Overall having owned many of them at one time. Year is important to some degree. The 1986 turbo model was the highest quality point reached overall in my opinion. I just got tired of them after racking up miles and miles. I even had a little two door that I just could not seem to kill. It was an eighty five the last year with adjustable valves.

They were not notorious for having odometer issues like 123s but you do not want one unless really properly maintained at much over 130k miles or two hundred thousand kilometers.

Very cheap car to repair yourself. Count on head gaskets and cogged rubber timing belts. Although both are cheap easy jobs. Suspension and brake parts are cheap as well or where.

I have no ideal of the truthfulness of a rumour that Mercedes designed either the whole engine or parts of it. The manual transmission was almost a work of art in comparison to many. Although running it low on fluid could cost you fifth gear.

For the time and money they got a lot of things right overall. The only downside was like most indirect injection diesels they needed some attention in really cold weather.