W124 
I've been driving a '87 300TD for about 2 months and I love it. Good luck with your gasser!
W124
I've been driving a '87 300TD for about 2 months and I love it. Good luck with your gasser!
$2015 Challenge.
Just doing my part to spread the word.
Tom Suddard wrote: Yes, it has the 3rd row seat. The answer for how you buy a car like this? Time and effort. I take 20 min a day and look at what's cheap on Craigslist, and look at something a few times a month or so just for fun. This ad didn't say what car it was or have any pictures, but it was local so I grabbed a buddy and went to look at it just for sport. I had little intention of buying it. When I look at something, I come with cash, a trailer, and a friendly, honest attitude. "I'll give you cash right now and it'll be gone in five minutes" is a remarkably good negotiating tactic. I brought the trailer for this one, even though I was pretty sure it ran fine, because it just so clearly shows that you are the solution to their problem, and they know they won't get a call 30 minutes later asking for a refund. I also take the time to show the seller exactly why I'm offering what I'm offering. In this case, I showed her that it ran fine (she didn't seem to understand). I also took the time to pull interior panels and show her the cockroaches. That dropped the price A LOT.
I own a shop, and I don't do it as often as I could because I consider it a conflict of interest, but sometimes people just want you to take their pain away. She was tired of dumping money, didn't want to dump more, has a new car, and needs to be rid of the albatross.
Page 3 and you never explained the stupid part.
Great score, even if it is a Mercedes. 
The big bux on those (if it has it) is the damn self leveling rear suspension with the accumulators etc. Man that crap is EXPENSIVE to fix. Saw a couple where it came in sagging, replace the accumulators, car rises back up, warn the customer this might not last, two weeks later a shock would blow.
Nice find. I've had a few friends do things like this. Common fixes that the non-technical folks don't really understand resulting in an easy sale. They don't come up often, but they are nice when they do.
Nice score as long as she isn't too rusty and the wiring doesn't return to it's natural state. People make a living flipping cars like this under just these circumstances. In my circle, I'm "the guy who fixes cars." This means every friend and friend of friend calls when someone has a comatose car that needs to be removed from the premises for free or near free. That includes free SAAB 900 Turbos with a popped off intake hose or a Camry with a bad starter drive. Whatever.
If enough people know you can do something with a dead car and relieve them of the responsibility for making it gone, you won't even need to look at craigslist unless you want to do so for entertainment.
Tom, I'm sure you're "that guy" in your circle so this may be the first or second of many many more easy scores. You don't need any reinforcement from anyone when you can look across the kitchen table and see a guy who kept a publishing company afloat by doing the same thing you just did for the last thirty years.
Build thread has been created:
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/1989-mercedes-benz-300te/92510/page1/
What you people say:
Jerry From LA wrote: Tom, I'm sure you're "that guy" in your circle so this may be the first or second of many many more easy scores. You don't need any reinforcement from anyone when you can look across the kitchen table and see a guy who kept a publishing company afloat by doing the same thing you just did for the last thirty years.
What moms hear:
Enable enable enable, Ginger
Margie
To be fair, I blew $250 on waaayyyyyyyyy worse stuff when I was Tom's age, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
bluej wrote: To be fair, I blew $250 on waaayyyyyyyyy worse stuff when I was Tom's age, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.
Listen, everyone had that hookers and blow budget back in the 80s.
Well done...there is one that is local here, not quite the screaming deal that you got, but it is very tempting.
Wally wrote: Would you take $600 and a bottle of scotch? I'm mostly interested in the cockroaches as we are running out.
^That belongs in the magazine^
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