Last Saturday I found a 1990 Mercedes W124 230E in 5 speed manual flavour, with 86k miles, FSH including 26 stamps and receipts, 1 owner from new, 11 months MoT, in a dubious shade of burgundy with a cream cloth interior.
The car was advertised in good condition, with slight lacquer peel to the tops of the doors and a small blow from the exhaust. It certainly looked great in the photographs. The asking price of £2,200 ono was keen and the car was located near Enfield, approx 45 minutes from me.
The car was advertised on a Facebook page, by a seller with an Italian sounding name who, according to his Facebook profile, which did not feature a single photograph of him, was apparently born in Bialystok, Poland. Fair enough. We agreed to meet at 5pm.
I arrived at the landmark referred to in the seller's instructions just before 5pm and called him. Rather than guiding me towards his address, he told me to meet him outside the local Londis shop in 2 minutes. Ten minutes later, the W124 stutters around the corner, headlights switched off (it was dark by 5pm). The seller and his mate looked very young Asian / Pakistani, not the mature Italian / Polish face that I was expecting. The seller apologised for being late, he said that the W124 wouldn't start and he had to jump it from another car. A brief inspection revealed that the car had horrendous lacquer peel across all four doors right down to the badly overpainted cladding panels, the exhaust was blowing quite badly, the engine wasn't running evenly (perhaps due to the blowing exhaust), the aerial was snapped off and the allegedly mint interior was minging. I didn't need to see more. I thanked the seller for his time and left with no deal.
Then on Sunday afternoon I found an interesting 1998 reg (Asian import) W124 on eBay, I placed a bid, which was the highest bid until 5 seconds before the end of the auction, at which point I was all set to increase my offer but due to my iPad’s slow response I missed out by £50 and didn’t win.
Later on Sunday I found a cracking W124 260E on Facebook Marketplace but with MoT until early December. The seller said that he will put a new one on but not before the end of November. Why advertise now?
My quest to find a nice W124 continued when I found a lovely looking 320E advertised via Facebook Marketplace yesterday morning. The car was local to me and the advert sounded promising.
I sent a message to the seller expressing my interest and spoke with him later in the day. Nice chap, sounded honest. Too honest perhaps because he told me that the engine has an issue, which hitherto he has failed to diagnose, which causes the engine revs to fluctuate at idle, between 1,000-1,500 rev/min. A little research on the web and some advice from guys on a W124 Facebook page later, which suggested that the issue could be caused by a myriad of defects, I decided not to even view the car.
I have now officially decided that I'm not going to buy another W124 for daily duties. I have copped out and ordered a new lease car, which I will hopefully get in a couple of weeks. And what exciting car am I getting? A Kia Exceed, no less.
I'll see myself out.
