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USED European Luxury Cars (pre 1990)
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Comments
the 230-250-280SL is actually pretty common around California. I see 1-2 almost every day. They made a lot of them (around 50,000!)and many consequently have survived due to popularity and excellent build quality.
You can still buy them from say $16,000 for a decent driver to $30K on up for the real beauties. A few of them have the very rare 5-speed manual transmission, but most are automatics and less are 4-speed sticks. The stick shift is no fun to shift but it can be worked over to be shift-able.
The reason the 5-speed is great is that you get a sort of overdrive. One big drawback of the 280SL is that it is really wound up tight at 70 mph and not very pleasant to drive because of all that engine revving.
I always thought these 80's hardtops were cool, but aren't they considered money pits?
500SEC...probably about half that if it is sound. It's not too cool with 92-style wheels and those wheelarch trim pieces. If you like those, seek out a late 560SEC - best of the style. Very easily a money pit, an engine rebuild is easily twice the value of the car.
I did see a '90 350SDL today...talk about a rough-running engine there. No wonder almost nobody wants them today.
Yeah, my 126 was the SWB. Great old car, I'd have kept it if I had the room to store it.
I've heard the engine in those late 126 diesels can be quite a leaker too.
It's a little off the target of this thread, but I know the W140 was offered in a diesel in 92-93...I wonder how those are.
turn the key in the trunk lock to the left, push in, and tap the top of the trunk edge with a free hand.
Glory be this really worked! For the 1988 190E series there does not appear to be any interior access - amazing for German technology.
Many, many thanks for all who responded to my plea.
In terms of reducing the age threshold of the current topic, I suppose it depends on how much you're willing to stretch the term "classic", since it will take a few years before the 1989s meet the definition. Currently, 1989s are merely old, as would be 1999s. Another possibility, if "old" is the defacto criterion, would be to raise the threshold to "pre 1997" on January 1, and then bump the date up one year on January 1, 2008, and each year thereafter...or not. Well, okay, let's make that January 2 if the new years eve party you happen to attend is a trifle to libatious.
You're the arbiter, of course, of how much latitude is appropriate for the term classic. I'm just trying to think of how an interesting topic might be revived.
Another possibility would be to leave the date as is, but substitute European for German, so as to include some Italian, Swedish and British marques.
Last week I looked at an '86 420SEL at a Toyota dealer's. It had 150,000 miles on it...Nice paint,no rust, but brake and coolant lights were on...interior had many large cracks in leather. I was dumbfounded that the "sale" price was $5,000...Certainally they'd go lower, but the car really drove like a dog. And $5,000 Benzes always seem to be like that here...Am I expecting too much?
"The asking price of a car is merely the seller exercising his First Amendment rights".
They are obviously trolling for some fool to pay that much for a doggy car....for $5K, such a car should be darn near immaculate.
Yeah, I'm sure cleaner Benzes are more common out here, but really a market is based on supply and demand, and I can't see ANYWHERE in the world there would be a demand for shabby Benzes....it's not like a shabby bad-running Benz is going to bring anyone happiness or prestige, or have any allure to drive up market prices.
So what i'm saying is sure, you could argue quite rightly that there may be a shortage of clean, well-kept, great running Benzes on the East Coast, and that such a shortage would demand perhaps a slightly higher price than out West....but there is no shortage of beat up old used cars in America, that's for sure.
Besides, a dealer can offer high interest financing and can sell a shabby car on the monthly payment price. Anyone with a pulse can buy $5,000 worth of credit.
Brake light could be pricey.
If you want a nice W126, do as Shifty mentions and peek at California...or really the whole west coast.
Price is certainly negotiable
Funny with MB...with older cars it seems the 6 is th best bet, and the V8s are problematic. But in modern ones, I seem to hear about more problems in 6 cyl cars (C320, E320) than in V8 cars (save for the W220).
The newest MB V6s might be equal to the old Inline 6 but I doubt it.
Don't know about the "collector" part. Pricing in the marketplace suggests it's really just a nice old used car.
Lots of content for $7500 though.
I just thought of this...W126 - nice one 5K. W116 - nice one 5K. W108 - nice one 5K. W111 fintail - nice one 5K. And a good ponton isn't much more.
Actually a very solid 914 tub would be desirable, as these cars can be build into great AutoX cars.
To expand the question to include parts and labor, why is the term "money pit", or variations of that term, associated more with German cars(and Swedish and British, for that matter) than with domestic and Asian brands? I know that mechanics who work on European cars frequently charge a higher hourly rate (which may be why they're more often referred to as technicians), but that doesn't entirely explain the higher labor charges. For example, I've been told that oil changes on Porsches cost about $250, because the engine has to be dropped.
Have Lexus, Infinity, and maybe Cadillac adopted the German/European pricing model, thereby leaving reliability as the primary cost-to-maintain differentiater between luxury models?
I can only guess about what the answers to these questions are, but maybe some of you have better insight on this matter than I do. One thing beyond question is that the high cost of parts, especially, is a deterent to owning an old German luxury car.