Junkyard Find: 1982 Mercedes-Benz 300 D With 417k Miles

Some thoughts.

All cars from this era appear to us as being mechanically simple and thus easy to work on. I think for the most part this is true, even on W123s which despite this were a little more complicated than your average 1970s car. These things are all over Africa and the Middle East, still soldiering on after their odometers stopped working at 999,999 km 20 years ago - literally. But the folks there know how to work on these and have also developed their own tools or spares to keep them running. There’s a great documentary on Youtube in German called “Autos für die Ewigkeit” and it’s mainly about old Mercedes cars and trucks in South America, Africa and the Middle East with hundreds of thousands of kilometers or in many cases over a million kilometers behind them (some trucks in Brazil had something like 4.3 million kilometers on his 1960s Mercedes Kurzhauber truck) and was still using it as a daily truck. What I found fascinating about this documentary is that it showed the people in these regions creating their own tools for maintenance or creating a spare parts in some backyard mechanic shop. Fascinating!

I disagree with the claim that modern cars are built to “last the length of the lease”. In my experience modern cars are actually much better made than older cars. The old-school “solid door shut feel” of Mercedes’ was in my experience not unique to them. Old cars are heavy and usually had thicker doors as a form of safety I suppose. Modern cars are all about lightweight construction to save weight and improve fuel economy. A 1972-1980 Mercedes W116 S-Class had doors which shut and felt like a bank vault. It’s successor, the 1979-1993 W126 S-Class was put on a diet and had weight reduction wherever possible and as a consequence its doors didn’t shut with that “bank vault” thud feel. The same applies to the W123’s successor, the W124, which was lightened and thus didn’t feel as solid as a W123. Doesn’t mean the car was built to a lesser standard.

I think the fact that some people lease cars gives them a bad reputation in the first place. Think about it. Someone leasing a car isn’t necessarily going to treat it right or abide by maintenance schedules. Why should they? They don’t care about the future of this car or the second owner when they will lease the facelifted or new model after three years. I’ve ridden with people who gunned their leased car with a cold engine and abused it - stuff like that is gonna damage the engine over time if this is repetitive behavior. A modern car with proper treatment from the owner will be just as reliable if not more so than an older car. I don’t even think most owners of modern turbo cars know how to treat them properly: drive them warm, drive them cold and they should be fine.

I’ve treated all my German cars well and never had any serious mechanical issues or problems that would make me call them unreliable. I also don’t think that electronics these days are going to be a big problem overall. Technology evolves and gets better. Electronics might have been a weakspot on most cars in the late 1990s and early 200s, but these days manufacturers or better yet their suppliers have gotten these things perfected to the point where they will remain functional and reliable for decades. Hell, I am typing this on a 16-year-old laptop which has never had an issue and while slow[er] than before, it still works, graphics card etc. all work fine.

When I saw the pic of that diesel engine I paused to put my hand over my heart. What a masterpiece of an engine, and I don't care if it IS slow. And then, the comment about the MB-tex had me doing the same thing. Mercedes has achieved quite a few levels of greatness over the years.