I've been looking at a lot of craigslist ads around the country for an SDL

This car dealer in tampa has a clean 87 with 167K miles for $2900

The CL listing says $3900 but the dealers ad has the lower price.

So, do you think there's a hidden flaw with the car? I had heard there is an abundance of MB's in Florida, if that's true it would be worth the trip (12 hours)


Anyone in Tampa wanna kick the tires?

There is a flaw with the vehicle.

You just don't know what it is yet. The price is way too low for a vehicle in good shape with proper miles.

A Carfax would probably produce far more miles than the odometer, or the vehicle title is salvage.

x2 what Brian said.

I am in exactly the situation you have in terms of a very limited local market. When shopping for my first car, over months I wasted time, money and nerves driving here and there to see cars. Total loss. In the end I found one 15 minutes from home.

Based on that experience, dealers like those are my last stop when shopping. To start with, in my experience most of them tend to provide creative versions of reality in order to get you onto the lot. If and when you arrive, you find the car is far substandard to their talk. And they know you've travelled to see the car, which suggests you are hot to trot for the car, which kind of kills the "I'll walk away if I don't get a good price" option.

As a general comment, buying your first diesel Mercedes at a distance wouldn't be the easiest plan. Much of any savings is going to be eaten into by logistics: travel to go see it, hassles of finding and then scheduling and paying for a reliable independent shop to inspect it, time needed to drive it home, etc. Could involve at least two trips back and forth. If you can swing all that, great, just something to bear in mind, especially the need for a trustworthy and qualified shop to look over the car as a condition of your purchase offer.

If you are in the mood to travel, however, did you see this?
http://www.peachparts.com/shopforum/diesel-discussion/326424-two-wagons-sale.html#post3020319

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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

Probably a busted #14 head

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CENSORED due to not family friendly words

You never will know unless you get someone locally to have a look. Remember if good it will be gone quick. Dealer says little about the car lying or otherwise.

A phone call to him may or may not help either to establish if it is worth pursuing. Statitically the odds are not good but that is not a strong reason to not do a little investigation.

While I tend to shy away from dealers, it might be a good car so don't write it off just yet. On the open used car market, the car you are looking at is just another really old car that isn't anything special. Few generic people are going to go car shopping with ~ $ 4,000 and pick this over a 8 year old mini van so the market is very limited.

You never know, the car might have been someone's nice retirement car and they have since passed on. The estate might have traded it on something else and the lot is just looking to get out from under it.

Distance makes it more difficult to drive down the road and check it out. I'd call a MB dealer / trusted independent shop and see if they would give it a pre purchase inspection ( at your expense of course ) . The selling dealer may or may not want to do this. Don't be put off if the seller won't do this, the car is selling for almost nothing ( MB or not ) and they might not want to burn time / expense to transport.

If you still want the car and the seller does not want to burn time on someone that might not buy, a last option would be to draw up a contract where you pay a decent deposit and agree on what level of immediate repairs triggers price reduction / contract cancellation. The car then goes to the dealer for a check.

Lastly, don't let "Florida car" lull you into "no rust". Year round salt air is probably worse than salty snow as it dosen't go away for 9 months+.

Agree with most of this post but regarding rust, it depends on where in Fla. the car was and how it was cared for. Salt air is only a factor very near the water. At least it is here in Los Angeles, if cars are not 1 block from the beach, they do not rust. I've bought countless old cars in this city and I'm fanatical about rust, so this is not just a random opinion.

OK, now I actually clicked on the link. As someone who has traveled WAY too much to look at cars, I can tell you that I would not drive across town for that. It is simply not a nice car. I love the SDL model and have owned a good one, but when these cars transition from cucumber to pickle, it's an ugly thing. ANd they will never be a cucumber again.

Cucumber Mercedes are worth good money. Pickles are not worth dick. The two wagons in the link are also extreme pickles. I can smell them from here, and I'm in CA. I have a good friend who is a dealer and he's bought hundreds of used cars in Florida. The major problem is not rust, (though it can be a problem), it's the humidity. Cars get musty inside and in some cases, they never dry-out properly. And by never, I mean NEVER. The only way to buy a 25 or 30 y.o. Mercedes, IMO, is to buy a nice, dry car that does not smell like ass. You will pay more. Fresh blueberries are expensive. Moldy ones are not. The market recognizes this. You will put maintenance $$ into any old Mercedes, but in the case of a nice one, you will not be flushing $$ down a rabbit hole.

Life is too short for schit boxes. JMHO.

That car's come up before. It has a salvage title.

No mention of functioning AC.

Trunk lid badge placement and orange peel in close-up views suggest it's been repainted. Looks like a good paint job from the distance, though.

Sixto
87 300D

They love to bring you in to shop,question is when have you ever not seen a new or used car dealer use some kind of unsavory sales tactics to sweeten the deal on their end or chum for lot lookers.I would guess the price is $3999.,then an optional financed package they might lower it to $3500. but get you with the in house financing ball in a cup shuffle.