The heavens opened up recently and delivered this gem into my unbelievably GRATEFUL possession.

http://tiny.cc/97rg0

I picked her up yesterday after about a week of working through the deal with the dealer - Mercedes Benz of Beverly Hills. I was the first person on site to look at her and couldn't be happier about how David Markely worked with me in acquiring her.

Long story short for now; There was still some work David indicated they were going to do before selling her. They replaced the alternator, charged the AC, replaced one of the tie rods, the lower passenger door molding, steam cleaned the engine, detailed the interior and waxed detailed the exterior.

I took her to Enrique at Mr MB in Tarzana and they found no leaks and no rust whatsoever...even after having spent most of her life in Washington DC. The only things they found wrong were that:

1) they should have replaced BOTH tie rods
2) the AC compressor will need to be replaced because it is leaking aggressively. I knew it was a possible that the compressor was bad (but didn't know how to check for sure) and accepted that as a non issue in order to be able to own her. It blows ICE COLD right now and HARD though.

I'm kind of miffed about the tie rod since I would have paid them to put it on in order to avoid having to get her re-aligned. I'll be calling David to see if they will accommodate this since his report said that only one tie rod needed replacing but I'm not going to make a big deal of it.

I'll be taking a plethora of hi res pictures of the her on Saturday. She is just so stellar...I can't wait to learn how I can add whatever custom touches there are available to trick her look out.

I can't believe how awesome this is...now I'm driving around scared that some idiot is going to slam into me and ruin my diesel dream...

God, I love this car.

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1991 300SL 71K miles young

Very nice. Same exterior color as my '87 sedan. Interior looks really good.

Has the vacuum pump been updated? Something to think about if not. Original pump has a smooth cover; new version has 4 screws on the cover. The internal difference is the important part: the old version has an open-cage ball bearing that has been known to disintegrate and spit metal into the timing chain case. This has been known to break the timing chain and ruin the engine. The new version has a fully enclosed bearing. Caveat emptor!

Jeremy

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"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

Goncrats, as they say. Nice ride!

It's interesting that a high rent district dealer actually took the trouble to take this car as a trade in and actually resell it. Good for them, and good for you. I would think most dealers would wholesale off this thing in 2 seconds flat, not wanting to deal with the hassle of such an "old" car.

Rgds,
Chris W.
3 x W124's

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Objects in closer are mirror than they appear.

Very nice wagon- Congrats

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hum.....
1987 300TD 311,000M Stolen. Presumed destroyed

Btw. your washer fluid level detector is disconnected-

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hum.....
1987 300TD 311,000M Stolen. Presumed destroyed

Very nice wagon you have there. Enjoy that thing. Looks to be in really nice shape. I especially enjoyed the correctness of your thread title!
I did detect rogue-ness in their ebay ad though......

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Jimmy L.
'05 Acura TL 6MT
2001 ML430 My Spare

Gone:
'95 E300 188K "Batmobile" Texas Unfriendly Black
'85 300TD 235K "The Wagon" Texas Friendly White
'80 240D 154K "China" Scar engine installed
'81 300TD 240K "Smash"
'80 240D 230K "The Squash"
'81 240D 293K"Scar" Rear ended harder than Elton John

nice looking wagon!! Just goes to show they are still about.

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Grumpy Old Diesel Owners Club group

I no longer question authority, I annoy authority. More effect, less effort....

1967 230-6 auto parts car. rust bucket.
1980 300D now parts car 800k miles
1984 300D 500k miles
1987 250td 160k miles English import
2001 jeep turbo diesel 130k miles
1998 jeep tdi ~ followed me home. Needs a turbo.
1968 Ford F750 truck. 6-354 diesel conversion.
Other toys ~J.D.,Cat & GM ~ mainly earth moving

Objects in mirror are really not there at all.

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"Buster" in the '95

Our all-Diesel family
1996 E300D (W210) . .338,000 miles Wife's car
2005 E320 CDI . . 113,000 miles My car
Santa Rosa population 176,762 (2022)
Total. . . . . . . . . . . . 627,762
"Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."
-- Janis Joplin, October 1, 1970

very nice. leather interior, cool. and the crossbars. in the steam cleaning, they didn't clean the reservoir... oh well. I'd flush out the SLS fluid, it looks dark.
time to inspect the aux fan resistor, and it's connections. verify the cooling system is in PERFECT condition. test the fan clutch, heck, just replace it on general principals. get new o-rings on the oil filter shaft, and check out the belt tensioner bearings.
Welcome to the 87 TD club!

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John HAUL AWAY, OR CRUSHED CARS!!! HELP ME keep the cars out of the crusher! A/C Thread
"as I ride with my a/c on... I have fond memories of sweaty oily saturdays and spewing R12 into the air. THANKS for all you do!

My drivers:
1987 190D 2.5Turbo
1987 560SL convertible
1987 190D 2.5-5SPEED!!!

1987 300TD
2005 Dodge Sprinter 2500 158"WB
1994GMC 2500 6.5Turbo truck... I had to put the ladder somewhere!

I did my SLS fluid last night. I got 2 gallons of Fluid and it was WAY too much. The fluid was clear in less than one gallon.

It may be that it darkens again soon, I'll report back.

It was coke colored coming out, and sprite going in.

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77' 300D, "Cartman" SOLD @ 150K (didn't know what I had)
83' 300SD, "The Superdon" 325k+ @ 28mpg
95 E320 wagon, "Millennium Falcon" 231k+ @ 24 Mpg
95 E300D, "Sherley" 308k @ 33.69 Mpg, currently anticipating a head
99 Suzuki Intruder "Trudy" @ 45 mpg

Thanks for the heads up! I haven't been able to go over any diagrams on her yet so I don't know where it is located in order to check, but I will forthwith.

When I was on the boards a few years ago I had the Russian site dialed in as well as other resources....need to revisit my options for that and sign up for the authorized online access portal.

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1991 300SL 71K miles young

Thanks! Yes, you are correct. I was EXTREMELY fortunate...the dealership had just started giving David access to the older trade ins to sell online etc...which previously were wholesale(d) out as you indicated.

David is a huge fan of the older MB's, worked for MB back east since he was 18 or so and just started in BH a year ago. He use to be on the boards here quite a bit and asked if Brian Carlton was still posting. I told him, yep.

Did I mention I'm IN LOVE with my car?

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1991 300SL 71K miles young

Those photos are from before they did any work on it.

David said he threw up an Craigslist ad without any pictures before he had seen it as a sort of proof of concept for his manager and had 4 calls in the first hour.

He was getting so many calls on her at one point that the overflow was hammering their sales line. He called me and closed the ebay auction so that there would be no chance of someone selling it out from under me/him due to the interest.

I can't give him credit enough for how he handled the deal with me.

OMG I love this car...

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1991 300SL 71K miles young

You can't believe how thrilled I am. I was getting a bit depressed searching since it seems that every fairly nice 300TD Touring in So Cal and California has been converted to Veggie...mostly via that LoveCraft crap.

Oh man I love this baby...

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1991 300SL 71K miles young

I'm going to need to do a lot of reading to check on and/or perform the things that you just mentioned.

I'm interested in the reservoir since the steam cleaning was performed after the pictures were taken.

Between the off and on rain in So Cal on over the next few days and my schedule this weekend I don't know when I'll be able to snap the new pics but I'm going to try tomorrow afternoon.

Wow....I can't believe I own her...I don't even want to drive in traffic.

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1991 300SL 71K miles young