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USED European Luxury Cars (pre 1990)
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I don't know what "gadgets" the mechanic is referring to aside from the usual power windows, mirrors, etc. Even a 528 has most of those, so I wouldn't shy away from a good deal on a 525i just because of some fear of possible future electrical glitches. Any old luxury car faces that risk.
The 5-speeds do 0-60 in Barely under 10 seconds, but most of them are automatics.. those are well over 12 secs 0-60.. Pretty weak! But they only have 121HP.. (88s do have a whopping 127 tho.. haha)
Bill
The car was under warranty for most of my ownership but it had plenty of problems. I remember getting up early many a morning to take the car to the dealer.
When I returned the car after 5 years, it was beginning to stay in low until it warmed up.
All in all it was one of the most troublesome vehicles I have owned.
Remember that you may find an independent mechanic that you like. But the cost of repair won't be much different from the dealer. The expense is at least partially in the complexity of the car and the cost of parts.
As an example, I had a 74 450SEL. The cruise control needed repair. I watched my mechanic just get to the part. It required him to remove a felt covered outer panel with about a hundred screws and then dismantle an inner panel with another hundred screws. Of course, he had to reverse the process. The labor took about an hour. All that was required was a change of a little canister. But of course, the MB didn't have wires dangling from under the dash like a typical American car.
Also, there is the issue of the competency level of many repair shops. I don't think most are up to the task with these cars. I know for certain that things like alignment and balancing can be a precise science and most people don't know what the hell they are doing.
We have a specialist here in Marin that everyone uses, from the Chevy dealer to the Ferrari dealer. So they don't even use their own alignment shops for certain problems!
It has great source of info for MB owners.
Pre 1976, these cars had an iron V8 with single cams, mechanical fuel injection, manual climate control, no power seats, etc, etc.
These cars are Mercedes-Benzes. They are built to be serviced and have parts replaced.
Just buy a good service manual or service CD from Mercedes. That'll show one pretty much everything about these cars.
Come on, they are quite simple compared to say, a modern Toyota Camry!
look at www.mercedesshop.com for more info about these cars.
I know you were just making a point, but really a 450SL is hardly a Model T. Any injection pump work has to be shipped to a specialist (even the Mercedes dealer doesn't work on it) and an engine rebuild is an easy $10,000 + proposition.
Also they are very precise cars. When you work on them you had better know exactly what you are doing regarding setting this specification or shimming that or which way to turn a screw. You simply don't have the slack you do in a Japanese car (or the access in most cases).
It's hardly the car for a learner is all I'm saying. If you are a professional wrench, then sure, perhaps an old SL is easier to diagnose than a modern Camry, but for a first time it's not the car I would recommend practicing on, because carelessness will be punished.
Shifty
I believe the 530i suffered from cracked cylinder heads, and in fact this is something you have to watch out for in any 70-80s BMW, even the 325.
Same for any 70s and 80s BMW.
Same goes for the early Saab 900s (1979-85). I've seen many an old 900 with plenty of electrical and transmission problems.
Thanks!!!
$13K? With 65K miles perhaps.
The one to get is the 300SDL. 350s are nice, but the engien problems they had were de to the injectors. They would leak, fuel would leak in the cylinders.. and the rods would get bent.
Bill
Lemko, how much is the woman asking for the 420? Those are really nice cars, but considering it's 16 years old, it's likely not worth more than about $4500 unless it's quite cherry or has very low miles.
There seems to be an abundant supply of these in Florida with low miles, probably since many of the residents are retired seniors who would be more apt to own a car like this. Actually, I've been casually looking for one of these for myself for some time.
Perhaps the basic powertrain on a Mercedes would be ok at 117K but that is still four times (almost 5) around the earth! Even if the car runs to 200K with good care, the last half of any car's life certainly will not be as troublefree as the first half. How could it be?
The real point though is not reliability but VALUE. If a car has 117K on it, you don't pay the same price as when it had 50K. So the mileage is very important when buying an old Benz, and the seller has to recognize this. This talk of "oh, a Benz can go 300K" is just a fable because in fact any car can go 300K if you put enough money into it.
I think a quick check of odometers in wrecking yards will show that most cars do not even exceed 150K much less 300K. One cannot base one's buying decisions on the 2% upper percentile of odds, but rather upon the vast center percentile.
I have had an '88 420SEL for a year and a half -- a grandparents' car which came in at the local M-B dealer with 75,000 miles and I bought as a first car for my 17-year old daughter and family road car to keep the miles off our newer leased cars.
Paid $11,000 and put in about $7,000 over a year and a half -- everything from timing chain/guides/tensioner to all fluids (including differential, transmission, etc.) to renewal of all wear items (front suspension, radiator, smog pump, brakes, shocks, etc.) -- car was in good original condition, but had not been super maintained and I wanted to do all the 100,000 mile replacement and renewal early to insure absolute reliability. Mobil 1 every 3,000 miles (no oil leaks despite switchover from fossil oil) and will regularly change all fluids -- e.g., transmision every 25,000, etc.
Runs like new, great highway car with massive heft and interior room while surprisingly agile for its bulk -- no one builds them this way anymore with battleship gauge steel and mechanics instead of electronics (e.g., the famous M-B cone vacuum door locks which will work underwater). Quality of materials and elegance of engineering (compare mechanical inside of door to any US car) is unbeatable -- much debate among Benz fanatics as to whether the newer, lighter, more fuel efficient and quicker/more agile but electronics-dependent new M-Bs are actually a step backwards. 420SEL is easy to work on if you're mechanically inclined, excellent independent mechanics readily available and OEM parts at 2/3 retail through M-B USA club and other discount parts dealers.
Key is to put the $$ in either by renovating a good low mileage car (probably the more expensive route, but you know exactly what's been done) or buy one that's been meticulously maintained with all records -- I would not be afraid of a 117,000 mile 420SEL that met these standards, but an expert inspection is a must.
BTW, the comment "The later model 420's are nicer, say about 1989 to 1992, with a lot of upgrades and changes to the body" is wrong. There is no '92 126 cars (the 140 model, which were made from '92-'99, and look like the LS400, started then] and actually there were no significant changes in the '89 - '91 later models from the '86 - '88 -- primarily different leather pattern for seats and doors, passenger airbag standard from '89 and ASR option available in '91 -- see http://www.mbusa.com/brand/container.jsp?/overview [can'tget entire URL here due to Edwards character limitations] and go to S class for '88 - '91 for 420SEL.
C43 -- you can sometimes defeat the Edmunds prohibition on too long a URL by clicking on spellcheck first and then posting the URL. This often works.
A strong steel toolbox is still a toolbox, not a fine piece of cabinetry. 740s are not refined, very boxy and humorless, unattractively styled, semi-reliable (average at best), clumsy to drive-- but other than that they are okay. Nothing like a Benz, but they are a decent transportation module.
In fact, I thought by your mention of '92 you were comparing the W140 which came in in '92 to the W126 -- there are indeed very substantial changes/upgrades here and an interesting debate as to whether someone wanting a big body Benz should buy an early 140 vs a later 126.
I would personally be reluctant to do so in light of the complexity of the 140s, the A/C evaporator issue ($$$$) and their reputation as the most expensive M-Bs to maintain -- OK, the old Pullman 600s are even more so, but they are getting rare now, undoubtedly due to the costs of keeping one on the road. A late 140 with a Starmark warranty for a coextensive lease term might be a different issue, but you can buy a 126 for a year's lease payments on a '99 S500.
If you want a good "driver" Mercedes coupe, consider the newer 250C or 280C. Also not destined for any great value, but a much better (and prettier) car than the old 300s. A lot cheaper to buy, too, $5K-7K for a nice one.
The 240/740 and the 300/190 both handle very similarly. They handle in a complacent, non-sporty RWD sort of way. They both feel similarly hefty and their steering feel is very similar.
However, the material and assembly quality and the engine quality of the Mercedes is far better.
First off, to be fair, most european cars from the 70s are over-rated by their owners or once-owners, who let nostalgia and a marked ability to ignore the car's faults get the best of them. Volvo 240s had soft camshafts, exhaust systems that fell off with alarming regularity, soft timing gears, weak u-joints, rather shabby interior plastic and trim, biodegradable paint jobs, truck-like steering, a regular sympathy of bumps and clunks, squeeky brakes that cannot be made quiet, noisy rough pushrod engines exhibiting every good aspect of 1930s tech. I could go on and on. Compared to a Benz, they were twenty years behind the times.
On the other hand, they had a strong basic structure and they were remarkably easy to fix (which you have to do a lot of if you were a conscientious owner, which most Volvo drivers of the tiime were decidedly not).
You bring me an average 240 Volvo that is in "great shape" and I'll find 25 things wrong with it that the owner has blissfully ignored. Fact is, most Volvo drivers of that time had pretty low expectations beyond that of basic "please get me there" and "make me feel safe". The standard joke of the 70s and 80s, which you can re-read in many auto magazines, is that "Volvos are made for people who hate cars". Not so true now, but sure was then I think.
There's only one real reason for the 240s longevity. It never had decent competition from other European makes. The Benz was in a higher class and price bracket, the Japanese generally lower, the American cars unacceptable to many middle class American buyers who wanted a semblance of an intelligent car, and other competitive European makes (Saab, Alfa, BMW) no great shakes in the reliability department either.
To give my argument some further weight, when Volvo tried to compete with Mercedes with the dreadful 164, the car failed miserably. Benz easily won that contest.
Nowadays, Volvo has made some great strides and I have more respect for the cars. The tech is very good, the styling (did Volvo even HAVE a styling department 20 years ago?!!) quite up to industry standard, the quality much better.
How can I say this delicately---compared to a Mercedes, a Volvo of the 70s and 80s is a rough pile of parts. Tough old cars, but very unrefined and no paragons of reliability by any means.
Show me a 200K old Volvo and I'll show you a pile of repair bills the size of the Manhattan phone book.
For a car I put 60K miles on in less than 2 years, and drove all the way to 220K miles, that's not bad at all. When I crashed it, even the 12-year-old airbag deployed.
Mr. Shiftright: Could you possibly provide one reason why Irv Gordon has kept his P1800 for nearly 40 years?