2000 C230K with about 100m.

Noticed one of the boots on the outside tie rod was a goner.

When this happened to my 1999 C280, I just replaced the tie rod ends.

Is it considered better practice to replace the entire unit, tie rod ends and center piece? If the center piece goes sooner rather than later, I'll have the extra lightly used tie rod ends.

I had the same problem on my 210. The boots are really cheap to replace but dust and sand could have easily fallen in there with the torn boot. I opted to replace the tierod ends completely. I sent it to a mechanic for this so half the cost went into labour. The inner rods were cheap so I decided to have them replaced too seeing as I was already paying for the labour. In the end it depends on how much youo want to spend, but on an old car it might be a good idea to change the inner and outer tierods seeing as you are going to dissamble everything anyway.

The W202 has the recirculating ball steering gear so it has a pitman arm, idler arm, drag link and tie rods. The W210 has rack and pinion steering so no pitman arm, idler arm or drag link (also, no steering damper).

I see no reason to replace the entire unit, i.e. the tie rod ends and the drag link assembly. Only the outer tie rods ends are replaceable; the inners are part of the drag link assembly.

Also, check the steering damper. In my experience they don't last very long.

When mine was worn the trouble was the inner joints, so I had to replace the whole thing. That was after about 135K. The replacement now has over 100K on it and seems OK so far.

__________________
1998 C230 330,000 miles (currently dead of second failed EIS, yours will fail too, turning you into the dealer's personal human cash machine)
1988 F150 144,000 miles (leaks all the colors of the rainbow)
Previous stars: 1981 Brava 210,000 miles, 1978 128 150,000 miles, 1977 B200 Van 175,000 miles, 1972 Vega (great, if rusty, car), 1972 Celica, 1986.5 Supra