First, a reintroduction:
Long time no see! I've been absent from this forum and without a car for the past 5 years taking the plunge to go back to school and earning my B.S.Arch and M.Arch. It's nice to see so many familiar names around here and seeing the GRM family as active as ever.
Having just graduated, I have a couple of projects already which will get their own threads shortly, but for now I need a new daily.
Before selling off everything to move to Boston for architecture school, my DD was an E23 735i. I loved everything about it and it totally spoiled me on ride comfort and interior quality.
Looking for a little more utility, I stumbled upon some W124 wagons. They seem to be decently available and very affordable, but I don't know anything about other than what I can read on wikipedia.
Does anyone have any experience with them? I know the whole 3-pointed star finger-pricking adage/rumor, but I'm hoping some first-hand might disprove/debunk.
Thanks!
Carson wrote:
Before selling off everything to move to Boston for architecture school, my DD was an E23 735i. I loved everything about it and it totally spoiled me on ride comfort and interior quality.
Looking for a little more utility, I stumbled upon some W124 wagons. They seem to be decently available and very affordable, but I don't know anything about other than what I can read on wikipedia.
I suppose you could look for one of the rare coachbuilt e23 tourings... 
Only a handful were built so it's probably not worth the effort.
If you think your E23 had good ride comfort and interior quality, the W124 will blow you away. It's a step above.
I can rant for quite awhile about things I hate on the w124/E320. But I'll just mention one of them now. When you go to haul something in the back, you have to: 1) remove the headrests from the top of the rear seat; 2) figure out where to put said rests of the heads; 3A) find and actuate the latches for the rear seat backs; 3B) learn/re-learn that one side has to be folded down first - then the other side. Now you can start to load your large item. That is when you will discover that there are several plastic-covered clips that protrude up from the surface of the floor. These things hide sharp-ish metal clips under them. The plastic covers will pop off as you slide your large thing into the cargo area. Some of them will break as they pop off. Then the metal things under them will cut/scrape/damage whatever your large item is. All this from the design and engineering studios of "world-class" Mercedes Benz.
Meanwhile, the lowly Chevy S10 Blazer has a similar sized cargo area behind it's rear seat. The steps required are: 1) find the handles to fold the backs of the seats down; 2) use the handles (either 1 may be operated first). The head rests take care of themselves!! They fold out of the way as the seat backs fold. There aren't any cargo damaging, booby-trapped, common-sense-defying protrusions sticking up from the floor. (After all that's what the floor is for - to be able to slide things on.)
There! I feel better now 
I've driven a lot of miles in various w124s, they are pretty dang bulletproof. I also Found them easy to work on and parts availability to be good. They are getting old so stuff will break but the info is good for diy repairs. Here are a couple of mine.
