312 Sprinter
Active Member
Following on from my thread in new members I thought I'd post up a little thread about my brother in law's E220 estate. His BMW diesel has just bitten the dust, as they're wont to do. It gobbled up a swirl flap or two; game over. To be honest I'm pleased to see the back of it, horrible unreliable torture devices that BMWs are.......
Anyway, the quest was on for another set of wheels. One evening over a good meal and a glass or two of wine I declared that it really isn't necessary to spend lots of money in order to drive a decent reliable car. I must have sounded convincing, or Bacchus clouded my brother in law's judgement
whichever it was the search was on for a car. It had to be an estate, it wasn't allowed to have a BMW badge and it had to be quality. That'll be a Mercedes or a Volvo then......
He was seduced by the three pointed star. John and I started searching. I vetoed the idea of a W210, I had an E320 CDI and it made even a BMW look reliable, though I loved it when everything worked at the same time. We briefly looked at C250s but a large dog, 2 large kids and a petite wife made them look a tad small. (the latter is just in case my sister ever reads this).
That'll be a W124 on the menu then. We looked at a few. These cars are starting to attract the creative advert writers. We drove a few hours to look at a diesel with virtually no brakes, dodgy history, the aroma of dog and an interior that seems to have made and adequate substitute for Pedigree Chum for the afore mentioned canine. I'd also spotted a silver E220 with a rather uninformative description. The bad news was that it had been crashed and declared a Cat C write off. It hadn't been repaired but had been VIC tested. Since all we were finding were dogs, cars that smelled of dog, or car chewed by dogs we decided to go have a look. Coincidentally it wasn’t far from Battersea.
What we found is a really rather nice E220.
Anyway, the quest was on for another set of wheels. One evening over a good meal and a glass or two of wine I declared that it really isn't necessary to spend lots of money in order to drive a decent reliable car. I must have sounded convincing, or Bacchus clouded my brother in law's judgement

He was seduced by the three pointed star. John and I started searching. I vetoed the idea of a W210, I had an E320 CDI and it made even a BMW look reliable, though I loved it when everything worked at the same time. We briefly looked at C250s but a large dog, 2 large kids and a petite wife made them look a tad small. (the latter is just in case my sister ever reads this).
That'll be a W124 on the menu then. We looked at a few. These cars are starting to attract the creative advert writers. We drove a few hours to look at a diesel with virtually no brakes, dodgy history, the aroma of dog and an interior that seems to have made and adequate substitute for Pedigree Chum for the afore mentioned canine. I'd also spotted a silver E220 with a rather uninformative description. The bad news was that it had been crashed and declared a Cat C write off. It hadn't been repaired but had been VIC tested. Since all we were finding were dogs, cars that smelled of dog, or car chewed by dogs we decided to go have a look. Coincidentally it wasn’t far from Battersea.

What we found is a really rather nice E220.