Timing chains are not a 3.2 problem - it has a very good one. Principal problems are wiring harness, head gasket leaks and throttle actuators.

I had a different answer on the teenagers, that I was able to hold back, for a while - depends on whether they are small 13 year old girls or large 19 year old football players. The latter will be in a fetal position which they might be able to hold for an hour if they are in good condition. Seriously it should be fine for five foot tall nimble people of all ages.

I've lived my entire life in Minnesota, Vermont, Maine, and in 57 years have owned one AWD car and one 4WD pickup , Except that the truck is a chevy so you have to shift it out of 4wd when steering hard over, if you don't want to break a half-shaft. This makes snowplowing a little more challenging.
I have always liked positraction cars and trucks for driving in snow and on plowed fields. At a very young age I learned to drive tractors with the brake link-latch flipped over, foot sideways so as to be able to heel and toe the wheel brakes. The original traction control, John Deere 70 style.
Given that you're already paying for all the wheel sensors and brake actuators already as part of the ABS system, traction control is a low-cost way to double your effective traction without a mechanical cost or fuel consumption penalty. What's not to like?
SEO

There is something to not like about ASR from the era - it has a lot of problems. It's complex, yet has very little diagnostic capability, but has the authority to essentially shut the car down (limp home mode) at the slightest problem - real or perceived. It's a really bad idea if you don't need it. For someone in your part of the country it's a trade-off. Try a search - lots of confounding threads.

< SEO
>>
Which is exactly why they did it..they fiqured the stuff was already there , so why not use it in the opposite format..problem is it just doesn't get you out of the snow .
It is fine for wet rain improvement and sand tire slip , but it is close to useless in snow b/c they linked it up to throttle control. Even with the Chain sw ON..
I lived in NH for 40 years and owned a couple of great 124's with useless ASR systems....if one lives there and only has 2 wheel drive, then FWD is the only way to go...

__________________
A Dalton

I think the Evaporator is worth mentioning. It's a matter of when it will start leaking, not if. There are very few cases with a W124 Evap not leaking. If you are one of them, you are one of the lucky ones.

Also, I would never put any of my loved ones in the rear facing seat of a W124 Kombi. Always put them in the passenger seats, the ones furthest from the front and the rear...

Not really unique to the 3.2 though. I haven't ever had the problem, on ten 124 bodies, and don't hear much about it around here. I think it might be humidity related, and less an issue in the desert in spite of all the AC time.

This car has had the engine wiring harness replaced, and the owner says that it doesn't have AC troubles. I guess my saving grace is that I live in Maine, and if the AC goes I can always say "oh well," and figure that I was 50 years old before I owned a vehicle with AC, and maybe I don't need one in my declining years. By the way, why does the evap leak? corrosion? cracking? Demonic possession?

No mention of head gaskets from the owner. I'm tempted to say "how much trouble can it be to change a head gasket?" and then I stop. It can probably be a huge amount of trouble.

After doing a search of ASR topics, and reading up on it, I feel silly to have ever thought that modern Mercedes would make it simple.

All of which reminds me of a day up in Maine with my current w123 300d, when I came back to my car and found a gentleman looking at it. I said "hi," he responded by saying
"This is not an American car." Given that he had a slight German accent, I didn't respond with the smart remark that he'd offered me. I said no, it was imported from Germany by someone who bought it there. He shook his head and said no, it was a grey market car. I asked him how he knew that, and he pointed out the bumpers, lights, 5-speed manual, and the peculiar trailer hitch. "None of those things would have been on a car that Mercedes built if they knew it would go to the US. Then he opened one of the front doors and pointed out a big bolthead in the edge of the door. "That's a grey market fix to put in crash bars in the doors,"
I remarked that he knew a lot about these cars. He said that he'd worked as an engineer for Mercedes for twenty years, then in management for fifteen. "This is the best model Mercedes ever built," he said. "It doesn't have any computers in it." Then he bid me good day with one of those stiff little Bavarian nods of the head that is almost a bow, and walked away. I think he was onto something when he mentioned the computers.