Learn me some Mercedes.

In reply to yupididit :

3 tie rods, idler arm bushing, steering damper, upper control arms, lower ball joints, swaybar bushings, guide rod mounts, and shocks at minimum, plus a spring compressor and ball joint press and an allignment.  Add springs, lower control arm bushings, guide rod bracket bushings, guide rod to control arm bushings and wheel bearings if you want to do that whole job.  Then for the rear the subframe bushings are $350 each, plus $180 for the diff mount, etc.

In reply to Vigo :

The ones with the switchblade keys that look like vw ones, that some years of R129, W163, W210 and W140 used.  I haven't owned one and had to deal with it, but I read about it because I was thinking about buying a W140 and other than some people being able to repair the key when it failed there wasn't any mention of a fix.  I imagine if you had a running parts car and swapped the ignition and all the vin coded modules over it might work but at that point just keeping the other car might be easier.

The ones with the switchblade keys that look like vw ones

Oh, so the ones like my Cayenne's VW key! Shiiiittttttt 

Tk8398 said:

In reply to yupididit :

3 tie rods, idler arm bushing, steering damper, upper control arms, lower ball joints, swaybar bushings, guide rod mounts, and shocks at minimum, plus a spring compressor and ball joint press and an allignment.  Add springs, lower control arm bushings, guide rod bracket bushings, guide rod to control arm bushings and wheel bearings if you want to do that whole job.  Then for the rear the subframe bushings are $350 each, plus $180 for the diff mount, etc.

You are listing the items that any 20-25 year old car is going to need. I’ll wager the reason you replace them all as a piece instead of one thing as it fails is because you value the ride when the car is tight and know that it’s worth it.

In reply to chandler :

That's true, as far as the life of the parts its the same as any other car, its just somewhat complicated to do and more expensive than a lot of other cars are so its something to keep in mind when buying one.  Especially when its as much or more than you would pay for the whole car most of the time.  The fact that so many of them are still around after 200k+ miles and 30 years that we are even talking about it is pretty impressive though too.

Vigo said:

Be careful with buying an R129 because the keys are NLA for some years, so if both keys get lost or fail the car isn't good for anything but rewiring it and going on with your life

Fixed because that's a crazy reason to trash an R129 unless it's trashed anyway. Are you talking about some later model with a chip in the key or something? My early r129 has nothing fancy about the key itself.  

Only the transponder keys can't be replaced. Which are the 97+ cars I believe. 

Tk8398 said:

In reply to yupididit :

3 tie rods, idler arm bushing, steering damper, upper control arms, lower ball joints, swaybar bushings, guide rod mounts, and shocks at minimum, plus a spring compressor and ball joint press and an allignment.  Add springs, lower control arm bushings, guide rod bracket bushings, guide rod to control arm bushings and wheel bearings if you want to do that whole job.  Then for the rear the subframe bushings are $350 each, plus $180 for the diff mount, etc.

I think collectively if you buy ALL of those parts at the same time for ANY car that it'll be expensive. Those parts aren't particularly expensive on a w126.

Let me ask you a question. Do you buy all that E36 M3 for every car you just picked up if the ride isn't perfect? 

In reply to yupididit :

Honestly no I don't, only the 2 W126s I have owned needed that amount of work all at once after buying them.  The 300SDL I have now needed all the stuff I listed because there was as much as 1/4 inch of slop in some of the joints, but the W210 E300D I had with the same mileage only needed shocks and was going to need upper ball joints soon when I sold it.  It doesn't at all mean that they are bad cars, but its a relatively complicated job that needs to be done about every 175k miles and costs as much as most W126s are worth now just for the parts, so its good to be aware of that if you buy one.

Lobsterpennies said:

I have a 94 e320 w124 wagon. Bought it 3 yrs ago for 500.00. I am at I think 3000.00 total. I've fixed a lot on this car so if you get something similar I will keep an eye out for posts if you have any questions. I absolutely love the car so for me it was worth it. If you want a list of what I found to look for let me know

Yes, please.

The one that makes the most sense to me is the 300TE wagon. I'm a little concerned about highway mileage, as it would like be our Road Trip car.

And to be clear, anything I buy will be '95 or older, because of my "No OBDII" rule.

Which is fine, as those are the ones I ike th most, anyway.

I'd love to find a heckflosse Mercedes as a project.

Brett_Murphy said:

I'd love to find a heckflosse Mercedes as a project.

My first benz 

W124 and W201 are mostly solid cars. Stiff chassis like a steel billet, smooth engines, quiet and stable at speed. They rust if you live in an area with a lot of road salt, but not anywhere as much as other cheaper cars. Pull the little square plastic pieces in the side skirts, the rust usually starts there and spreads out. I'd stick to the late 80's, early 90's cars with single cam engines for more simplicity. Like others said, make sure the Tempmatic works. If the mono-wiper sticks in the middle of the windshield, it's just a matter of removing and disassembling to re-grease. MB-Tex interiors are indestructible and will look new after 30 years. Cool thing with Mercs is that the parts at the dealer are never NLA. But you can still get mostly everything off online suppliers. The 722.3 and 722.4 transmissions are good but yes they can leak.