How do these diesels react during a bad accident ?
 

Knock on wood that nobody here had to find out how these cars react during an accident but I was curious to know how these cars handle themselves....

do they get beat up badly like the cheap cars that are made now or do they withstand a tractor-trailor ?

Thanks

They are stiff as a semi. At least in the passenger safety cage. The bumpers on the W126 and W123 can take quite a belt too.

The W116/W126 and W123 are the models that helped define Mercedes as being "tanks".;)

They hold up well, but technology has come a long way. Most modern cars probably have stiffer passenger cabins and improved crumple zones, though our beloved diesels were far ahead of their time.

Do a search in here using "accident" maybe. There has been LOT of threads in here started by folk who's MB took had a snooker mishap. Pleny of pics too

Tried, Tested, and very True
 

I happened to be in my dad's 79 300SD (w116) when we were rear ended by a Mazda MPV driver who wasn't paying attention. He totally wiped out his front end, and got mad at us cause we didn't get any damage. Too bad that my W124 can't do that :rolleyes:

i know my 300SD is a tank...ive hit a full grown buck deer at about 50mph and all it did was take out my corner light and crack the headlight housing

also this past winter, i hit a guy who pulled out in front of me in a 2000 Chevy Silverado...i hit him doing probably 30 with my brakes locked up...i hit his truck right on his back tire and bent his frame, took out his rear quarter panel, and spun his truck over 90 degrees...the only damage to my car was a crack in my front bumper from his rear wheel and it twisted my hood a little bit, no dents or scraped off paint at all...yeah, 126's forever mannnn:D

Considering that the deer was more robust than the Chebby... :D :eek: :D

*flame suit on*

If the accident were to damage the hood so it wouldn't open and damage the engine shut off so you couldn't shut the engine off :eek:

Actually, I read that the brand new cars are designed to absorb the damage for both the hitter and the victim. In other words, the new car takes the damage, while the old car remains intact.

Plus most newer cars have flimsy bumpers, so low speed impacts could cost big $$$.

Any old Benz is a tank. The stiffest Mercs were designed before 1980. Although, since they WERE stiff, there was more potential for injury.

I agree that the newer Mercedes-Benzes are probably safer. The old ones are nice to have in the city though where people just kinda bump you when parallel parking or just out of misfortune in traffic.

I got rear ended by a new C-Class (W203). He was probably only going 10-20mph max. The diesel sustained zero damage other than an imprint of the C's license plate frame in the rubber strip.

The W203 wasn't as lucky though... broke the grille and bent the hood a little.

I gotta disagree ( a little) with DslBnz----
The statement that only the newer cars are designed to pregressively crush in an accident, is a little misleading. I have been reading that claim for 30 years at least. I'm not a M-B historian, but I'm sure the W123s were advertised with this feature--a rigid safety cell protecting the passengers and the ends designed to collapse and absorb the energy of impact so the passengers are protected. I have the sales brochures from the 504 model Peugeot which debuted in 1968 (?) which discusses the technology. Mercedes was the pioneer in this area, I believe they advertised that they did not enforce their patents as they felt the contribution to public safety was more important than keeping the ideas exclisive to M-B.
Now, does the technology keep advancing? Are todays designs, most likely better? The answer to these questions is most likely "yes". but it ain't a "new" idea.

The Fintail W110/111/112 models were designed with crush zones, since the 60's!

Fintails were first with crumple zone technology in '60 I think. I'm sure Volvo wasn't far behind to institute this idea.
Thanks
David

Hey, I'm just a kid. I was only born in 1983.;) I haven't been around for 30 years. From real-world accidents, it is obvious that newer cars crush more than older cars. For example; 6 - 8 months ago, I witnessed a 40 mph T-bone collision between a Ford Tempo, and a Lincoln Town Car. The lady driving the Town Car failed to yield to traffic and slammed into the Tempo at full force. The glass from the Tempo shattered and flew opposite the Lincoln. I watched that model 2003 Lincoln, right before my very eyes, crumple up like a piece of tinfoil. Sure, everyone was fine, and as I observed the damage and to see if everyone was OK, I was shocked.

Tempo appeared to be a late '80's to early 90's model. Front fender was flattened. Frame looked like it was pushed in a couple of inches. Wheel was slightly twisted everything else was fine. I didn't even get NEAR the Lincoln because the foolish moron who was driving it was ranting and raving about how stupid this was(even though she caused it) and that the Lincoln was her father's recently acquired BRAND NEW CAR!:eek:

Lincoln looked like it just went through the IIHS offset crash at 40 mph! Wow....

A couple of years ago a guy in a Toyota rear-ended my 79 300sd...the front of his car was BADLY crumpled, his airbag went off....It looked like he hit a wall!

I barely felt the impact. It felt like I hit a pothole or speed bump or something. The only damage to my car was bent bumper mounts\shocks. I went to the Pull-a-Part salvage yard and got mounts for $13, and pocketed the rest of the $$. :D

Mike

Think "safety" equipment may have become a runaway item...
 

adding immensely to the cost and complexity of a car, while perhaps not protecting occupants to a much greater degree.

If I could choose the vehicle to be in during an accident, I'd rather be in a W123 wearing my seatbelt in almost any encounter with fate. These cars were designed to protect BOTH the occupants AND the vehicle...bumpers you could bump, collision panels that could be replaced after a collision. A "safety cage" to absorb energy (an historical note...this feature gos back to the pontons).

A large amount of safety equipment on modern cars is what I would possibly term "gratuitous." It adds immensely to purchase price, and to the cost of repairs...on a macabre note, it may also cost insurers because victims involved in an accident which might have been fatal (and thus subject of a one-time death payment) now have medical, surgical, and rehabilitative costs running to many multiples of what would have otherwise been paid if the occupant had been declared dead on the scene.

Should next year's models be equipped with lifeboats in case the cars go off a bridge into a river? IS there a point where a car is "too safe" to make sense?

What happens when Mercedes' comes out with the new W221 S-Class with 16 airbags. After 15 years, each one of them will have to be replaced! Aye!:rolleyes:

16 airbags!
 

There's your lifeboat:p

i wonder if we took the money being put into all this new safety technology and put into teaching people how to drive correctly...it takes a whole 20 minutes for a 16 yr old to be able to be turned loose with a 7000lb Navigator or an Escalade.....i think if you had to do a little more than just thumb through a DMV booklet and then not hit a few cones on your driving test, the roads might be a little safer....but NOOOOO, you can take that $60k Navigator, run it smack into a telephone pole while you either talk on the phone or put makeup on, and umpteen different pillows will inflate to save your stupid non-driving ass

:rolleyes:

trya dding rust to the equation. Ask me how I know? Well, I'll tell you. 6 months agop I was rear ended by a '94 Grand Am at probably 20mph. I was in my '79 300SD. Well, it broke her front license plate holder and bent something. Total damage to her car was $84. Mine, well it popped bondo off that the PO lady had done and bent the frame and door frame. Also left a crease right behind the gas filler lid. Total estimate for my car was $3000. Got it all completely fixed though for $900 and even got some other rust spots fixed with bondo. I know, should have done fiberglass. Anyways, my car didn't even seem to be that rusty, oh well.
David

shhhh! dont tell anyone Want '71. we dont want to hear that. ;)

Funny this should happen at this specific time, but...

Today a Chevelle and a Dodgy Neon both backed out of their parking spots at the same time less than 5mph. *WHILE TALKING ON THEIR PHONES*. The Chevelle had no damage at all. The neon's bumper was torn a nice crack down the center and quite alot of paint was scraped away.



I wonder what would happen if two W123's hit?

If two W123's hit, absolutely nothing.;)

The W123 was the last true tank that would not ding up from a minor accident. The W126 was the last MB(in the US) to have the ultra stong bumpers and shock absorbers. The problem with the W126, is that the paint off the polyurethane can fleck off in an accident.

And, we all miss those sideguards from the W116 and W123.:(

Hows the W201 do in a bad times? I'm looking at an 87 190D today...

A low speed impact in a W201, might damage the impact strip. The impact strip is fairly cheap to replace. No the bumpers were not made to take huge belts like the older cars, but they can still take a low speed impact belt well enough.

My mom got hit by an '86 Deville(old woman backed up into it), at a speed around 5 mph. My mom's car was an '87 300E. It cracked the impact strip. I believe the W201 and W124 for the US, were the first Benz's to have 2.5 mph rated bumpers.

My mom got into an offset frontal collision with a Honda Accord in our 190D. It was in the shop for about a month being fixed and cost over $5000, but that's not bad considering each car was traveling at about 30 mph (60 total). Interestingly enough, the airbag didn't deploy. I guess the impact/crush sensor is in the center of the car. My mom was fine.

In the mid eighties when my first 240D started getting ragged I was looking for another. I saw a late model for sale in a driveway and stopped to look at it.

I knocked on the door and a friendly middle aged woman gave me the key and said she would be out in a few minutes. The first thing I did was open the hood and immediately saw SERIOUS crumple damage at the bottom of the right wheel well. She came out and I asked her how bad the accident was. She choked back some tears and said that her teenage son and a friend had a serious accident and that the car saved her sons life, but that the friend was not so lucky.

The car was almost new so it was worth a lot of money and had been totaled, but they had the car fixed, I assume by a low dollar body shop. The body work on the outside looked reasonably good, but they didn't do much do disguise the pulling of the crumple zone. I, of course, was not going to buy the car and did not ask any further details for fear of upsetting the woman further.

When you consider the cars of the time, I belive these cars are extremely safe. That said, you just never know about injuries in an accident. Over the years I've seen cars that just looked like no one could have survived only to find that they walked or stumbled away. Then there others with seemingly minor damage in which there was a fatality.

If you look at the safety technology that was in the 123's though, safety was definitely an important design criteria. MB started two generations earlier with crumple zones, telescoping columns, seatbacks designed to break a certain way, head restraints, comfortable shoulder harnesses. And also often overlooked by many are accident avoidance items such as four wheel disc brakes, decent and predictable handling, etc.

My daughter was such an aggressive driver, even at an early age(she started driving when she was eight because we live in the country,) I told her that I would not turn her loose in a car until I could get one with front, rear, side, top and bottom airbags. Short of a car equipped this way, for a car of its time, there would be very few cars any safer.

Have a great day,

Yep. Working as an EMT then Paramedic, I saw this a lot. We'd roll up on something that I just KNEW I'd be calling the patient and just heading back to the station. Look around for a patient in the car and no one's there and no blood. Turns out, they're standing around with the onlookers.

Then other fender benders I've rolled on that had completely intact pass compartments and a patient with a torn aorta (DOA) or even worse, one that had a ruptured spleen that I "almost" let walk.

Was called on a horse vs car MVA once, dusk/rainy, when we arrived, the car, a honda civic, was crushed in like king kong stepped on it. Horse had been shot by a passerby (most people who live rurally here are smart enough to carry a firearm in the vehicle.) Figured we'd be extracting a DOA. No one inside, no blood. She was standing around joking with the people who stopped to help.

Her story was, just before she hit the horse, she saw it run right towards her and she knew she'd go out of control if she tried to avoid it, so she just braked and bent over toward the passenger seat. Roof and windshield crushed into her, but she had enough space that she didn't get hurt. The people who stopped to help pried the door open and helped her out. Not a scratch. We still X-ported her for eval.

Well I took out a mailbox when I first started driving (long story) at 45mph and it did jack **** to my bumper. All it did was bend up my license plate and plate holder. Knocked the mail box out of the ground!

There's a guy on here who barrel rolled in his 190D and I believe he said the doors all opened and closed and even sunroof still worked. I can't remember who it was though.