W210 rust

[987f]

My March 2001 E320 CDI Estate definitely suffered from Russian mild steel, water-based paint, and a lack of galvanisation. Rust has figured for years but been kept at bay for between £200-250 per year spent on bodywork. It is approaching 200,000 miles and still has a full MB Service History, hence qualifying for the worldwide Mercedes Roadside Assistance & Rescue Assist. This is very handy for a 17 year-old car as breakdown cover overseas gets progressively harder to find. With just about 50mpg on most trips it costs 25p per mile to run for all costs (of which fuel takes 12.4p per mile) including the £1,365 I spent three years ago to buy it on EBay. It did 1,400 miles last week.

 

[mj2k]

E300TD is well worth thinking about for a mile cruncher - the OM606 is a v tough engine (without swirl flaps to worry about), and when the car's rotted to bits there are plenty of people who will buy it just for the engine - it's a perfect engine swap for superturbodiesel mods to W201 / W124s, and numerous other non-MB oddities...

Early ones do seem to rust worse, but nothing is beyond repair unless the subframe mounts have rotted away (normally a W124 problem unless the car's spectacularly bad); the panels are all very straightforward in design so patching it back together is definitely a DIY possibility as long as you've had a little welding experience.

Here's my old thread on patching an early E320 V6 (petrol) back together. And yes, I still miss it

Unintentional W210 bodywork 'resto'

 

[chatteris]

went to my mates garage this morning there was a 02 plate e200 it was a bit scabby but not too bad it had come in for suspected broken spring on nearside but when he looked where the spring mounts to the inner wing it was all rusted away offside had had some metal welded in but was bad also,so he told him to scrap it

 

[mj2k]

went to my mates garage this morning there was a 02 plate e200 it was a bit scabby but not too bad it had come in for suspected broken spring on nearside but when he looked where the spring mounts to the inner wing it was all rusted away offside had had some metal welded in but was bad also,so he told him to scrap it

Blimey, new spring mounts are £20 off Ebay...

 

[chatteris]

it needs a lot more metal than that