W204 C220 & W124 Cabriolet
Discussion
Inspired by other Mercedes contributors here, I thought I would share my experiences with my current cars. A W204 C220 and a W124 Cabriolet.
First of all, a quick summary of my car history:
1996 Mk1 Clio 1.2 (First car, 2006)
1996 E36 318is Coupe (first “grown up” car)
2002 E46 318ci Cabriolet
2007 CLK280 Sport Cabriolet
2004 E46 320d Sport Touring
1998 E39 528i pre-facelift sport (a rare car with factory shadow line trim and BBS Style 5 wheels)
1990 MK2 Golf GTI (project, bit off more than I could chew)
2004 E46 M3
2002 Audi A2 (interesting winter shed, even more interesting electrical faults)
2002 Audi A3 (dull winter shed)
1998 E36 323i (230k on clock. A loose but purposeful winter shed)
1998 E46 323i (winter shed, auto box expired spectacularly)
2016 MK7 Golf R (lease)
2004 E60 530i Manual
It’s fair to say that my history is all over the place, mainly due to life events, buying a first house etc. Most notable and difficult to come to terms with is the loss of the E46 M3. I bought it in 2013. Low mileage, silver grey, manual, coupé. I rented a garage locally in Harrogate to store it as I only had a drive at the time. Worshipped that car. Here it is in happier times alongside the winter 323i.
Anyway, in a moment of madness I decided what I actually wanted instead of an appreciating asset owned outright, was a leased MK7 Golf R. The day I took delivery...
So I sold the M3, for a small profit. I subsequently moved down south for work and to live with my soon to be wife. The accompanying new job meant that the tiny mileage allowance that I signed up to on the Golf was blown out of the water.
To cut a long story short, I drove it for 12 months and racked up 22,000 miles. Realising I would be crippled by excess mileage charges if I continued it was beached at my parents where it remained for a year before handing me a £1,500 bill.
Everyone talks about living with no regrets. This is complete nonsense and every time I think of the decision to sell the M3 I cringe like a crisp packet on a bonfire. I wake up some nights in a cold sweat thinking about it.
As a device for teleporting between destinations at immense speed the Golf was stunningly capable but ultimately forgettable. In reality, on a damp Yorkshire B road, the M3 wouldn’t see which way it went, but the latter felt mechanical, slightly intimidating even, when pushed. As a performance car should really.
So after that lesson learned it was back to what I know best, slightly musty 2nd hand Germans because I’m tight. To stem the mileage cost on the Golf, I bought a E60 530i to cover a commute between Surrey and Brighton. Didn’t really get on with it so sold it shortly after. Can’t put my finger quite on what, but it just didn’t charm like the E39 did.
What to do next? What I needed was a nail. Something to rack up 100 miles a day and not really care too much about. In a moment of exceptional bravery I bought a 192,000 mile W204 Mercedes C Class Diesel. A Facebook marketplace special. Everything about this car was wrong, no history, 6 owners. It was however mega spec. Plus, Many years of sitting in the back of 220 CDI taxis around Europe had distilled confidence that these drivetrains are fairly bullet proof. It was also very cheap at £3,600.
12 months on, its still going with 207k on the clock. The torque converter started shuddering and a local garage charged me £500 to randomly replace parts and not diagnose the problem. Ebay sold me Lubegard instant shudder fix for £11, which did along with a fluid and filter change. Other wear and tear items I have replaced myself, including oil changes every 6k.
A good polish later (I also replaced the sport grill for a classic setup because I’m 30 going on 64) I think it looks pretty good. It feels like a proper Merc, quite austere but solid and, in my option as an ex-BMW fan, a much more attractive car than the equivalent 3 series.
Since I started writing this, it has been it for its MOT. Not a single advisory noted....but one straight bloody fail on handbrake efficiency (13%). Annoyingly, I had adjusted the shoes in preparation. The pedal requires a fair old shove but it does hold the car well. Wearing my best “are you taking the p*ss face” I took it on the chin. It was a council test centre which is more expensive at £55, but I tend to find these places more “objective” in their assessment.
So where does the W124 fit in? It doesn’t really, or wasn’t supposed to. I had been lusting after a R129 SL.
Alas, fate intervened. One evening whilst doing my evening scour of ebay, gumtree and Facebook marketplace (in that order) I came across something that looked to good to be true. 1996 E220 Cabriolet, 106,000 Miles, one owner. The price was low, too low.
A cursory HPI check came back clear so I called the seller in the morning. He ran a local garage and had bought the car from an old boy after it had failed an MoT on brake lines. I nipped round to see it after work and, in addition to being fixed with a fresh MoT, it was rust free and unmarked. It needed a bloody good polish for sure but it was very, very tidy. Assuming the trader had fleeced the original owner, I made an fittingly insulting offer.
He accepted, after trying and failing to cross sell me his L322 Range Rover. This was in late February. It sat in my garage through to May until the sunny weather dictated it was time to come into the light. It was packed off to James Leigh Mercedes in Wimbledon for a once over and a good service. I cannot recommend James enough, a proper honest old school mechanic.
I have since given it a decent clean and polish. The end result....
I had bought it with the intention of flipping it after cleaning it up. I don’t think that is going to happen now. The girlfriend is quite fond of it and would like to use it as our wedding car (or more fittingly, parade car) in Italy next year. It is her garage it is sitting in, so I guess she has some kind of obscure legal right over it.
First of all, a quick summary of my car history:
1996 Mk1 Clio 1.2 (First car, 2006)
1996 E36 318is Coupe (first “grown up” car)
2002 E46 318ci Cabriolet
2007 CLK280 Sport Cabriolet
2004 E46 320d Sport Touring
1998 E39 528i pre-facelift sport (a rare car with factory shadow line trim and BBS Style 5 wheels)
1990 MK2 Golf GTI (project, bit off more than I could chew)
2004 E46 M3
2002 Audi A2 (interesting winter shed, even more interesting electrical faults)
2002 Audi A3 (dull winter shed)
1998 E36 323i (230k on clock. A loose but purposeful winter shed)
1998 E46 323i (winter shed, auto box expired spectacularly)
2016 MK7 Golf R (lease)
2004 E60 530i Manual
It’s fair to say that my history is all over the place, mainly due to life events, buying a first house etc. Most notable and difficult to come to terms with is the loss of the E46 M3. I bought it in 2013. Low mileage, silver grey, manual, coupé. I rented a garage locally in Harrogate to store it as I only had a drive at the time. Worshipped that car. Here it is in happier times alongside the winter 323i.
Anyway, in a moment of madness I decided what I actually wanted instead of an appreciating asset owned outright, was a leased MK7 Golf R. The day I took delivery...
So I sold the M3, for a small profit. I subsequently moved down south for work and to live with my soon to be wife. The accompanying new job meant that the tiny mileage allowance that I signed up to on the Golf was blown out of the water.
To cut a long story short, I drove it for 12 months and racked up 22,000 miles. Realising I would be crippled by excess mileage charges if I continued it was beached at my parents where it remained for a year before handing me a £1,500 bill.
Everyone talks about living with no regrets. This is complete nonsense and every time I think of the decision to sell the M3 I cringe like a crisp packet on a bonfire. I wake up some nights in a cold sweat thinking about it.
As a device for teleporting between destinations at immense speed the Golf was stunningly capable but ultimately forgettable. In reality, on a damp Yorkshire B road, the M3 wouldn’t see which way it went, but the latter felt mechanical, slightly intimidating even, when pushed. As a performance car should really.
So after that lesson learned it was back to what I know best, slightly musty 2nd hand Germans because I’m tight. To stem the mileage cost on the Golf, I bought a E60 530i to cover a commute between Surrey and Brighton. Didn’t really get on with it so sold it shortly after. Can’t put my finger quite on what, but it just didn’t charm like the E39 did.
What to do next? What I needed was a nail. Something to rack up 100 miles a day and not really care too much about. In a moment of exceptional bravery I bought a 192,000 mile W204 Mercedes C Class Diesel. A Facebook marketplace special. Everything about this car was wrong, no history, 6 owners. It was however mega spec. Plus, Many years of sitting in the back of 220 CDI taxis around Europe had distilled confidence that these drivetrains are fairly bullet proof. It was also very cheap at £3,600.
12 months on, its still going with 207k on the clock. The torque converter started shuddering and a local garage charged me £500 to randomly replace parts and not diagnose the problem. Ebay sold me Lubegard instant shudder fix for £11, which did along with a fluid and filter change. Other wear and tear items I have replaced myself, including oil changes every 6k.
A good polish later (I also replaced the sport grill for a classic setup because I’m 30 going on 64) I think it looks pretty good. It feels like a proper Merc, quite austere but solid and, in my option as an ex-BMW fan, a much more attractive car than the equivalent 3 series.
Since I started writing this, it has been it for its MOT. Not a single advisory noted....but one straight bloody fail on handbrake efficiency (13%). Annoyingly, I had adjusted the shoes in preparation. The pedal requires a fair old shove but it does hold the car well. Wearing my best “are you taking the p*ss face” I took it on the chin. It was a council test centre which is more expensive at £55, but I tend to find these places more “objective” in their assessment.
So where does the W124 fit in? It doesn’t really, or wasn’t supposed to. I had been lusting after a R129 SL.
Alas, fate intervened. One evening whilst doing my evening scour of ebay, gumtree and Facebook marketplace (in that order) I came across something that looked to good to be true. 1996 E220 Cabriolet, 106,000 Miles, one owner. The price was low, too low.
A cursory HPI check came back clear so I called the seller in the morning. He ran a local garage and had bought the car from an old boy after it had failed an MoT on brake lines. I nipped round to see it after work and, in addition to being fixed with a fresh MoT, it was rust free and unmarked. It needed a bloody good polish for sure but it was very, very tidy. Assuming the trader had fleeced the original owner, I made an fittingly insulting offer.
He accepted, after trying and failing to cross sell me his L322 Range Rover. This was in late February. It sat in my garage through to May until the sunny weather dictated it was time to come into the light. It was packed off to James Leigh Mercedes in Wimbledon for a once over and a good service. I cannot recommend James enough, a proper honest old school mechanic.
I have since given it a decent clean and polish. The end result....
I had bought it with the intention of flipping it after cleaning it up. I don’t think that is going to happen now. The girlfriend is quite fond of it and would like to use it as our wedding car (or more fittingly, parade car) in Italy next year. It is her garage it is sitting in, so I guess she has some kind of obscure legal right over it.
I think you'll find the A124 really grows on you. I have had the pleasure of knocking around in an E220 cabriolet for a couple of weekends and I loved it. I felt it really suited the engine and that the engine's light weight (compared to the larger engine) really suited the car. The quality is stunningly high on these cabriolets, too. Nor are they unrefined with the roof up: not significantly noisier than the coupé. They are criminally undervalued. Big Merc cabriolets never do badly in the long run and surely, surely, these will soar one day. In the meantime, enjoy it.
I like the proper grille on the 204.
Crisp packet on a bonfire... Like it. Mind that E39 528i with the BBS wheels is the corker in your history.
I like the proper grille on the 204.
Crisp packet on a bonfire... Like it. Mind that E39 528i with the BBS wheels is the corker in your history.
Thanks R129SL. It is your posts here I have found quite inspirational. The A124 is growing on me. The build quality is hard to describe. In essence it is quite a simple construction, but what is there feels like heavy, solid engineering.
With regards to the grill and mascot on the W204. I think it suits the sport pack equipped styling of the car. I picked up the pair off eBay for £25. I understand that MB plans to scrap this style on all models other than the S Class in favor of the “big star”. Don’t understand why you remove a defining characteristic like that.
With regards to the grill and mascot on the W204. I think it suits the sport pack equipped styling of the car. I picked up the pair off eBay for £25. I understand that MB plans to scrap this style on all models other than the S Class in favor of the “big star”. Don’t understand why you remove a defining characteristic like that.
Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff