In last week’s thrilling Citroen DS 3 episode Shed was blethering on about lady owners once being seen as something good to mention in any used car ad. That was in a more genteel time before ladies had tattoos, foul mouths and the ability to beat big blokes at arm-wrestling. A time like 1998, in fact, when Mercedes built this week’s C240 shed.
Besides the arrival of strong women, the turn of the millennium brought in something equally new: rusty Mercs. Nobody is exactly sure how it happened – wrong sort of paint, wrong sort of metal, wrong sort of accountants – or when the problems started. The inception point seemed to vary between models. As a general rule though you could probably say that not many Benzes built before 1999 had major issues with corrosion. By ‘major’ Shed means metal that pretty much dissolved within the first five years of its exposure to the Earth’s atmosphere.
Obviously, any 25-year-old car today is going to be vulnerable to rust, no matter who made it, but in Mercedes’s case it was the ‘before and after’ difference from around 2000 that was so shocking. Shed owns a mid-‘90s S124 wagon whose paint finish remains mirror-like to this day. That’s from memory as he is a firm believer in the protective power of dirt, inspired as he has been by the impressively pungent Iranian guy who lived to the age of 94 having not had a bath for nearly 60 years.
By the time the C240 came out the W202 C-Class had been around for five years. Its all-aluminium single-cam M112 engine was M-B’s first V6. The 18-valve 2.4-litre E24 version you (don’t) see here was also slotted into the W210 E-Class. It produced 168hp at 5,900rpm and 166lb ft from 3,000 to 5,000rpm, which was enough to give the C-Class a 0-62mph time of 9.9 seconds. That might all sound a bit leisurely but it was more than all right for the time. Plus you should never underestimate the ability of old Benzes to gather pace when you’re not looking. Average fuel consumption was typical of the era at 25mpg.
The nice things about the M112 engine have proven to be not just its smoothness but also its strength and reliability. Worn crank position sensors could make hot starting difficult, cam cover breathers could leak and crank pulley rubbers could deteriorate, but all were cheap and easy fixes. As long as you used quality oil and filters to fend off ‘sludging’ and kept to the correct intervals you could look forward to a very much easier time with your M112 than users of the 2004-on twin-cam 24-valve M272 successor had for the first three years of that engine’s life.
You could get a C240 with a manual gearbox in some markets, but as wise old golfers say there are two types of players: the ones who use tees, and idiots. You definitely fell into the latter category if you went for any M-B manual because Benz never managed to make one that was any more accommodating or user-friendly than an arthritic donkey with toothache and piles. It was weird because Merc’s five-speed auto was really good. The C-Class was rear-wheel drive of course, which meant good front-to-back weight distribution, a useful amount of steering lock and (by the looks of it) not that much intrusion on rear legroom by the transmission tunnel.
MOT fails have been few. There was a broken coil in 2006 and a leaky fuel tank in 2018, otherwise it’s been the usual advisories for consumables like tyres, brake pads and light bulbs. The last test in November had notes for greased-up brake pipes and a slightly distorted offside front wheel. This is one of those cars where you’d swop the alloys for a set of steels rather than the other way round. If the ones here are genuine AMG monoblocs, or even if they’re copies, you’ll be making a few bob on that transaction. If you keep them, £300-£400 should cover a four-wheel refurb.
The only thing you’d want to check on this 65,000-mile C240 is that the plugs were changed at the scheduled 60,000 mark, because that’s a fiddly job you should only do yourself if you enjoy the sight of knuckle blood on the driveway. That 60k point should have been reached sometime between July 2022 and October 2023 when the car’s usual annual mileage of 3-4k jumped to a point nearer to the accepted 12k yearly average, a peculiar change is usage considering it doesn’t seem to have been taxed much, or at all, in that time.
That might generate some awkward questions from the DVLA when you as the next owner trot along to pay £345 for the next year’s tax. A combination of grandfather’s rights and an innocent expression should get you through it, or you could always take advantage of Mrs Shed’s freelance DVLA negotiation service that basically involves her going over to Swansea and showing the cringing assistant her right bicep with the MAN U FOREVER tat on it. It’s a surprisingly effective service, and a surprisingly cheap one too because she enjoys doing it.
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