[Vwdiesel] M Benz 300D ?

[Doyt W. Echelberger]

David Schwartze's great post makes a lot of good points about the 1985 
Benz.  After digesting David's post, I'd like to recant the tone of some 
statements in my own post, throttling back on a few inexcusable 
exaggerations...like "sell your house" if the injector pump needs 
replacement. That was an embarrassing exaggeration.  Any injector pump is 
relatively expensive, but no where near the value of a house, even in some 
areas hard hit by sub-prime forclosure.

I liked David's thoughtful post.

I think I'll let my statements stand about the general risk of owning a 
1985 Benz 300TD at 300,000 miles (diesel or not.)  Especially if you want 
to have available all the luxury and reliability and convenience that was 
built into the car back in 1985. And that integrated luxury package is 
seductive....reliable and long lived and of high quality, ....world class 
for that era, but only marginally safe for the driver in a collision. 
http://www.safecarguide.com/mak/mercedes_benz/idx.htm

And it probably has a manual transmission. An automatic would 
un-necessarily raise the ownership risk for me.

It would not be difficult to spend a thousand dollars on a new stainless 
steel exhaust system for the 85 Benz, where a custom set of pipes put on my 
1984 na diesel Rabbit would be a few hundred bucks. Similar examples exist 
for other systems. Big heavy expensive rear-wheel drive luxury cars 
generally cost (new) two to four times what a baseline front wheel drive 
econobox would cost, and the luxury vehicles have more systems to maintain 
with generally costlier parts....high quality parts the econobox never had 
in the first place.  At 300,000 miles and 23 years, the luxury car is at 
considerable risk of needing repairs/replacements to any of additional 
systems made of high quality expensive parts.

Like David says, ".....the way it was cared for by its previous owners is 
very important.  If the car was well
cared for, 300,000 miles is nothing to be scared of. "   So, screening out 
the ones that were NOT well cared for is critical...it makes a HUGE 
difference. Cars that qualify as "well cared for" have had many thousands 
of dollars spent on them regularly over many years, and theoretically could 
have thick folders of documentation kept by those careful owners....in the 
bottom range totalling $20-30,000.

I wouldn't expect a well cared for and documented luxury car to be on the 
market for a few hundred bucks. More like 2 to 4 grand.
The low...almost free..... price lights up my risk sensor.

So, it would be important (to me) to be very skeptical about the way the 
car in question was cared for.   For me to consider buying that car, there 
would have to be a thorough inspection (by a trusted and experienced 
professional) of most components of most systems even if massive 
theoretical maintenance histories existed with documentation.

Why? Because failure of a component in some critical system _could_ cost a 
thousand dollars and days or weeks to fix, resulting in the original 
purchaser spending not $200 or $300 but maybe $1,200 or $1,300.  And that 
luxury car has more systems that could fail, compared to the econobox.

30+ mpg on free veggie oil......Maybe an attractive risk to an 
above-average mechanically inclined and motivated owner with a place to 
work on the car, plenty of free time, access to free fuel, and something 
else to drive in a pinch.

Doyt