The Mercedes-Benz W123 is the sort of car that becomes like a family member: even when it’s old and kind of annoying, you still want to keep it around (I kid, I kid – family members are never annoying.) The beauty of an incredibly reliable car like the W123 is you can keep it hovering between occasional use and being put out to pasture with no real penalty aside from some annual servicing bills; they really are that low maintenance. The car shown here on eBay is a 1981 240D that looks quite clean with an interior in an unusual car that remains in outstanding shape like all W123s; bids are to $3,359 with no reserve.
My brother recently picked up a very similar car in a great shade of primrose yellow paint. He didn’t pay much for it and it’s slow as molasses but it is inherently charming. It drives like a diesel and smells like a diesel, but that’s also part of the appeal. If you live in a place with low speed limits and you’re in close proximity to most of what you need, a car like this makes an awful lot of sense for a vintage classic you can actually use. The utility is achieved through four doors and a generous trunk, and you can justify keeping it around thanks to its reliability and abundant used parts supply.
W123s are still so common that they will appear at local salvage yards in snow belt states every few months; out on the West Coast, you still see them get junked or donated almost monthly. The interior of this W123 is a pleasing shade of oxblood that we don’t typically see, and it looks absolutely wonderful against the white paint. While notoriously hard-wearing, you still see some signs of wear and tear on the dash plastics and wood trim, and the carpets also appear to have faded unevenly in places. However, most cars this age and with 80,000 miles on the clock rarely still look this good.
Speaking of mileage, 81K is absolutely, positively nothing on a car like this. The engine is known to go for 300K miles without breaking a sweat, as it’s the perfect combination of being under-stressed and overbuilt. The 240D makes do with about 70 horsepower from its 5-cylinder engine, and while the later turbodiesel is more enjoyable for daily use, my brother has no quarrel with his car for just bouncing around town. The current bid price is a bargain for one of these, but therein lies another aspect of its charm: the sedans remain surprisingly affordable to pick up, even in sound, almost-survivor condition like this one.
240 5-cylinder? The ones I worked on were 4-bangers; a 300D with a cylinder chopped off.
Good cars and very reliable but in the late 70s/early 80s I saw lots of these wipe out the camshafts. But then, so was everyone else. You could try to blame the API for that as the oil formula got changed from SE-CC to SE-CD. Strangely enough, a couple of years later the formula got changed to SF and, as if by magic, camshaft failures stopped. I might add that a lot of farmers owned MB cars, mostly 300Ds. They used Series-3 oil with lots of zinc so camshaft failures were about as remote as the winning Powerball ticket.
Both the 240 and 300 had problems with the balancer coming loose on the crankshaft, which allowed the timing sprocket to oscillate back and forth on the key, eroding the keyway; often requiring removal of the crankshaft and sending it off to a machine shop to get the keyway fixed. We fixed a couple of them in our shop by taking the dremel and carbide cutting wheel to square up the keyway, then building a couple of dummy keys which sat on both sides of the old keyway, to restore the original-sized key to its proper place. New sprockets and chain and it was as good as new, or at least as good as the farmer’s 6.2 powered truck.
I dated a reporter for the local paper. Her Dad drove a 220 Diesel. I remember being at her family’s place one Friday night. Her father came home in a taxi. Apparently he misjudged how far the car could drive on Empty and came up short. His engine died 5 miles west of town. Anyways, his panties were all in a bunch because he would have to get it towed and he couldn’t get anyone in Mercedes-ville to work on it over the weekend.
I just told him to get in the truck with me.
“What are you going to do?”
“Get you going. Come on, get in the truck. I’ve got a slip tank in the back and it’s full of diesel fuel.” I didn’t bother to tell him that it was dyed, untaxed fuel for off-road use ONLY.
He got in the truck and we drove to the car. All the while he lamented about his car being broke down, and no one qualified to fix it, and having to use the VW van for the weekend.
I pulled out the hose and filler nozzle, and pumped probably close to 10 gallons of diesel into his tank, all the while enduring his muttering about how no one could fix an MB except for a qualified, factory-trained MB service technician.
I bled the fuel system and told him to get in and crank it over. He let the glow plugs heat and reluctantly turned it over. It almost immediately jumped, enough to kick out the starter. I pumped on the hand primer again and told him to try again. It jumped, only this time it stayed running, albeit a little rough until it purged all the air. Because of the precombustion chambers it knocked a few times but finally settled down.
The (almost) father-in-law was incredulous. To think that a recalcitrant redneck, mechanic/truck driver/dirt farmer could fix something as precise and complicated as a Mercedes Benz was a miracle that could not exist out of the Bible.
But the writers of the Good Book never thought about all of us who were too stupid to know that there were tasks that could NOT be done with simple hand tools…
Bravo to you, geomechs. Great story!
There are issues with this car the seller says some minor chips except look at driver door and passenger door that is not minor looks like that it has side swiped not hard but there is damage. I wonder what else the seller is stretching the truth on???
👆I thought the same thing. The paint “touch ups” look hideous 😂
Besides being only faster than a diesel Rabbit , the items Geomechs mentioned will happen and then some. Mine also had mystery water leaks from body gaskets.
The 240 D was 4 cylinders. There was a 5 cylinder also a W123
I’ve had a 220D, 240D, and a 300D Turbo. Any one of them would cruise at 70+. The 4 cylinders would slow down on a long grade, but not much. The suspension/brakes are good for much higher speeds. They’re not golf carts. You can comfortably drive all day on the Interstate.
Man I’d love to own this Benz. I’d be right at home driving this car. At my age I’m in no hurry to get anywhere.Some would say I drive the car I’ve got too slow. I’m surprised it’s still available. Good luck to the buyer of this good MB deal.