Twenty Two Years ago this month (February), my W123 was born.
What a wonderful car! People laughed at me 7 years ago when I bought a car with over 150,000 miles on it. I was 17 years old, and paid $4,300. (I think that shows quite a lot of wisdom for a 17 year old, while all his friends are getting little red sports cars, I went a different route) Well, guess what? Most of the people who laughed at me buying such an old old car, their American POS cars have died after they have spent thousands into it. While I have enjoyed pretty much maintenance free car. The only repair I couldn't do myself and I had to do, was replace the upper controller arm bushings. ($300) It has about 250,000 miles on it now. Still runs like a champ. I just think, if I purchased any other car, it would have been dead a long time ago. The price was higher, but the overall cost, is way less than other cars. that equals high value. It kinda ticks me off that Mercedes quality has slipped now. I would love to (if my car ever dies) buy another like 1997 E-Class 300D, and have it last another 25 years, but it doesn't look like it would. It erks me that if Mercedes would start manufacturing W123's again, they could modify it ever so slightly, and have it last longer than the originals. But Oh well. It's not profitable for Mercedes to only have people buy cars every 25 years. They need people to buy them every 7 years like in America, and how America does that, is make crappy cars so they have to. I suppose American influence has spread. When my Mercedes dies, it looks like I will shed a tear, and have to go to Japan to get another car to last 15-20 years. but I will miss my Mercedes.
Darrell