Morning all,
Time to introduce my recent purchase, and to document the first few days of "living" with it. The car belonged to a member here, but was bought through a dealer via eBay. First a little history.
I've owned W124's before. 5 of the buggers. A 94 E280T, a 95 E320C, a 300TE-24, and two 300's, an 88 and an 89. So I have form. Currently the household has a mixed bag as follows:
2017 GLA Mercedes, horrible, it belongs to my wife who bought it to annoy me because I bought.....
1992 W210 190E 2.0. A lovely old thing, bought for my daughter to drvie when she passes her test. She is 17 in 2 weeks, we have had the car 18 months.
2014 Range Rover L405 Autobiography. PCP financed so I could swan about in my dream car for 3 years. It's going in the next 2 weeks, hence the W124 coming into the "fleet".
1999 Jeep XJ Cherokee Orvis. Bought 6 years ago cos my wife loves them. It is an old nail, but we love it.
2005 GSX-R1000 K5. I've had it since 2007. Now wearing a flat bar conversion, minimal bodywork. I use it to clear my head when life gets too much.
Wife and I have spent the last 8 months searching for a decent W124, and we were very fussy about the spec. I wanted Sportline, not grey or black leather, not cloth. Not diesel. Had to have wiring loom done. Must not be green because I am stupidly supersticious. Must have 7 seat option.
I almost pulled the trigger on a Japanese car, but got cold feet when the importer could not answer my questions properly, and then went quiet... So, here we are. I've bought a lovely car, and am thoroughly smitten with it.
It did disgrace itself when I was inspecting the functions of the wash wipe and hedlamp wipers though. One of the wipers refused to park properly. It'll need a pair of wiper motors as they are hard to repair and invariably get broken when you force the tabs on the motor housing. Oddly enough, the naughty wiper is now sitting parked properly.. I'll replace both anyhow.
On the drive home, it lost the wheel arch liner trim. Well, when I say "lost" I mean it detached from the front of the liner and tried to escape out of the wheel arch! I pulled it off the rest of the way and threw it in the boot in a "toys out of the pram" way... No matter. Filled up with 98 posh RON and drove home with no further issues other than the sunroof not wanting to slide open. Turned out the seal was trapped under it, and deformed which then jammed the sunroof panel preventing it from dropping down enough to slide back. Seller is providing a replacment wheel arch liner and seal, and the sunroof seal. And the missing engine cover. Currently you can easily see the coil packs and plugs instead of them being covered up by the plastic trim that has gone AWOL.
Other observations. It is lively. At one point we ended up on a smooth, straight, flat piece of private road that allowed me to flex the straight 6 to the redline in the frist 4 gears. At 120 mph, it is rock solid and oddly quiet. It makes a wonderful noise too, most un MB like.
The interior is FILTHY. It needs the leather sorting out and baby wipes are not going to cut it. If I can find out the colour EXACTLY, I might ask Gliptone for a kit and DIY it. It is either "Mushroom", "Champignon", "Cream", or something else. The MB build codes are duplicitous for this colour.
One rear window doesn't work. The seller told me it was fine the day before I picked it up, and he knew the PO had said it sometimes didn't work. I'll try testing and lubing the regulator and drive, but if that doesn't work, the seller will send me a regulator complete.
It doesn't idle as smoothly as it should, and it doesn't always do it. Which is odd as the damn thing drives beautifully under all other conditions.
Water is getting in via the aerial mount. This needs to be fixed ASAP as I don't want the interior fittings to smell any more wet dog like than they do already.
Electric headrest adjustment doesn't work.
Cluster plexiglass is cracked, presumably from being removed in the past.
Interior is filthy. Did I say that already?
Head unit, Blaupunkt, is DREADFUL! Doesn't matter though as the speakers will all be ruined by now anyway. A refresh is on the cards and I have bought a Becker unit to kick it off.
Apologies for the lack of images but no matter whether I try to "drag and drop", or use the "Add pictures" button, nothing happens after selecting my image.
Time to introduce my recent purchase, and to document the first few days of "living" with it. The car belonged to a member here, but was bought through a dealer via eBay. First a little history.
I've owned W124's before. 5 of the buggers. A 94 E280T, a 95 E320C, a 300TE-24, and two 300's, an 88 and an 89. So I have form. Currently the household has a mixed bag as follows:
2017 GLA Mercedes, horrible, it belongs to my wife who bought it to annoy me because I bought.....
1992 W210 190E 2.0. A lovely old thing, bought for my daughter to drvie when she passes her test. She is 17 in 2 weeks, we have had the car 18 months.
2014 Range Rover L405 Autobiography. PCP financed so I could swan about in my dream car for 3 years. It's going in the next 2 weeks, hence the W124 coming into the "fleet".
1999 Jeep XJ Cherokee Orvis. Bought 6 years ago cos my wife loves them. It is an old nail, but we love it.
2005 GSX-R1000 K5. I've had it since 2007. Now wearing a flat bar conversion, minimal bodywork. I use it to clear my head when life gets too much.
Wife and I have spent the last 8 months searching for a decent W124, and we were very fussy about the spec. I wanted Sportline, not grey or black leather, not cloth. Not diesel. Had to have wiring loom done. Must not be green because I am stupidly supersticious. Must have 7 seat option.
I almost pulled the trigger on a Japanese car, but got cold feet when the importer could not answer my questions properly, and then went quiet... So, here we are. I've bought a lovely car, and am thoroughly smitten with it.
It did disgrace itself when I was inspecting the functions of the wash wipe and hedlamp wipers though. One of the wipers refused to park properly. It'll need a pair of wiper motors as they are hard to repair and invariably get broken when you force the tabs on the motor housing. Oddly enough, the naughty wiper is now sitting parked properly.. I'll replace both anyhow.
On the drive home, it lost the wheel arch liner trim. Well, when I say "lost" I mean it detached from the front of the liner and tried to escape out of the wheel arch! I pulled it off the rest of the way and threw it in the boot in a "toys out of the pram" way... No matter. Filled up with 98 posh RON and drove home with no further issues other than the sunroof not wanting to slide open. Turned out the seal was trapped under it, and deformed which then jammed the sunroof panel preventing it from dropping down enough to slide back. Seller is providing a replacment wheel arch liner and seal, and the sunroof seal. And the missing engine cover. Currently you can easily see the coil packs and plugs instead of them being covered up by the plastic trim that has gone AWOL.
Other observations. It is lively. At one point we ended up on a smooth, straight, flat piece of private road that allowed me to flex the straight 6 to the redline in the frist 4 gears. At 120 mph, it is rock solid and oddly quiet. It makes a wonderful noise too, most un MB like.
The interior is FILTHY. It needs the leather sorting out and baby wipes are not going to cut it. If I can find out the colour EXACTLY, I might ask Gliptone for a kit and DIY it. It is either "Mushroom", "Champignon", "Cream", or something else. The MB build codes are duplicitous for this colour.
One rear window doesn't work. The seller told me it was fine the day before I picked it up, and he knew the PO had said it sometimes didn't work. I'll try testing and lubing the regulator and drive, but if that doesn't work, the seller will send me a regulator complete.
It doesn't idle as smoothly as it should, and it doesn't always do it. Which is odd as the damn thing drives beautifully under all other conditions.
Water is getting in via the aerial mount. This needs to be fixed ASAP as I don't want the interior fittings to smell any more wet dog like than they do already.
Electric headrest adjustment doesn't work.
Cluster plexiglass is cracked, presumably from being removed in the past.
Interior is filthy. Did I say that already?
Head unit, Blaupunkt, is DREADFUL! Doesn't matter though as the speakers will all be ruined by now anyway. A refresh is on the cards and I have bought a Becker unit to kick it off.
Apologies for the lack of images but no matter whether I try to "drag and drop", or use the "Add pictures" button, nothing happens after selecting my image.
)
