Lately ive been looking at some diesel benzes, typically the 1980's ones i think its called the W123 chassis, and im starting to want one. We all know diesel engines aer pretty reliable, and ive heard you can get about 26 mpg off running on basically garbage... I would use this said car for the long drives home (470 miles north) and im sure it would have lower running costs than my Town car. Anybody know anything about these cars? Right now all i know is what Google says LOL

 

I know two guys who had 240Ds. They were really really really slow; the 0-60 times rivaled a VW Bus. They typically got mid-20s MPGs unless you slowed down to 60 MPH or less. Evidently the aero is not that good.

Both of them had fatal engine problems. Often when the engine goes, it is not repairable. Something about the liners not being thick enough to bore and not really being replaceable?

Another former co-worker had a 300 turbo diesel. She liked it, but the performance again wasn't anything to write home about. And it was pretty complex, with weird things like vacuum-actuated door locks which only worked half the time.

The MINI probably gets better gas mileage. It isn't as soft and plush as the Benz, but that's probably the only advantage the M-B has.

 

I test drove one for a weekend that a buddy converted to run off of WVO. It was a good idea but his execution needed some fine tuning. It was slow, tranny wasn't shifting into OD, and smelled horrible. He had 3 fuel tanks, OEM with pump diesel, clean WVO, and dirty WVO that was pumped into from restaurants. The on-board pump could be turned on to pump dirty through a filter, into clean tank and a transfer switch was used to switch tanks at proper operating temp. It can save money but the car was like a floating boat and the electrical system was all screwed up, highbeams had to be on to turn on low beams, ghetto wiring for WVO system, vacuum locks usually worked. It is getting harder and harder to find a clean one with a working ODO to know how many miles are on the chassis.

 

Yea I was looking at getting one but couldn't find one that I wanted

 

All I know is that if you can find one that didn't rust away and fix it up you will have a nice car. Some people had bad luck but a lot people were very successful with them. A running joke about the Merc diesel is that they don't break in till around 200k miles. The entire car my car out on you but I put money on it that engine will continue to power your rust bucket till all eternity.

 

In my opinion the 240 and 5-cyl 300d and 300sd were quite reliable. Where MB got into trouble was with the 3.5 litre TurboDiesel installed in the S-Class, W-126 (1989-1991) and W-140 (1992-1995). Check out my white-paper at www.mbz.org.