Calling all W124 Merc Estate gurus please

I would say the 300 will be better, simply because it has the nice smooth six-cylinder engine, very befitting of an E-class.

The 220 will feel fairly underpowered tbh. Reliable but slow. I had one as a daily years back and it was comfy but slow. Did I mention it was slow?

The 300-24 is fairly rare in a wagon. W124 rust is not like normal rust though. If it’s showing on the outside it’ll be rotten all up behind the front wings and won’t have any sills left either. and they’re a huge job to do properly. I wouldn’t go anywhere near one that is showing rust. The 300-24 is also the one with the troublesome wiring loom. The insulation degrades and they start doing odd things. It *might* just be a facelift thing, but it’s definitely a 6cyl cars thing.

As mentioned above rust will be the decider in which you go for. My preference would be for the 300-24, simply because it's a nicer car and by far the more reliable of the pair.

Jacking points and sills are prone to rust if not treated, but the important one everyone forgets is the rear subframe mounts. If those are rotten the subframe has to come out to repair them, a very time consuming job.

The 300-24 has old skool ke-jetronic fuel injection and is very reliable, however parts are getting harder to find for it. The big money item on one of these is the ignition control module (EZL module), they are no longer available which has driven up prices to around £1k. The wiring loom on these is not a problem, they are before the bio degradable rubbish. The power band on these engines is not like the others in that it is very high up the revs, and can feel a little flat at low revs.

The 220 is efi so better on fuel, but it has more to go wrong. It is also one of the cars where the wiring looms give trouble, if you can see bare copper anywhere on the engine harness walk away. The later the car the more likely it will have rust, they switched to water based paint in the later cars which did them no favors. The m111 engine can also eat headgaskets, so check for signs of overheating.

Not a Dpuk car but a rolling project I started 10 years ago. Used to have a 300 petrol with an auto gearbox, now has the om606 with a 6 speed manual. I actually use it as a daily driver, keep it off boost and you can see 40mpg out of it.