Hello all,
I was scammed and scammed hard.
(tl:dr available at the bottom)
First, a bit of back story. It was the spring of my junior year in college (EE degree) and I had landed a co-op in the capital (Madison). Problem was I didn't own a car at the time. I spent a good 3 months searching the internet, trying to figure out what to buy with my four grand budget. Finally Kent at MercedesSource convinced me. I was going to get a W124 coupe.
Two weeks after I made the decision, the black coupe in the pictures I've attached showed up on Craigslist. After talking with the father and son selling the car, I drove it around the nice suburban neighborhood. I inspected the wiring harness and a few other things and it seemed fine. But, I was looking through some heavily tinted rose colored glasses. I loved the car and probably would have bought it even if a tire came off during the test drive.
(I know you're asking "why didn't just get a car fax?" and the answer is... because I'm an idiot, alright are you happy now?!)
It was a great car... for a while. Three months in, the AC stopped. So I replaced the blower motor and regulator (I posted a how-to guide about how to do it cheaply on here somewhere).
And then everything was fine, for a month. The driver window stopped rolling all the way up without help, so I disassembled the doors and Lubed All Of The Things!, then the radio quit, then the taillight went out, the the blinkers stopped working, then the horn, then the center carrier barring, then noticing the thing leaked oil from half a hundred places, on and on it went.
I enjoy working on cars, and I loved this Benz, even as temperamental as it was, but it was getting ridiculous and I was having a hard time fixing the thing as fast as it was breaking down. Plus certain things weren't adding up. I re-flowed the flasher relay, but the blinkers still wouldn't work. I replaced the relay, but the flashers still wouldn't work. I finally had to go through and clean every connector between the relay and the flashers and then it worked. It had a bit too much corrosion for 110,000 miles.
Fast forward to two weeks ago and I've made the decision to get a different car. I had just landed a job as a test engineer at a defense contractor and couldn't afford to break down in the rougher neighborhoods of Milwaukee.
I found a Lexus I wanted in Milwaukee. So, my father and I headed out on Saturday to get it... and it didn't go particularly well. On the way up, my transmission started slipping when changing gears. It was refusing to hook up until the car's speed had fallen below 50 and I had used most of my extensive inventory of profanities. The problem could be somewhat solved my revving the engine to 5 grand, at which point it was slam into gear with considerable violence. Eventually I just switched into 3rd and left it there. Then the battery light came on. I pulled into a rest stop and lifted up the front passenger side to try to get a better look at the alternator. I was inundated with oil, along with most of the rest of the underside of the car. Two years of just replacing the oil that leaked out at had finally come back to bite me.
So, we limped the malicious Mercedes to a different dealership Mercedes dealership in Madison. They were very kind and charged the battery for free, unfortunate they didn't have anything in my price range. Shout out to Zimbrick Mercedes of Madison on the beltline! Fully believing the thing would completely die on the way to trade it in (I'm convinced the car new we were getting rid of it) we limped it the rest of the way to Milwaukee.
To wrap up what turned out to be a long story, we finally got there. After the test drive and deciding to by the lexus hs250h (I knew I should get a prius and this was as close as I could make myself get to owning one), we got to negotiating. I had them the title to my Benz and they come back with some really pointed questions about how long i had owned the car. Turns out, It had 300,000 miles on it! The odometer had read 223k in 2011, then 86k in 2014. God I was pissed at the former owners for lying their asses off and at myself for being a fucking idiot. They offered $500 for it. I looked out the dealership windows, into the pouring rain. I knew that my car would not make the 200 mile trip back home, so I bit my tongue and took it up the ass like a man.
I will definitely be buying a Mercedes in the future, I loved that Benz even if it was a tired example. Depending on the prices in 5 years, I think I'd like to get a 1972 SE w108. The w109 is a bit more frightening from a maintenance perspective. If not, I was love to get another w124 coupe and through a bit of money at it. Something like images below, but I would be conservative with the rims and probably couldn't afford to recreate the Hammer.
Well, thanks for listening to my surprisingly long rant haha.
TL: dR My beloved if tempermental w124 coupe's odometer said 110,000, but was somewhere near 300,000 miles. I didn't find this out until I tried to trade it in.
I was scammed and scammed hard.
(tl:dr available at the bottom)
First, a bit of back story. It was the spring of my junior year in college (EE degree) and I had landed a co-op in the capital (Madison). Problem was I didn't own a car at the time. I spent a good 3 months searching the internet, trying to figure out what to buy with my four grand budget. Finally Kent at MercedesSource convinced me. I was going to get a W124 coupe.
Two weeks after I made the decision, the black coupe in the pictures I've attached showed up on Craigslist. After talking with the father and son selling the car, I drove it around the nice suburban neighborhood. I inspected the wiring harness and a few other things and it seemed fine. But, I was looking through some heavily tinted rose colored glasses. I loved the car and probably would have bought it even if a tire came off during the test drive.
(I know you're asking "why didn't just get a car fax?" and the answer is... because I'm an idiot, alright are you happy now?!)
It was a great car... for a while. Three months in, the AC stopped. So I replaced the blower motor and regulator (I posted a how-to guide about how to do it cheaply on here somewhere).
And then everything was fine, for a month. The driver window stopped rolling all the way up without help, so I disassembled the doors and Lubed All Of The Things!, then the radio quit, then the taillight went out, the the blinkers stopped working, then the horn, then the center carrier barring, then noticing the thing leaked oil from half a hundred places, on and on it went.
I enjoy working on cars, and I loved this Benz, even as temperamental as it was, but it was getting ridiculous and I was having a hard time fixing the thing as fast as it was breaking down. Plus certain things weren't adding up. I re-flowed the flasher relay, but the blinkers still wouldn't work. I replaced the relay, but the flashers still wouldn't work. I finally had to go through and clean every connector between the relay and the flashers and then it worked. It had a bit too much corrosion for 110,000 miles.
Fast forward to two weeks ago and I've made the decision to get a different car. I had just landed a job as a test engineer at a defense contractor and couldn't afford to break down in the rougher neighborhoods of Milwaukee.
I found a Lexus I wanted in Milwaukee. So, my father and I headed out on Saturday to get it... and it didn't go particularly well. On the way up, my transmission started slipping when changing gears. It was refusing to hook up until the car's speed had fallen below 50 and I had used most of my extensive inventory of profanities. The problem could be somewhat solved my revving the engine to 5 grand, at which point it was slam into gear with considerable violence. Eventually I just switched into 3rd and left it there. Then the battery light came on. I pulled into a rest stop and lifted up the front passenger side to try to get a better look at the alternator. I was inundated with oil, along with most of the rest of the underside of the car. Two years of just replacing the oil that leaked out at had finally come back to bite me.
So, we limped the malicious Mercedes to a different dealership Mercedes dealership in Madison. They were very kind and charged the battery for free, unfortunate they didn't have anything in my price range. Shout out to Zimbrick Mercedes of Madison on the beltline! Fully believing the thing would completely die on the way to trade it in (I'm convinced the car new we were getting rid of it) we limped it the rest of the way to Milwaukee.
To wrap up what turned out to be a long story, we finally got there. After the test drive and deciding to by the lexus hs250h (I knew I should get a prius and this was as close as I could make myself get to owning one), we got to negotiating. I had them the title to my Benz and they come back with some really pointed questions about how long i had owned the car. Turns out, It had 300,000 miles on it! The odometer had read 223k in 2011, then 86k in 2014. God I was pissed at the former owners for lying their asses off and at myself for being a fucking idiot. They offered $500 for it. I looked out the dealership windows, into the pouring rain. I knew that my car would not make the 200 mile trip back home, so I bit my tongue and took it up the ass like a man.
I will definitely be buying a Mercedes in the future, I loved that Benz even if it was a tired example. Depending on the prices in 5 years, I think I'd like to get a 1972 SE w108. The w109 is a bit more frightening from a maintenance perspective. If not, I was love to get another w124 coupe and through a bit of money at it. Something like images below, but I would be conservative with the rims and probably couldn't afford to recreate the Hammer.
Well, thanks for listening to my surprisingly long rant haha.
TL: dR My beloved if tempermental w124 coupe's odometer said 110,000, but was somewhere near 300,000 miles. I didn't find this out until I tried to trade it in.
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