9000 mile 280SE

[Sp!ke]

A mate of mine is interested in this, he's apparently seen it and says that its like new. Never been driven in the rain, absolutely everything works as it should and there's not a single imperfection. Its pretty basic spec with cloth and no aircon however.

My thoughts are; apart from the low mileage, the car itself doesn't have the wow factor and unless you're into concourse competitions or something, it would seem a bit of a useless car to own. With this mileage, you couldnt really drive it.

What are the thoughts of the collective

1979 MERCEDES 280 SE AUTO SILVER on eBay (end time 13-Jul-09 15:47:45 BST)

 

[Frank O' Phile]

Looks nice, but as you say no wow factor apart from the low, low mileage. If used as a daily driver then every mile will reduce it's only good point.

And to paraphrase the ad...

'still sitting on 30 year old tyres'. Hardly a selling point.

DVLA says it's been off the road since 2001.

 

[Ted]

It was VERY unusual to see a Mercedes with leather or aircon at the time.
Alloys were also unusual, at £625 for a set of 5

 

[C240Sport97]

I don't think it's that expensive ..

the low mileage actuallly worries me, and many seals may have perished from lack of use.

since it's 9k miles only, even if you put 50k miles on it, it will still be low miles

 

[Sp!ke]

the low mileage actuallly worries me, and many seals may have perished from lack of use.

On my 1981 W123, the car had been sat for a similar amount of time and yes, a few bits and bobs had perished and I had to replace some hoses here and there but nothing major really.

It was VERY unusual to see a Mercedes with leather or aircon at the time.

I dont think aircon was as rare on these as you'd imagine. It was a high end model and many of them did have air. In the US market, it was very unusual for cars even of this vintage to not have aircon.

 

[219]

Here in the UK few 280's , the entry level model , would have had air con .

Also the Fuchs 'Mexican Hat' alloy wheels were a very expensive option at about £300 apiece back then , I'd think Ted's figure is missing a 1 from the front for the set of five .

I know the price as I bought one of these wheels for my W114 280E back then after one was damaged by a piece of debris I ran over on the motorway .

All the same , the car for sale is a very nice looking example , and it matters not which model it is : a 280SE in that condition is much preferable ( and more valuable ) than a typical 116 - even a 6.9 - with rot everywhere .

 

[Roger Jones]

Suggest to your mate that it deserves to be used properly rather than kept as a classic treasure, as it's really not in that bracket, unlike SLs and perhaps a top-spec big-engine W126. Get rid of those tyres immediately and knock at least £500 off the asking price for that reason. Spend a couple of hundred quid to get an independent expert familiar with the model to check it over very carefully indeed; chronic under-use does cars no good at all. Surprisingly little detail given in the ad and the photos aren't much help. Offer half the price and see what happens.

 

[Ted]

Guys, I worked in a MB garage from 76-79.
Other than the 450SEL 6.9, I only ever remember one car with A/C (a round blue knob iirc)

Not to doubt your greater experience on the older cars Pontoneer, but the £625 for a set (looked a bit like turbine alloys) sticks in my mind - I could be wrong rthough (I was once)

Don't forget - the 450SEL 6.9 (every conceiveable extra) was a tad over 25K, and you could get a new w123 for (200 manual) for slightly over 5k

all IIRC of course!


Edit - these are the alloys I mean. The dog was an optional extra

 

[219]

Ted , yes the wheels pictured above are the Fuchs ones , usually known as the 'Mexican Hat' or 'Baroque' style .

I know those wheels (genuine ones at least , although there were cheaper 'copies') retailed at a little over £300 each : I can still remember having to pay this amount for a replacement after driving over a piece of metal on the motorway which not only punctured a tyre but went right through the alloy wheel and damaged it beyond repair !

The later style wheels which followed on : 8 hole , 15 hole (styles fitted to W124 , W140 , W201 , R129) were mostly around £100 to £120 apiece so for these I could believe the £600 a set , but the earlier ones , originally designed for the W109 300SEL 6.3 and also fitted (in various sizes) to W108 , W107 , W114 , W116 and W123 , plus a few of the very early W126 models would have been much more for a set of five .

I have only ever seen air con in a 6.9 (think it was standard on that model) and never on any other W116 , it was a very expensive option too at over £1000 .

 

[74merc]

The price for optional extra wheels is most likely not going to be the same as the replacement price. For example, a lorry scuffed one of the wheels on my wife's Seat - replacement price for 1 is £230. There's no way they could charge £920 extra for these wheels over the steel wheeled price.