New Member - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

gmercoleza · #1 10-07-2004, 06:13 PM

Hi all, I am a new member. I discovered this wonderful board a few months ago and used it to assist in deciding on my latest purchase - a '91 300E with 118,000 miles in anthracite with gray leather interior. This is now my daily driver (70 miles round trip to work plus weekends). Bought it off eBay for $4,200, drove it from IL to TX without a hitch. I probably paid a little high, but feel I got a good deal nonetheless due to the condition. I spoke with the owner 2 or 3 times for about an hour each and got a very good feeling from him regarding the overall condition of the vehicle. Having owned Benzes in the past I knew all the right questions to ask. The CarFax was perfect (2-owner, clean title, never failed emissions, no accidents, no service notations) and he had some fairly expensive recent service history. A fairly thorough pre-purchase inspection he had performed revealed the only major flaw to be a bad inner front tie rod end on the driver's side. I replaced that for $25 and set the toe using a tape measure (figured the caster/camber wouldn't have changed) and now the steering is very tight and tracks perfectly straight ahead. Steering wheel is straight too.

Just as a precaution, I also replaced the air filter/cap/rotor/wires/plugs and ran a container of RXP through to decarbon and prep the catalytic for the TX safety and emissions inspection. It passed with flying colors; if I recall correctly the emissions were pretty much on par with my 2000 Honda Odyssey. Amazing!

Everything is original on this car - original radiator, alternator, power steering pump, a/c compressor, etc. and with the exception of an occasional erratic idle it runs flawlessly and always starts on the 1st or 2nd crank (usually 2nd when hot). Cruise control and climate control work like a dream. I just put 3,000 miles on the car and changed the oil for the first time last night (used 20w50) and with the splash pan removed noticed that everything underneath the car seems to be in top condition as well. It will need the front oil seals at some point due to light seepage, but in the month I've owned it I have only had 2 or 3 pinhead-size oil drips on my garage floor, so the seal can probably wait until another repair dictates.

Changing the plugs and wires was an ordeal and took me 4 hours - I wouldn't doubt if they were original too, or at least very old. Each wire disintegrated as I pulled on it, no joke. I had to bend each boot and crack the spark plug insulator within so that I could break and rip off the top half of the boot. Once the top was ripped off, exposing the shattered spark plug, I had to use 3 bugle-head screws driven in between the remaining boot and spark plug very slowly with a stubby screwdriver. Then I grabbed 2 of the 3 screws with a pair of pliers in each hand and wrestled with every ounce of my energy in order to get the remaining piece of boot off. My knuckles were bleeding pretty quickly. Once the boots were removed, I used my finger to suction a straw to the crevice tool on my vacuum cleaner. With my mini suction tool, I carefully vacuumed each spark plug recess and got all brittle plastic and broken ceramic insulator out of there. Then removing the plugs was incredibly hard - I used a 1/2 inch breaker bar with a 3/8 inch reducer to break each one loose. Fortunately, the threads in the cylinder head were not damaged, and lubricating the new plugs with WD-40 greatly assisted installation of the new plugs. The old plugs, by the way, looked fantastic - the gap was HUGE, I mean 3 times what it's supposed to be, but the terminals were dry with no oil, no blackening, no soot, just a very nice off-white color with all electrodes and insulators intact, though very worn looking. Again, I wouldn't doubt if these plugs had been in the car for 118,000 miles and 13 years. The cap and rotor were atrocious too - I don't know how the car ran so well. Interestingly, changing all these things did not result in any noticeable idle improvement.

The exterior condition overall is pretty amazing, with the exception of some minor paint issues which I'll get to in a minute. There is no rust at all on the car; the previous owner only had it in IL for 2 years, the original owner before that was from TX. The paint is all original and I really can't believe how shiny it is. If not for the very light scratches you can find if you look really hard in the right light at the right angle, you would swear the car has been repainted. But it hasn't. Many times at a stoplight I will notice that my paint looks better than the brand new car sitting next to me. It probably helps that I did a thorough wash and used Zymol HD Cleanse followed by their paste cleaner wax.

The interior leather, aside from very light dullness on the front seat bottom cushions, looks almost new. As for the back seat, you'd swear nobody ever sat in it because the leather looks practically new. I just refinished the center wood (shifter console, ashtray, and a/c controls) and prefer my new finish to the original which was severely cracked. Once I re-dye the front leather seat bottoms and steam clean (and possibly dye) the carpets you will be hard pressed to tell the interior from new. Oh, and you can eat out of the trunk.

The Becker radio was not operational and I gutted it in favor of a $27.00 manual tune am/fm cassette from WalMart. My system used the external amps mounted in the trunk, and selecting the cheap-o radio gave me a low power to feed into the amps in order to keep the existing speaker wiring (in my experience a higher-powered deck would have resulted in distorted signal). I know you won't believe me, but it actually sounds great (active-bass sytem with woofers in the doors). I use an external iRiver mp3 player with digital FM tuner plugged into the deck's front auxiliary input jack and I am all set. I will eventually upgrade to a higher-end in-dash cd/mp3 deck; my current setup is a temporary fix until I am ready to gut all the wiring. To be honest, it sounds so good I might just leave it for a while.

When I got the car home, I noticed the previous owner's description of the vehicle's exterior as "almost flawless" was not in line with reality. From 5 or 10 feet away, the car looks fantastic, but as I washed and waxed the car I noticed a few little gouges and scrapes on the rear driver side door and wheel arch, as well as some gouges on the rear passenger door. I don't know why they aren't very apparent right away; probably the color of the car or the shiny glare from the rest of the paint causing a distraction. 3 or 4 tiny gouges were actually so deep that it appeared a very small amount of rust was forming inside of them. In addition to the paint issues, the console and a/c wood was extremely cracked despite the seller's claims that the interior was in super condition. He made no mention of the cracked wood but somehow found a way to mention that the piping on the armrest was cracked (huh?). In hindsight, with my prior Mercedes experience I should have known at least the console wood was going to be cracked, but anyway...

I confronted the seller because if he had disclosed the flaws I probably would have bid under $4,000 rather than click his "Buy It Now" of $4,200. He actually allowed me to return the car and said he would refund my $500 deposit and all money - the problem is that I would have to drive the car back and pay for my own gas, food, expenses, and return airfare. That's nice and all, but I really love this car and explained to him that his inaccurate description led me to bid higher than I would have if the flaws had been properly disclosed. I was hoping he would offer me $200 or $300 to appease me (and I would have used the funds to correct the flaws), but at this point he is just ignoring me. Am I splitting hairs here?

Anyway, despite the flaws which bug me (I wanted and thought I was getting a "nearly flawless" car) I still really like the car. Again, it is in fantastic shape considering the year and mileage. So far I have spent $400 or so for the first 30 days and 3,000 miles of driving on the following:

inspection
cap/rotor/wires/plugs
air filter
rxp additive
tie rod end
am/fm cassette
wood stripper and urethane

I look forward to gaining additional information from this site. I wish it was here years ago when I went through the school of hard knocks on my other Benzes. I have either direct or indirect experience with the following, and look forward to contributing my $.02 as well:

126 valve stem seals
114 shocks
leather interior dye
wood refinishing
stereo replacement
126 conversion to R134a
126 fuel pump replacement
126 monovalve

As my wife would agree, I change cars like socks and have owned many other (lesser) cars through the years. With the exception of newer cars under warranty (like our Honda Odyssey) for the most part I have always maintained and repaired them myself. I'm always interested in learning more, and this site will be a great help!

Cheers.

Gilly · #2 10-07-2004, 06:27 PM

Is the eBay auction display for this car still availbale at eBay so we can look and see what was written up on the car? Usually they are there for quite awhile, few months anyways. If you could post a link to that it would help.

Gilly

gmercoleza · #3 10-07-2004, 07:19 PM

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=2487859478&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

Gilly · #4 10-07-2004, 08:22 PM

Well, I know Mercedes pretty well, and also do my bit on eBay too, although nothing as expensive as a car. So here's my thoughts:

He DID state

Quote:

WELL MAINTAINED AND GARAGE KEPT.

. Hardly well kept when the most recent tuneup was a number of years back. I've never seen secondary wiring "disintegrate" though, did you maybe jerk the wiring out of the resistor ends? Usually you can save the wiring but replace the broken ends, because believe me, I've been through what you went though in having to bust stuff to get the plug wire ends off when they're seized like that. My tool of choice was a chisel bit in an air hammer, then pick pieces out with a needle nose and then compressed air. That's AFTER you jerk the wire out of the end. Then you can replace the end (crimps on) and the resistor end. Sometimes there is a shellac-type of coating on the wire itself, maybe that's why you thought the wire was disintegrating. So anyways, that wasn't exactly honest when he said well maintained. They shoulda at least pulled one plug out to see how worn they were. By chance did the #1 plug wire pull off OK, or were they ALL like this? They should at least check one damn plug! So score -1 for lying about well maintained and - another 1 for not doing a very good inspection on it.
As far as the cosmetics you are finding wrong, he kinda covered his own butt on that by this:

Quote:

Although vehicle is in great condition as represented, vehicle is sold as is. All questions should be asked prior to bidding and personal inspection of vehicle is encouraged.

So you could have had a warm fuzzy feeling by talking to the guy for 2 hours by phone, but really it was up to you to give it the once over before buying. I can imagine how you feel after doing the "buy it now" and now you're in wonderful downtown Effingham, IL and just want to head'er back to Texas (where Bob Wills is Still the King). Then you notice stuff later, but he DID cover his butt on it as far as I'm concerned. But I don't think he should feel obligated to give you back one thin dime. YOU did the "buy it now" sight unseen, just pictures and conversation. If you would have bid the $4000 to begin with, maybe you would have gotten it for that, or maybe not, maybe someone else would have run it up over $5000, that's the chance HE took by agreeing to sell it as a "buy it now" of $4200.
Sounds like you probably did OK for $4200. It doesn't seem like you are all that interested in giving it back, unless it really is the whole hassle and expense of returning it. I wonder on that "buy it now" if you could have done a better inspection and backed out on the deal when you were there? That I'm not sure of. I can understand how the prospect of returning it would make you want to just keep it. I guess that's the way this stuff works out sometimes. I agree he did seem to verbally "polish this thing up" quite a bit in the eBay auction, but not any more than alot of people do. I always try to be really up front about the type and condition of the stuff I eBay, don't want any hassles after the auction at ALL.

Gilly

Gilly · #5 10-07-2004, 08:32 PM

PS:
What does he mean by this:

Quote:

The ignition has been replaced with a new one.

Ignition switch? Lock cylinder? Ignition control unit (EZL)?

Gilly

gmercoleza · #6 10-11-2004, 04:28 PM

The ignition lock cylinder had been replaced.

As for the plugs/wires, all were in the same seized/stuck condition and all required pulverizing to get them out. Again, I am not making an issue of the cap/rotor/wires/plugs because the car ran flawlessly both before and after replacing them, and I only replaced them to ensure I passed the emissions test. So no complaints there.

I guess I could have done a more thorough inspection of the cosmetics at pickup, but to be honest I had to work until 1 AM the night before, then got up at 4 AM so my wife could get me to the airport on time, then waited at STL airport all day while he was at work. By the time we met around 6 PM, I was zombied and bloated on airport food, and coming down with the flu pretty badly. So I just checked for the big stuff - VIN matching the title and carfax, no big dents, no cracks in windshield, no dragging exhaust, no clouds of smoke behind the car, no major leaks, no slip in between transmission gears - you get the picture. In my physical and mental condition I did not even consider that there might be tiny gouges in the paint or cracks in the wood, etc. - after all, you saw his description and it said "nearly flawless" exterior. And he seemed so honest and upstanding both in his feedback and on the phone.

When I confronted him, he too told me I should have said something on the spot. But I told him I just didn't notice the flaws and trusted in his description - should I have automatically second-guessed him? What if it had been dark and rainy the day I came to pick it up? Should it be held against me if I only discover the flaws in the light of the next day? I don't think time changes the nature or severity of the flaws - it just puts several hundred miles between him and me. But in my opinion, whether or not the flaws were pointed out on the spot, they were there and were not disclosed, therefore his description, however well-intentioned, was at best inaccurate and misleading. What he is basically saying by his actions is that he would cheat a blind guy if he could.

I was hoping to forget the whole matter, after all what is a couple hundred bucks? From what I am learning in speaking to others and from this board, given the mechanical condition of the vehicle I still made out very well. Apparently cars in similar condition are selling for $5500 to $7000. However, due to his "that's your problem" attitude and his ignoring all my subsequent emails, I am now considering revising his 100% feedback rating, even though I know feedback is a 2-way street. I just want others both in his small hometown community and on eBay to think twice about his descriptions before buying from him. I have the ability to make a homepage with details and pictures from our transaction, then point to it with negative feedback posted on his ID.

sixto · #7 10-11-2004, 05:14 PM

eBay will remove the listing about 90 days after completion. Save the listing in case you need to refer to it in the future. Click on File then Save As. This will save the page and all the bits and pieces in a folder of the same name. I saved this page and it turned out to be a 160KB file and a 350KB folder.

I'm with Gilly, let it go. In the grand scheme of what goes on in eBay, you did very well. Some of the discrepancies you note are subjective IMO. What is rust-free to someone in IL is very different from what is rust-free to someone in TX. If you are particular about such things, you shouldn't leave them to anything less than an extensive personal inspection.

Maybe the compromise is to leave positive feedback (I would) but note within the 80 chars something like, "Good car despite undisclosed imperfections." You'll likely slip under the radar of sounding silly for not having inspected the car before paying (no circumstance can justify not checking the car), and you won't jeopardize your own eBay reputation... if that's something you care about. The best thing is that you give prospective buyers a reason to be more careful than you were.

Pop quiz - how many cars has this seller sold on eBay? It doesn't seem as though this person has sold a car on eBay prior to this car. It looks like this person has sold all of 2 items on eBay. Hardly the basis to trust feedback.

Sixto
95 S420
87 300SDL

mpolli · #8 10-11-2004, 05:26 PM

I learned the hard way not to look at cars at night. I bought the worst nightmare of my life that way, a Subaru. As they say, "Jesus can forgive, but I cannot". No more Subaru's for me. Definitely look at a car by the light of day before you plunk down your hard earned money. You will get more suspicious the older you get. That's not always a good thing, but good if you are buying used cars!

Mike

dynalow · #9 10-11-2004, 06:39 PM

Sixto nailed it. .."You shouldn't leave it to anything less than an extensive personal inspection". I might add: "or a PPI by an MB dealer at your expense of course."

My '88 124 coupe was only available because the previous ebay auction high bidder flew to FL from PA looked the car over, found a few scratches, remarked " the car isn't in perfect condition", hopped on the plane & flew home!
I had it PPI'd by MB dealer in Tampa. Cost about $200.00 or less (probably 2 hrs or so tech labor rate). Seller & I resolved a few issues as a result and I flew down check in hand and only after driving and inspecting it on a lift and in the sun did I part with any money! BTW I also did a buy it now purchase. Seller did offer to let me off the hook if I wasn't completely satisfied, which I was, and as approach 70000 on the odo, still am !

Caveat Emptor mate

, and good luck with the car

gmercoleza · #10 10-11-2004, 10:09 PM

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I tend to agree - I did get a pretty good deal and should probably let it go. Live and learn...