According to the seller of this car, 280E Mercedes are pretty rare in the states. Is this true? I heard less than 1,000 were sold here; most you see are grey market cars.
- posted
19 years ago
According to the seller of this car, 280E Mercedes are pretty rare in the states. Is this true? I heard less than 1,000 were sold here; most you see are grey market cars.
My sales guide only goes back to 1980. For the 1980 280E, 643 were sold @ $25,234.00 suggested list. For the 1981 280E, 1223 were sold @ $26,848.00 " "
WOW! That's some small numbers. I guess they are pretty rare.
I owned one of these, a USA California version, for about ten years. The car rides very comfortably - great suspension, IMHO. The six gas engine is the 110 engine DOHC with manual valve adjustment. This engine is a detuned, 142 HP version of the high compression 180 HP european engine. The fuel economy is average - about 16 to 22 mpg as I recall and only average in acceleration performance. 3,500 lb car and 142 HP - do the math.
The climate control system on these is their soft spot. If it works well it's great, otherwise could be an expensive repair. The "servo" is quite expensive to replace, even with a rebuilt unit and those are too often flaky. So be sure the climate control works in all modes before passing the cash.
I'm surprised the blue dashboard isn't cracked above the instruments, most of the blue ones are by now - unless the car was garaged most of its life.
Nice car but unless you need a gas engine I'd look for a '83 to '85 turbodiesel - in good condition.
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