Mercedes C230 ?

My neighbor just bought a 2000 Mercedes C230 sedan and asked my opinion. I told him I would consult the Encyclopedia of GRM for him.

The car: 2000 Mercedes C230 sedan
Price: $2000
One owner
Always garage kept (wife's co-worker)
82K miles with complete dealer service history
Upper control arms just replaced to pass safety inspection
No rust anywhere that I could see
Tear in drivers armrest (see photo)
Needs new radio antenna
CD changer not working - Says no discs loaded when there are some in it

I looked over the car and drove it. I couldn't find any problems other than those mentioned above.

Opinions, info, and things to look for would be appreciated.

no responses? Are these that bad?

Not bad. Just not exciting. Change the oil and fluids, do shocks, get an alignment and DD it.

Parts prices are stupid expensive and they are cheaply built Mercedes. Not something I'd buy, but it should be fine until it gets too expensive to repair and they can be sold to the local parts yard to help the die hards keep them alive.

For $2000 I would daily it considering it is the supercharged version. fairly reliable too, especially with dealer main records. looks like a good buy to me!

I seem to recall these really liking pulleys for extra power. They sound terrible at idle, but WOT is nice. Good power band.

Looks good to me. Skip the changer and plug an aux module in there then run the piss out of it till something major breaks. Can't go too far wrong for 2k

These comments are scaring me. I'm picking up one of these next month. And I'm just a poor boy.

Basically you're buying them for the blower. Use the car until it goes pop (many times the electric clutch on the blower fails and that causes them to go the 'yard due to the expense involved in a replacement). Then salvage the blower and anything else interesting/useful to you and send it to China in bits and pieces.