Titivating my Mercedes 124
Discussion
E65Ross said:
R129sl - may I be so cheeky as to ask......
Of all the mechanical work you've done, how much have you spent? I know the paint and welding etc you said £2.5k but I'd be interested in knowing what you've spent on the mechanical side of things.
Thanks
Ask away. I have been open about money because it is much more useful for anyone who is thinking about doing the same. Of all the mechanical work you've done, how much have you spent? I know the paint and welding etc you said £2.5k but I'd be interested in knowing what you've spent on the mechanical side of things.
Thanks
I haven't added everything up. But I did go through my records last night and I'd say that the total cost, including purchase (almost £1,076 the cheapest bill of them all), all mechanical work, 47,000miles of servicing and tyres and such like, and the recent bodywork is about £14,000, maybe a bit less. I could (and should) have saved about £2,000 of that by buying things more wisely. I should have made more of my wrecked 320 TE (I sold it for £500 then bought it back in bits for about twice that). I wasted a few hundred quid on a Mercedes-Benz Exquisit head unit and CD-changer which I very quickly replaced with the Becker Indianapolis 7950. I shouldn't have bothered getting Mercedes-Benz Inverness to fix the vacuum pump: it would have been better to tough it out until we got home and left it with Baister. There's a small mountain of unused parts in my garage which I have bought just in case they come in handy. And I should have learned how to do more myself.
Now, no doubt you're thinking, that's insane. But what else could I have bought for that kind of money? As a bare minimum, any alternative would have cost me £2,500 to run doing the mileage I do. So say I had £12,000 to spend. I couldn't have leased a new Merc for that; and even had I done so I would have nothing to show for it now. I could have bought a car from one of the specialist dealers but, with the greatest of respect to them, my experience suggests they all need work, no matter how pretty they are. I could have bought a Golf. Or a Passat. Or a Sierra or whatever they call them now. I could have bought a smarter one and put up with its faults.
OK, it is irrational. But I couldn't care less. I love the car and I have enjoyed doing it up. I've learned a lot of mechanical skills that I didn't have previously. And now I am going to enjoy using it for the next five years or more.
Tonight I dealt with a bit more of the snagging. I noticed that the vacuum line had not been connected to the central locking actuator in the new nearside rear door. How annoying. So I removed the door card and fixed that. How satisfying. Re-assembly is always so much more difficult than disassembly. Especially when you forget to fish out the wiring for the window switch and have to do it twice.
I also replaced the pedal rubbers and added a windscreen decal.
ETA: I will have the car's records and documents available at Mercedes-Benz World next weekend if you're interested.
Second edit: I didn't get that sticker very straight, did I? And I need to clean that pedal area a bit better.
Edited by r129sl on Wednesday 16th April 21:09
Fantastic R129sl, thanks for that. Really useful to know. Doesn't make me feel quite so bad about spending >£2k (and seemingly about to rise possibly substantially next Friday!!) on the E65!!!
Could have a cracked spring, if that's the case it'll basically be getting a front suspension rebuild which can't be too far away (either more or less than) £1k.
Could have a cracked spring, if that's the case it'll basically be getting a front suspension rebuild which can't be too far away (either more or less than) £1k.
Dent man has been this morning to remove those remaining dings I mentioned. Crumbs, he's good. Four dings in two different doors, took him maybe five minutes. He wanted £40 cash but I gave him £50 so impressed was I. If you're in the north east and you need a dent man, pm me and I'll give you his name and number.
I also ordered a new rear wiper arm from the main dealer. My wife reckons the existing one is a bit rusty and lets the car down. Another £66. Hopefully it will arrive before next weekend. Then it has to stop.
A serious clean up of the interior and maybe the engine bay is on the cards for the weekend. I am going to use the Surfex HD in the engine bay. All of the metal parts are stained and blackened and nothing I've used in the past has had much of an impact. What concentration do you recommend, Ross? And I am assuming I should just agitate it with a brush before rinsing?
EDIT: I'll start at 20% with warm water and agitate with a brush.
I also ordered a new rear wiper arm from the main dealer. My wife reckons the existing one is a bit rusty and lets the car down. Another £66. Hopefully it will arrive before next weekend. Then it has to stop.
A serious clean up of the interior and maybe the engine bay is on the cards for the weekend. I am going to use the Surfex HD in the engine bay. All of the metal parts are stained and blackened and nothing I've used in the past has had much of an impact. What concentration do you recommend, Ross? And I am assuming I should just agitate it with a brush before rinsing?
EDIT: I'll start at 20% with warm water and agitate with a brush.
Edited by r129sl on Thursday 17th April 11:34
r129sl said:
A serious clean up of the interior and maybe the engine bay is on the cards for the weekend. I am going to use the Surfex HD in the engine bay. All of the metal parts are stained and blackened and nothing I've used in the past has had much of an impact. What concentration do you recommend, Ross? And I am assuming I should just agitate it with a brush before rinsing?
EDIT: I'll start at 20% with warm water and agitate with a brush.
20% should be fine; I rarely use much more than that. If needed just go stronger and stronger. It's good stuff. If it's really stuck on just spray with Surfex, leave for a minute or 2, agitate it a bit, spray some more and just repeat a few times. I usually use old cloths to wipe away the crap because I'm not too keen on spraying water everywhere in the engine bay to rinse it.EDIT: I'll start at 20% with warm water and agitate with a brush.
Edited by r129sl on Thursday 17th April 11:34
If it doesn't shift it let me know. I have some other stuff which my dad uses at his company (he owns an aerospace engineering firm) which is pretty good but also quite expensive.
http://www.arrowchem.com/aerospace/fastklean/
But I prefer Surfex HD for most applications because this stuff smells quite strong and flashes off very rapidly (a positive in some instances but negative in others)....plus the Surfex can be diluted but I do think the fastklean is stronger. If you need some I can bring some to Sunday Service for you. Another positive with this it's not water based so is totally safe on electrical equipment.
Forgot to add, if you're being really anal (like I can be some times) SUrfex HD is superb for cleaning door/bonnet/boot shuts, inside the petrol filler cap area, hinges etc etc as well. Just be sure to regrease hinges etc afterwards.
Getting those bits clean (in my opinion) can really finish the car off.
Getting those bits clean (in my opinion) can really finish the car off.
Thread bookmarked. My 22-year-old son (who may make it over to MBW for the SS) is adamant he wants a W124 E280 auto estate as his first car and has even identified the example he wants to buy off a chap he knows - £1100 for a cosmetically slightly tatty but mechanically sound M-reg sound OK to you?
RoverP6B said:
Thread bookmarked. My 22-year-old son (who may make it over to MBW for the SS) is adamant he wants a W124 E280 auto estate as his first car and has even identified the example he wants to buy off a chap he knows - £1100 for a cosmetically slightly tatty but mechanically sound M-reg sound OK to you?
If your lad doesn't want it, give me a heads-up!CharlesdeGaulle said:
RoverP6B said:
Thread bookmarked. My 22-year-old son (who may make it over to MBW for the SS) is adamant he wants a W124 E280 auto estate as his first car and has even identified the example he wants to buy off a chap he knows - £1100 for a cosmetically slightly tatty but mechanically sound M-reg sound OK to you?
If your lad doesn't want it, give me a heads-up!
he's got the bug young!I have an E280:
- check the loom
- check for rust
It's not that you can expect much for £1k so much that if you have work done you don't necessarily seem to get your money back... I think there are strong and weak cars out there advertised at the same money.
He's always wanted something old, big and soft. He finds the usual warm hatches his peers buy utterly tedious and expensive to insure. He also has plans to go into the world of landscape gardening so needs space for tools etc, plus he has another big project which will require something of a battlewagon. Oh, and he's always complaining about the harsh ride in my E39 5-series, which I don't personally understand, but he reckons a soggy big old barge is right up his street. Has to be rear-wheel-drive and with a straight six engine, which doesn't leave a lot of choices...
I think they're a great first car: they're safe, they've a certain style or cool-factor (I kid myself that this is so, anyway) and they're easy to work on. As long as there is nothing terminal wrong with it and as long as you're not chasing perfection, you can't go wrong. See the bargain barge thread for cheap parts sources.
r129sl said:
I think they're a great first car: they're safe, they've a certain style or cool-factor (I kid myself that this is so, anyway) and they're easy to work on. As long as there is nothing terminal wrong with it and as long as you're not chasing perfection, you can't go wrong. See the bargain barge thread for cheap parts sources.
Agreed, I had one pretty young and found it perfect.Quite hard to crash thanks to impressive cornering grip predictable handling, also makes you drive more sedately.
Insurance premiums reflect this.
RoverP6B said:
He also has plans to go into the world of landscape gardening so needs space for tools etc.
I can't remember who it was , but someone once told me that they use 124 estates as vans on some of the royal estates because they don't jarr like a rusty transit parked in a formally laid out garden.E65Ross said:
Harsh ride, E39? What?
I've been in a few old Mercs now and whilst they are softer I would never go so far as to say an E39 rides harshly, even an M5. The last E39 I went in was a 530d on 17s, rode beautifully.
To be fair, the E39 IS pretty firm, it's no Rolls-Royce, but then a Rolls-Royce couldn't be hurled round B-roads like the E39 either.I've been in a few old Mercs now and whilst they are softer I would never go so far as to say an E39 rides harshly, even an M5. The last E39 I went in was a 530d on 17s, rode beautifully.
Son also reckons W124 would encourage a more sedate driving style and therefore less likelihood of being nicked for speeding (and doesn't that carry double points for newish drivers?).
RoverP6B said:
E65Ross said:
Harsh ride, E39? What?
I've been in a few old Mercs now and whilst they are softer I would never go so far as to say an E39 rides harshly, even an M5. The last E39 I went in was a 530d on 17s, rode beautifully.
To be fair, the E39 IS pretty firm, it's no Rolls-Royce, but then a Rolls-Royce couldn't be hurled round B-roads like the E39 either.I've been in a few old Mercs now and whilst they are softer I would never go so far as to say an E39 rides harshly, even an M5. The last E39 I went in was a 530d on 17s, rode beautifully.
Son also reckons W124 would encourage a more sedate driving style and therefore less likelihood of being nicked for speeding (and doesn't that carry double points for newish drivers?).
E65Ross said:
It probably would encourage a more sedate driving style, also because they're not particularly refined at higher speeds. An E39 will still be quite quiet doing 100mph, a W124 is quite noisy.
I can certainly vouch for my E39's high-speed cruising ability. Even with only 170bhp on tap, it's quiet and stable all the way to its 140mph terminal velocity. The '124 is aerodynamically a generation behind - I seem to recall its drag coefficient is 0.35 compared to the E39's 0.30 (correct me if I'm wrong).Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff