PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum - Finally! After seven freakin years...

I'll get more pic's up soon. This was just a quick cell phone shot to get something posted as soon as I got home.

Rather a long story on the thing. But to keep it short. I saw it on craigslist for 3K just before xmas. Was out of town so couldn't do anything about it. When I got back I saw he'd dropped his price to 2.5K. I went to see it and liked it despite it's issues. I told him I was going to look at others as well before I decided and if it sold in the meantime that was ok which was true enough as I did want to look at other options although in truth I really did want a 240D stick. The rest were either auto's or 300D's.

After other frustrating vehicles I called him a few days later and made an offer of 1800. Said I'd give him a couple of weeks to think about it but would not be raising the offer. Couple of days later he accepted it. I couldn't get back to his place for two more weeks. It's over an hours drive from mine and our schedules did not permit. Finally managed to do so today.

09:00. Me, my wife, him and his neighbor meet at his house. Neighbor was the legal owner who he'd purchased the car from a few months back but never transferred it into his name. So it still had an open title as far as the DMV was concerned. We all three, followed by my wife went to a third party title office. Made a strange convoy. A Nissan Leaf, followed by a Ford 150 followed by a 240D followed by a Saturn Vue.

Incredibly my wife who was bringing up the rear managed to lose us. I told her nobody on the Mercedes forums would ever believe I'd manged to outrun a Saturn Vue with a V6 in a 240D! But there it is.

Anyway. Got the title transferred over to my name. Paid the kid, drove the car home and went straight to the emissions station. The pass requirement is 20 ppm particulates. It passed with 3.1 ppm. Drove straight to the title office near my house and did all the necessary paperwork. Got it all squared away. New title, new plates etc. And ordered special plates for it as well which should arrive in four to six weeks.

It has issues. There's blowby. About the same as my last one which had the same mileage when I bought it. But the previous owner had had it for six years and had all receipts going back for that period. Including every fuel fill up. He was part of a bio diesel co-op. He'd done a lot of work on suspension, brakes, etc and rebuilt the driver seat. It rides great, steering is good as are the brakes. The shifter linkages are sloppy and need to be replaced. The blower fan will not switch off. I think the bowden cable is stuck and the glove compartment wont' close. Couple of door lock issues. Right side doors wont open from outside.

The paint appears to be original and the front windshield and rubber has been replaced. Not sure about the rear. Though the rubber has not perished on the back either. There are a couple of small nicks and dings which I'll attend to in time and a couple of small rust spots but over all the body is in very nice shape. The paint appears to be original. You can see small crazing cracks all over it when you get up close but they are not as bad as others I've seen here. Probably because it's only been an AZ car for six years. Was an LA car previously. Originally owned by a psychiatrist. The guy I bought it from got if from a dentist in LA and I'm either the fifth or sixth owner depending on wether or not you count the kid who owned it for three months without transferring it's title.

All in all I'm stoked. Iv'e been looking for years and every time I started to get some funds together my truck went and busted on me big time and blew my savings. I finally managed to pull this off before the next big breakdown.

Of course the A/C doesn't work but I don't care. If it works out decent mechanically and I feel confident enough of long term reliability I'll see about getting the A/C working again but it's not a priority.

If I can nurse this to 400K or so miles without huge repair bills I'll be happy.

- Peter.