, though -- service records, original owner's manual with the warranty service stamps, even the window sticker and dealer brochure. I'd never seen anything like that before.

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1981 Mercedes 300TD, 1994 Honda Civic Del Sol
http://mefi.us/images/fuelly/smallsig-us/67195.pnghttp://mefi.us/images/fuelly/smallsig-us/103885.png

I think my 79 240d came with unpainted hubcaps. I preffer them painted body color.