I am buying the above car and it has 70K miles on it. I bought it through ebay and I have had a mecahnic look at the car in Indiana. He tells me it is misfiring in one cylinder and the owner tells me he has seen this before and it is the ignition coil. The owner tells me the both front power seats do not work. Are they on one fuse or one motor for both. It sounds funny they are both not working. The power antenna doesn't work but I have replaced them on my volvo- no problem.

With the blower motor not working he (mechanic) couldn't tell me if the A/C was working. He did say that I would have to change out the R-12 to 134. Most if not all of this work I can do as I have always had less than new cars.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as I join the ranks of Mercedes owners

Car sales are all about image. The first image I have is 70k. My mind is set for one gorgeous car. The rest of your post tells me to run for it.

The car is obviously not owned by the person who kept it most of its life (hopefully). The current owner is a bozo to present a low mileage car with what otherwise look like simple problems. The coil can not cause a single cylinder miss fire.

No AC takes a maximum deduction in my book. A person that doesn't fix an AC on a car like that doesn't fix anything. If they don't fix anything they obviously don't service anything.

In my opinion you are lucky a bozo owns this car as a creative bozo would have camouflaged these obvious defects with BS repairs. I would decline the sale for defect unless these conditions were stated. The fact that they exist says more than the immediate costs. It totally wipes the low mileage image from my mind.

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Steve Brotherton
Continental Imports
Gainesville FL
Bosch Master, ASE Master, L1
33 years MB technician

The seller told me about the power seats not working, the blower motor and the fact that the engine idles a little rough. This guy bought this car off the local mercedes dealer as it was trade in. The car has a new paint job and from the pictures on ebay the interior is in very good shape. Should I run for the hills on this? Or should I get him to lower the price. I got the car for $4,000. With these problems what do you feel the car is worth of just move on. I live in Ocala so your help form a local is greatly appreciated.

You have bad plug wires. With the engine cold, remove the cover from the distributor cap. Gently break the plug wires loose, remove them and reinstall them one at a time. Now start the engine and remove the wires one at a time with an insulated pliers or better a solid plastic pliers purpose made. The engine will miss as you remove each wire untill you get to the bad one where there will be no change in the miss. Sometimes the car has to be warmed up for this to work. My last one had to be warm and idling in drive with the park brake set and a second person firmly holding the brake to induce the miss. DANGER! DO NOT RUN OVER YOURSELF DOING THIS!
Good luck.
Harold

Listen to Steve unless you plan to run the car into the ground.

As Steve says low milage and that level of wear don't correlate. Also a respay means that it's been outside or had accident damage.

At 4k you might get away with a couple of simple and relatively cheap repairs and get a few trouble free miles out of it if you don't mind ignoring the odd problem.

These are wicked cars, but they require serious upkeep. I spend at least 2k per annum of servicing. That's what they take to keep on top of so a car neglected for 5 years or so could easily have 10k worth of up front issues to deal with.

Don't ask me how I know.....

Matt.

The point is that simple issues shouldn't exist, thus one must infer that they are major issues.

__________________
Steve Brotherton
Continental Imports
Gainesville FL
Bosch Master, ASE Master, L1
33 years MB technician

firstly I'm not an SEL owner....

my observations are as follows; you state that to have a respray a car must have had either accident damage or been outside??? wtf?? My 16v is a 2 owner low mileage car, I maintain it regardless of cost. it had a small scuff on the front spoilier and a couple small dinks from careless car owners in car parks, it also had 3 or 4 stone chips accross the front from motorway driving. Due to the location of all of these imperfections when I visited the bodyshop they ended up spraying the entire car as it worked out only slightly more expensive than 4-5 small localised repairs....so, my car has has a respray...its been garaged 80% of its life and has had no accident repairs.

When I got the car, the air-con needed a re-gas and the electric drivers seat didnt work, the car had 70k, its a 1990 model, do you think that doesnt correlate??? bottom line was, seat fuse had blown, previous owner didnt bother investigating/repairing as he was the only one who drove the car and the seat was in the correct place for him, he also knew the air con needed a re gas but didnt bother becasue he didnt use it - he preferred the window open-as I do.

So, my opinion is to stop being so paranoid and making sweeping statements that can't possible apply to every vechicle.

My last car, a concours bmw (sorry....) was MINT, BUT, it had brake fluid poured over it, i got a respray, again, no accident damage and it was always garaged....

just my $0.02

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Steve Howson

http://www.markthomastrimming.com/storage/sigpic.jpg

www.mercedes-cosworth.co.uk

My point was that a 70k mile car shouldn't have these issues if it's been properly looked after.

A proper full car respray will never cost only a little more than repairing the affected areas, I don't care what anyone says.

If the PO hasn't repaired the simple things then what is the quality of his other maintenance like?

The most important point would be to get a full and comprehensive pre purchase inspection done prior to purchase when the prior history of the car is not known, you can never rely on the words of the previous owners in situations like this.

My comments around maintenance are valid, a lot of people get into these cars and don't realise the possible costs of ownership.

Matt.

I bid on it in the early going, but dropped out.
It did look like a good deal and the seller did disclose all of the problems (describing the "Car idles a bit off. Probably needs a tune-up.")

My experience is you will have no trouble finding a new blower motor at a good price on eBay or elsewhere if needed and installing it is easy enough.

In fact, I wish that was all that was needing attention on my car.

I think you have a good car after a little care.

(Although I am a Braves fan I did not bid on that Yankees Suck t-shirt you also won on eBay. )