84 240D 5 Speed - Ultimate in reliable and economical transportation

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It does look jolly nice of its type, but it's rather old; ultimate in reliable, economical and dull transportation, perhaps? My boat, I'm afraid, remains utterly unfloated...
 
Lovely looking car but not sure the attraction of a car like this is the fuel economy?

40mpg isn’t exactly something to get excited about, and I doubt whoever buys it would be piling on the miles (they’d not be buying a vehicle of this age to do that)

I mean it’s averaged about 3000 miles a year since it was made and even including the spell off the road of 15 years it’s not done many miles PA. I suspect it will cost more in maintenance and repairs than it ever uses in fuel ;)
 
I would quite happily use a car like that everyday. It would have to be an estate version though.

People often go on about these old Mercedes diesels low bhp figure on paper, it is a frequent comment on the internets. When you drive one you soon realise it is not an issue at all, and you just drive in a different way. Manual gearbox as well just like my w201 which often is said to be a horrible thing to use but it is not in my experience.

You may find you arrive wherever you were going a bit later but a lot more relaxed. That will be because the suspension actually soaks up bumps because the tyres are not like rubber bands.

No depreciation, low insurance costs, no turbo, no dpf, no ecu's and you can fix it at home easily and cheaply. You will not even have to take a bit of plastic off the top of the engine before you can work on it. It may even make you enjoy working on cars again. Analogue is good.

Count me in.
 
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I ran a 75 300D (240D 3.0 in Yurp) for a while. I bought that car an fixed it , painted it in my 2 car garage at home and it came out looking lovely (first paint job too). I drove it around for about a year but the novelty wore off. I was barely getting 21mpg (US) because my foot was in it all the time. Yep, it would eventually get to 70mph and once there, it will quite happily sit there all day but it was dangerously slow.

The guy I sold my W210 E420 to eventually sold it back to and I was the happiest man in the world when I got it back. I love the W115 chassis, but only when it's mated to the M114E 250 or M110E 280 engine as they can get out of their own way.

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He knows he doesn't want one...
 
Screwdriver said:
Son...you clearly don't know a thing about the W123...
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We recommissioned the Mercedes 2 years ago after being stored for 15 years which is why it's only done 117000 miles and it's been in regular use since then.
New tyres, battery, all suspension, brakes including disks and flexible hoses, alternator too.
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Works out around 3000 miles a year, using your 40mpg figure that’s 75 gallons of fuel.

£375 a year approx?

(Is 40mpg combined a realistic average though?)

Mercedes-Benz 240D MPG - Actual MPG from 66 Mercedes-Benz 240D owners

The most accurate Mercedes-Benz 240D MPG estimates based on real world results of 695 thousand miles driven in 66 Mercedes-Benz 240Ds
www.fuelly.com

Even if you said £500 PA in fuel, how much have you spent PA on your W123 averaged out over the years and what do you think your annual running costs will be from now on? :)

It’s a nice looking car, but the ‘economical’ thing is a bit of a red herring. Especially as I doubt it will ever see anything approaching typical annual usage. And if you started using it everyday in all weather and piling on the miles it would probably cost more in repairs/restoration - catch 22.

I suspect they spent a reasonable chunk on the work they mentioned above. If you’re paying a garage labour doesn’t come cheap, and at 36 years old it will no doubt need some work from time to time, no matter how nicely engineered they are :thumb:
 
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ChipChop said:
Everyone secretly yearns for an analogue diesel like a 240d when they get that £2000 bill for something on a modern that is designed to fail and is made of chinese plastic.:)
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Have you seen how much the OP spends/has spent on his super reliable economical cars so far? ;) :)

I get the cars and appreciate them for what they are but there’s no point in pretending that they’re a better proposition for a daily driver and/or suit everyone’s needs better than their own choices :thumb:
 
Will said:
Have you seen how much the OP spends/has spent on his super reliable economical cars so far? ;) :)

I get the cars and appreciate them for what they are but there’s no point in pretending that they’re a better proposition for a daily driver and/or suit everyone’s needs better than their own choices :thumb:
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Yep nothing is free in life including a reliable car. Once sorted though an old non turbo/ no dpf/ mechanical diesel should run like a swiss watch in perpetuity.
 
ChipChop said:
Everyone secretly yearns for an analogue diesel like a 240d when they get that £2000 bill for something on a modern that is designed to fail and is made of Chinese plastic.:)
Click to expand...

Not everyone...
 
ChipChop said:
Yep nothing is free in life including a reliable car. Once sorted though an old non turbo/ no dpf/ mechanical diesel should run like a swiss watch in perpetuity.
Click to expand...

Well yeah, but then most decent Mercedes are reliable if serviced and looked after.

Having spent thousands of pounds out on restoration and months in garages and body shops you can hardly say a 35-40 year old car is any more suited to daily use than the millions of other modern cars that spend their life used daily with only the occasional trip to the garage for a service or MOT.

I think the fear of new technology distorts the perception of reliability. Most modern cars are reliable and don’t break down :thumb:
 
Will said:
Well yeah, but then most decent Mercedes are reliable if serviced and looked after.

Having spent thousands of pounds out on restoration and months in garages and body shops you can hardly say a 35-40 year old car is any more suited to daily use than the millions of other modern cars that spend their life used daily with only the occasional trip to the garage for a service or MOT.

I think the fear of new technology distorts the perception of reliability. Most modern cars are reliable and don’t break down :thumb:
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I am a fan of old mechanical Mercedes diesels so make no bones about being biased in my views.

They are easy to understand and once you have that knowledge it remains a constant, unlike the electronic control systems in modern cars. That constant creates the reliability.

I for example know i could set out on a journey in my 190d and always be able to fix a problem if it occured.

My e320cdi i would not have a clue, apart from changing the brake light switch. :)
 
I get the simplicity of them and that lends itself to more simple repairs, but in general most modern cars rarely break down.

And trying to say that a 35/40 year old Mercedes is more economical than a newer more efficient model is odd especially when you look at the restoration/repair costs.

By comparison:

Four years since I bought my W204 ! | General Discussion

That has to say something about how good an all-rounder my C350 CDI has been. I normally change cars every 6 months to a year. No major issues, no breakdowns, no punctures and starts every time, even after been laid up for a month recently. Gets a trot on when needed and does decent enough 40...
forums.mbclub.co.uk forums.mbclub.co.uk

A C350 is a rocketship by comparison, not the choice for economy yet both are claiming 40mpg? :thumb:

And I expect from reading those posts, they’ve spend less time in garages and more time eating up miles on the road than a 35/40 year old W123 that’s averaged just 3k miles PA :)
 
Will said:
I think the fear of new technology distorts the perception of reliability. Most modern cars are reliable and don’t break down :thumb:
Click to expand...

I think "Internet chit chat" distorts the perception of reliability of modern, and old cars.

Most vehicles roll on for ages before being broken up because they "don't look modern," "needs change," or "because there's a funny noise no-one wants to investigate, and it's due a service that no-one wants to pay for."
 
I guess the difference is that in 9 years of ownership my w201 190d 2.5 has only ever broken down once. That was due to a aux belt tensioner that had just been fitted failed (the alloy snapped).

I bought this car in 2011 off ebay with 260,000 miles and it is now on 304,000 miles.

Hopefully the modern w204 above can also reach this level of reliability too. Somehow though i doubt it mainly due to the engine being highly tuned, as it is for all modern common rail diesels.
 
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