Anyone in Houston that could look at a car?
 

It's a 1984 300d with 204k miles from a dealer:

MERCEDES BENZ HOUSTON GREENWAY

I normally don't like dealing with dealers, but this car looks nice. I talked with the dealer and he said it has a dent in the rear-passenger door and the A/C blower is not working. Otherwise he seemed to indicate it was in good condition.

Thanks.

Thank You!
 

TxBill, that would be great! Thanks a bunch!

The salesman I talked with, Chris Canion, said there were many receipts on the car, guess that could be good news or bad news.

I'm a little worried about the mileage, but if it has been taken care of, shouldn't be a problem...right? :(

He said the engine seemed fine, transmission, o.k., but something about the blower motor for the hear/air didn't work. Brakes and tires were good. Also he said there was a dent in the rear passenger door.

CarFax came back good. Looks like it was purchased in Houston in 1984 and stayed pretty close to home.

I'm still trying to figure out how to get down there if it checks out.
I could drive one down with the wife and then drive the 300d back. I could fly down one way and drive back. Or have it car hauled up here or to Dallas and I could dive down to Dallas and get the car. The wife said if we go to Houston, she could go to IKEA? Anyway. I don't like the car-haul idea because I could probably get a new set of tires for what that would cost.

I'll let her know. We got one of their catalogs from last year and it's worn to pieces. We just contracted our own house and did a lot of the work on our own, so we have some "stuff" left to do. We need _lots_ of ideas (-:

Pics would be great if it's not too much trouble. If we do decide to get it and we drive down, I'll let you know. I sure appreciate all the legwork.

Thanks again!

Thanks Bill! I Just sent you an e-mail to the address you gave.

How much is that car, just curious, I'm not going to front-run you.
edge

EDGE, with that list of cars in your signature do you really think we are going to trust you with any information about this car? LOL Greg

I believe asking price was $3,000.

Leathermang, that represents 31 years of the love of cars! Aren't they great toys?

I agree with you Edge, they can be. I don't really have a hobby and I was kinda thinking that getting on old Benz might fix that :)

The time I spend at the hardware stores seems to take care of some of that at the moment. :D

Edge, it certainly does not look like you are prejudiced... they run the gamut in brand names...LOL... like my former cars.... Greg

Looks good! Is it gray or light blue?

Chuck is going to do the PPI this afternoon. Cross your fingers :)

Well, no car. I tried to get to the computer sooner, but here goes.

I called the Chuck to make sure it could be o.k. and he was more than happy to accomadate, super nice guy. Then I called the dealer and asked if he could take it over to Chuck, he said sure. Before I hung up the phone, I asked what price he was asking, he said $3,000.

So, now I'm thinking $3,000 minus whatever TxBill and Chuck mentioned would need to be done on the car.

About 45 minutes later, the dealer calls. "Well, you see, it's like this I talked with my manager, and we would like to make about $500 on the deal and we've already got $3,250 in the car, so the price is $3,750." I said, well, be sure to let your manager know the items that are going to need to be done on the car, so I mentioned a couple of things, and he said "O.k." and I haven't heard from him since.

The only $3,500+ 300d I've seen was on e-bay and it was sweeeet compard to this one. So, no car.

But, there has been this old, brown, 1980 240d that I've seen for sale for a while. Didn't think much about before, but after the crap with the dealer, I thought, "Well, I might as well go take a look at it."

It's pretty rough. Looks like it was hit in the drivers side rear corner. Bent up the fender. Truck still close, but it makes a little bit of noise moving down the road.

Brakes are good, tires are o.k. Engine look o.k., too. The bottom of the oil pan was pretty wet and the bottome of the oil cooler (ATF cooler?) was wet as well.

Also, the engine seem to make a tapping sound...couldn't tell for sure. I've hear a few diesels, but the tapping sounding a little different. Didn't smoke. ATF fluid was nice and red/pink. Radiator was green, didn't seen any oil or oil scims.

Engine seem strong, shifted a little hard out of first, but after that, it was too smooth/slow. If you pressed on the gas pedal good, it would kick down just fine and move...no really it would :)

Rear door locks are messed up, front are o.k. I checked the vacuum lines and they looked new. Also looked like a new fuel filter and a new vacuum three-way regulator/distributor. I mean, you can hardly force the rear door locks down.

So, the back end is messed up, interior isn't so good. Oh, and the odometer doesn't work :) How many miles could one expect on a 240d before a rebuild? I've heard about 175k miles. He was asking $1,250, I offered $750 and he said $800. I'm thinking about it.

I figure if it runs for 6-months with little or no $$$ put into it (I would like to adjust the valves myself, I'm sure that would be a good job for a newbie:) then I would be ahead of the game so to speak.

Couple of questions (by the way, I'm going to post all of this as a new topic in a minute), how could I tell if the frame messed up from the rear-ender? How hard are parts for the interior to come by? I've looked at SilverStarRecycling and they have a few 240d's in their yard. Do 300d interior/exterior parts swap out with the 240d?

So, no 300d, looking at a 1980 240d for $750 that does drives down the road.