I`ve always lusted over 300TD Wagons. We have two VW TDI Passat wagons and love them but are now in the market for a MB wagon to fill out the stable. While inquiring with one TDI friend who is a good mechanic whom I respect and also owns a MB diesel, he had this to say;


"My advice on the benz is stay away. The one I bought was a great car, the seller put over $5000 of work into it within one year of the date he sold it to me, and it needs another $5000 now. He replaced everything that was failing, suspenion components, steering rack, alternator, radiator, ac system, and many other things. Now it needs a new transmission, new vacuum system, injectors, valve adjustment, shocks (again), ect... the list just keeps going on. I researched a little and found most parts to be cheap, however when my brakes failed due to leaky calipers and pistons rusted beyond reuse, I had to buy reman calipers, at like $230 a piece. The rear windows dont work anymore, trying to fix them would be nearly impossible. Basically at this point, the car is junk, or I could sell it for $2500 after putting $5000 into it. Really I could have bought a cheap hyundai brand new for the same price and had a car that would last twice as long (i put 50K on the benz, a hyundai has a 100k warranty) and even though I would be driving a hyundai, it wouldnt have ruined my driveway with oil leaks (from the oil filter housing gasket, replaced it twice at 14 hrs each, and within two weeks it begins leaking again. after talking to several benz freaks, it just happens, and theres nothing you can do about it. Tomo had the same experience, his electrical system blew up, oil leaks, ect.

Stick with what you have. If you need me to fix your B4's, you better get a benz mechanic on your full time staff."


I really want to join the MB diesel club but the above statements concern me, I respect this individual`s opinion but would like to hear what others who`ve owned these fine vehicles have to say. Kind comments are welcome.....

Is this a W123 or W124? (what year?) They rarely ever need a new tranmission, it is just an opinion of a person not familiar with the MBs. If you go to a tranny shop they'd probably say that for nearly all the problems, it just needs to be tuned properly with perhaps a $35 modulator or a $140 bleeder valve. If it needs a new "vacuum system" anyway then perhaps nothing is wrong with the tranny system at all because the tranny shifts vary strongly with the vacuum it sees. Nothing in the vacuum system is very expensive. Generally all you need is all new rubber hoses and fittings as well as that main vacuum line. What is wrong with the shifting?

It needs new injectors? Are you sure they just don't need to be cleaned? Have they been POP tested or found with a bad spray pattern after cleaning? Start off with two cans of diesel purge, if that doesn't work then perhaps the injectors should be taken in for cleaning and POP testing.

Valve adjustment is an hour or two worth work, it is very simple job just make sure to buy a new $7 seal for the camshaft cover.

Shocks are easy to change (not as easy as valve adjustment though ), price in around $100ea for the part I believe.

$230ea for rebuilt calipers is no deal, you should be able to get them for $125ea here (FastLane). Watch where and who you are buying parts through!

I really enjoy my MB, since I know how to work on cars & where to buy parts I get a lot of work done for next to nothing. If you pay retail for everything and have everything done by a mechanic, especially one not as familiar with common problems of these 123s then it could get very pricey.

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

There are a huge number of questions which his statement brings to mind...
ANd one must keep in mind he is a TDI MECHANIC... so I wonder that he can be objective...
If you talk to the guys on this forum... and poll them on the amounts of money they used to buy a car... and the the amounts they have paid for parts and or labor..... then the figures and description of what the prior owner did to the car and its costs are very suspect... I suspect he took it to a dealer for one thing... which most people can not afford.... and second I do not think that those things could have been fixed and then the car be in bad shape a year later...
You will be buying an old car.... and normal things like a pre inspection by an INDEPENDANT COMPANY...like LemonBusters or something is a good investment....
My two MB's ... the 81 wagon cost $2000 and I put almost nothing into it over two years.... except fuel..... it got 27 mpg out on the road....
My current car... an 80 240d manual cost me $500 and I may put another $700 to get the ac/ rear window gasket, and stuff fixed... but what would just the interest be on a new small cheap car... that will NEVER look or feel as nice when driving it ?
I say gather much much more info and read all you can on this site.... because something is not being represented which was important in the story about that other car... and this thread ought to get you a long way towards a good picture of the actual costs which one might expect getting one of these old cars...
Ps, I love the wagons.... and I love my 240d manual shift.... what they said about the trans may be true... so what I suggest is that you get a wagon and do what RLeo is working towards... a wagon with manual transmission... the best of all possible worlds ( quoting Candide ).....

Jeff , I can not believe that.... another one minute deal... do you think we are linked on some psychic plane ?

In the last year, I've spent a lot of money on my two (a TD and a sedan) but I view owning/maintaining these cars like a hobby with the added tangible benefits of having them as daily drivers.

Mostly, their problems have been things associated with high mileage and deferred (by the POs) maintnance. Fan clutch, alternator, worn suspension components, some rust and leaking body parts.

I have pretty high standards for mechanical reliability and expect nothing less than 100% availablility from my 300D. The last thing I want to hear from my Bride is: "...my car left me stranded." Consequently, I probably spend an inordinate of time and money on that car....however, it's still cheaper than paying the debt service on a similar new vehicle so I feel like I'm on the plus side of the equation.

I try to be smart about buying parts; I don't buy from the stealership and have opened a wholesale account with the local MBZ distributor for stuff I need immediately. Everything else I order from suppliers on the 'net.

I guess my warning to you would be: if you can't or aren't willing to perform almost all of the work on these cars yourself, it will suck your wallet dry. But, if you do you own work, and like tinkering with a well-engineered product, you'll dig these cars.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

It comes down to the maintenance history - regular oil changes almost guarantee a long term powerplant. For example my 84 300SD was my mothers, so I had a complete service history. I know my mom is not abusive behind the wheel and I had a clean no rust example. Add that the quality of these Mercedes were on the top of the curve (some would argue past about 1990, there was a decline), and I can feel no regrets about spending some money on any needed maintenance. When you have a 15-25 year old car with 150-300K miles, you would expect some, right?

Buying the best example you can find I think pays off in total ownership costs. Let's say for example someone paid $1,400 for some extensive A/C work that year and wants an additional $4-500 for a car when selling. To me, that is probably worth it knowing that has been addressed up front.

Having the car inspected before purchase by a reputable independent ($100?) is well worth it. You'll know right up front what your first round of repairs are likely to be (oil leaks?, transmission shifting OK?, worn out suspension?, etc). Parts have become a little more expensive due to the strength of the Euro, but MB has done a great job of keeping parts readily avialable.

For resources for knowledge - you can't be this forum, **************.com, and http://www.pindelski.com/ (it's a fee site now, but I absolutely can not endorse enough the information that is contained on this site by a dedicated MB owner - priceless).

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~shell
As of 2/2010:
2001 CLK55 0o\=*=/o0
13.6 @ 106mph
10K mi
1984 300SD
260K mi and going and going...
97 S600
46K miles
1991 Sentra SE-R (extremely dorked with)
www.se-r.net

Yea I started laughing when I got an email a few seconds after replying, I knew it must have been you, Greg. LOL


I don't completely agree with you there R Leo, if you have the knowledge on what needs to be fixed or how it needs to be fixed then he could tell his mechanic what to do and that itself would lower the cost quite a bit. Just like the mechanics love to replace things on a whim (tranny, injectors, ...) in hopes of fixing a problem. I think you are quite simliar to me R Leo, the fact that we want everything perfect and nothing less, this takes a little bit more work and money.

Eventually I'd like to have my site with a bit of W123 knowledge on how to fix stuff yourself, this next week or so I'll start working on it again. Tuesday I'm taking my injectors out and cleaning them then having them POP tested wednesday, so I'll take pictures of all of that and start coding my new repairs.

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

ok,,, first off... you need to understand that most of us on this forum are FRUGAL....
So relative terms like " a lot of money".... don't mean much....when PEH says that he means $12 .... when Randy ( RLeo) says that he may mean a couple of thousand.... but NOT $10,000 over the last year in maintenance for his TWO impecably maintained beautiful MB's....
So what I am attacking is the ability to put $5000 into fixing an old MB already purchased.... then it need another $5000 to get it up to snuff....
You could put an new engine out of the box from a high dollar rebuilder and replace every moving part for less money than that... that is just too much money to be anywhere near the usual or average cost of fixing up any half way reasonably kept old diesel MB.... so it would make one think that either their mechanic's were not honest, or charged too much money per hour and they got their parts from someplace charging WAY too much....
( ps, Randy is putting real leather seats into his car, for instance... stuff like that is great... but not necessary to get one to work and back in a reliable manner ).

Hehehe...That's not true! I haven't spent a dime over $4000 on mine!!! LOL!!

You've got to understand that maintaining these cars is my hobby too!! Some of what I spend money on isn't a necessity...the leather for example. In fact, if I do another one (let's say an unnamed W-115 diesel) , I may explore doing things the 'cheap-but-still-pretty-nice" way.

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Never a dull moment at Berry Hill Farm.

I do believe that mechanics also make money off of the parts though, odds are they charge retail and pay a little bit less. Who are mechanics largest suppliers? Places like napa and carquest, ever buy something there? You see on the recipts your price, retail price....

I bought my 83 this month one year ago, it had more than its fair share of problems in it because of the PO. I've put about $1500 into it and it is nearing perfection now. I did everything from tranny shifting problems, new bushings, ball joints, exhaust, climate control, tires, thermostat, belts, et cetera...

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

First of all most cars do not last this long. So some of the parts we are faced with replacing are not an issue. When is the last time you heard of someone replacing motor mounts on a Pontiac?Then, many of the parts we replace at these milages would/should be considered routine maintenance. Finally, think abt how long most of these parts lasted.

Ditto on becoming a smart buyer. Hang around the 3-4 good Forums and learn from expert MB owner-recyclers. You will pick up on level-of-effort for various remedies, reasonible costs for repairs and encourgement to move forward confidently.

You may even find the hidden mechanic in yourself via DIY posts.

Make your own luck - art

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Art Bourget

1983 300SD
1st In Class - Starfest Concours 2004
1st In Class - StarTrack Concours 2003
1983 300TDT
1985 300D

MBCA - Niagara Section

Can't resist, my Pontiac needed motor mounts every couple years. It was bad when I bought it, I replaced it and was bad again when I sold it. Nothing like parts made to fail....

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Jeff M.
Mercedes W123 DIY pages are now located here.
1983 / 1984 300D Sold
2000 CLK430 Cabriolet ~58k Sold
2005 Avalanche 4x4 ~66k

Ok, Randy, if you are going to use actual dollar amounts... you should tell everyone what you spent on JUST THE FRONT LEATHER SEATS.... to give people something of a relative impression...
How much did you give for each of your cars... and how much have you spent since you acquired them ?
Help me out here with the general answer to the original question...

Some silly comments made by that fella.

I own a VW Passat -- granted NOT a TDI (a b5, not b4) but the point is you're comparing apples and watermelons between b4 and 123... First, parts are dirt cheap (by most people's standards) for the 123. You have to be SMART when you shop for parts. Some parts I've paid 10-15 more than I should have to get exactly what I wanted (stuff you can't get on the net) -- but the "regualr parts" like vacuum pumps, filters, and the parts you see everywhere (WorldPac sites, etc.) are cheap if you ask me! And most of them ARE rebuildable. Think about the timing belt of my Passat -- you have to take the bumper off (among other things) to do the job! Now look at the 123 -- you basically "feed" it in... and it's a CHAIN!!!

Look, you don't need me to tell you that a 20+ year old car is probably going to need work. But you're looking at a car that can go 500k miles! I'm very sure my Passat won't be in that class!

As far as the dollar amounts $5000 then another $5000 and so forth and so on. I call BS unless you're paying a tech to do it all. I can tell you that I paid too much for my car, and if I were to put $5000 worth of work into it, it would be like NEW. Sooo with that said, I think the key word is "Frugal" -- as used here before.

Oh well... good luck with the choice you make. I personally LOVE the TDI wagons you have, I would have loved to have had the insight to get my GLX in a wagon -- it just never occured to me. Now I hear VW is going to do the TDI again in the Passat, only they won't offer the manual trans. Like I've made known before I HATE automatic cars... and my 123 is an auto -- and that is the only exception for me. It was the tradeoff I made for getting the diesel I always wanted to play with.

That's another thing. To some memebers here this is a hobby, and to others, it is their ONLY car. So that is something think about. A hobby is a hobby, an only car is an only car. If you can make it both -- that's great.

Ok, I'm done with my rant now.

Pete

A little bit of history on the car in question here. If soypwrd is referring to the TDI mechanic I'm thinking of, then the 300d he's talking about is 'turbodiesel's old car. I seem to remember this vehicle had pretty high miles when it was sold, even for a 300d (getting on for 300k is figure that comes to mind).

While I respect this individual's opinion (he has worked on my B4 tdi wagon also), I think he made the mistake of buying a 'cheap' mercedes. As most of you are well aware, there is no such thing.