W124 Mercedes

StereoSound

As a daily car, how would one get on with one ? E200/230 for example.. You allowed to drive a car on vintage tax, classic insurance daily ? Are they comfy enough to bring the kids around ? I know there is no real safety features on these things bar maybe an airbag and ABS.

Testacalda

You should look into insurance first as different insurers will have different restrictions eg: limited mileage, not for commuting, must have regular insurance on normal car first, etc...

W124s are comfy and reliable if you get a good one that isn't rusty. A good choice for a daily driver.

Safety wise it's up to you, but you seem to be aware of it. W124s were of course very safe cars in the '80s and '90s, so are they any different now?

unkel

As classic car owners, we tend not to want to think too much about safety. I'll just mention the crash test where a huge 90s Volvo came out far worse than a tiny 00s Renault Modus. Things have moved on a lot in terms of safety in the last few decades. If that is a concern, do not get a classic car.

Harcrid

I could'nt agree more. I have a 1978 MGB and I will not let my daughter in it because I know if there is an accident the car will crumple like a tin can.

BrianD3

A W124 would be comfy enough to bring kids around and could be a good option

if you get a good one
if you do low mileage
if you can do some work on cars yourself
if you accept that it is a rust prone, 25-35 year old car, parts will wear out and break and some may not be easy to get and will mean farting around on ebay.de

Don't get one because of cheap tax and insurance!

Safety, it was one of the safest cars that you could buy in its day but that is a very long time ago, even the least safe modern cars would be much safer. However, Mercedes was one of the first manufacturers to engineer their cars with offset head on crash performance in mind, the W126 190 and W124 all benefitted. No surprise that the W124 and 190 performed very well by the standards of the day when crash tested by the ADAC and Auto Motor und Sport.

See below the results from AM&S testing in 1990-1991. The W124 and the new model Audi 100 were the best in terms of body integrity, check out the figures for the intrusion of the steering wheel (volante) dashboard (tablier) and pedals in the below table. Contrast W124 figure with those for most of the others

StereoSound

What's VRT like on vintage cars ? Few of them up North I am looking at when the lockdown ends. Down south there seems to be over priced scrap w124's. Prefer a UK car anyways if it hasn't rusted underneath from salting.

unkel

VRT on cars over 30 years is a fixed €200

You'd want to hurry up buying a car in the north as after the end of next month you will be paying 21% VAT and 10% import duty on top of that VRT

StereoSound

unkel wrote: »

VRT on cars over 30 years is a fixed €200

You'd want to hurry up buying a car in the north as after the end of next month you will be paying 21% VAT and 10% import duty on top of that VRT

Noted!

_ptashek_

StereoSound wrote: »

As a daily car, how would one get on with one ? E200/230 for example.. You allowed to drive a car on vintage tax, classic insurance daily ? Are they comfy enough to bring the kids around ? I know there is no real safety features on these things bar maybe an airbag and ABS.

I have a (1988) 200T and a (1993) 280TE that I use when my main car is not available, and to haul the fam on holidays. You can drive them daily, but not as your main and only car, which must be another non-classic insured car. Then there's mileage limits as well.

The 2.8 litre inline-six M104 HFM is a joy to drive long-distance. Close to 200HP and enough torque to be responsive even when fully loaded [*]. It's not incredibly thirsty for a petrol car either averaging about 11.6l/100km mixed cycle.

The 2 litre inline-four M102 (mine's carbed, too!) is very light in the front, and handles much better/sharper than the six banger. Quite spritely too with its 109HP, but not a lot of torque and it struggles on uphill gradients when fully loaded [*]. Not much more economical than the 2.8, about 10.6l/100km on average mixed cycle.

Both are incredibly, couch-like comfy. I could sit in one for hours, just for the sake of sitting in it

Active safety features on post-1991 models included belt pre-tensioners, driver airbag, later on also passenger airbag. The airbags have long expired, so I wouldn't bet on them working when needed...


[*] Fully loaded = 2+2 in the cabin, four bikes on the roof and boot full of camping gear.

If you get one, get one as rust free as possible as they do suffer. Pre-1991 are supposed to be better in that respect. Get a decent mileage example with solid service history. On the six cylinder cars, 150-200k miles is still decent mileage. Well maintained, and serviced on the dot, they do 400-500k without major overhaul. Still, you'll need a maintenance budget - they are all old cars at this point.

Saloons are cheaper, estate is the one to buy though.

w124man

The W124 is one of the great cars from the 80's/90's and is still a modern car by most standards. As has been said above, safety was good 25 years ago but now its a small car by modern standards so banging into a Range Rover Sport mightn't be a good idea. As a daily, my missus has used a '95 E200 for her daily for almost 6 years and she loves it. Its kept clean and well serviced and its totally reliable and as comfortable as anyone would need. One of my classics is an '88 250TD manual diesel estate and its incredibly comfortable. We use it for holidays in Europe and have driven from Cherbourg to Albi in France with only two stops in 12 hours. You cant do that in a car that isn't comfortable without air con and outside temperatures hovering in the high thirties.

Dont buy a cheap one cuz it'll be rubbish. I am looking at (another) 124 in London, an '88 230 with 66k on the clock and a very basic spec. I hope by the time (if) I get it here, taxed and VRT'd to have done it for €6500. That car will need nothing doing to it and its totally rust free. Perfect daily driver for when I retire next year!

You might like this one but get loads of pics of the rust areas

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1995-Mercedes-E220-Saloon-Auto-w124-67k/264913294807?_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D225114%26meid%3Da74560d63d7340fa9c3d85dd94bf7a06%26pid%3D100678%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D11%26mehot%3Dnone%26sd%3D313186626628%26itm%3D264913294807%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2380057&_trksid=p2380057.c100678.m3607&_trkparms=pageci%3Ad57d95a7-207d-11eb-9c61-3a805c291fa5%7Cparentrq%3A9fa2a9441750ad4a6ba0f66ffffcf798%7Ciid%3A1

_ptashek_

w124man wrote: »

its totally rust free

We both know you just haven't looked hard enough
A rust free, unrestored 32 year old car is as real as unicorns.

MrCostington

I'm not well up on this, but I understand there is an issue with the wiring harness on later ones. They used a degradable insulation and by now it's doing just that, mostly in the engine bay I believe. I think a lot have been replaced by now, but if not it's an expensive repair. I'd read up on it if you are looking at them.

w124man

_ptashek_ wrote: »

We both know you just haven't looked hard enough
A rust free, unrestored 32 year old car is as real as unicorns.

Your white estate should be rust free. My 250TD is rust free as is the 230E that hopefully is on its way here - if we can agree the price!!

As regards the biodegradable wiring harnesses, it affects all from 1992/3 to the end of production. The six cylinder cars are worst with the M111 engined cars following suit. Most will need both the engine harnesses and throttle body looking at.

Type 17

Testacalda wrote: »

...Safety wise it's up to you, but you seem to be aware of it. W124s were of course very safe cars in the '80s and '90s, so are they any different now?

The big difference in safety with older cars is airbags - not whether they have them or not, but whether the car they (hopefully never) hit has them in its design.

If the human body stops too fast, the lateral g-forces can kill you, by things like snapping the arteries/veins off your heart, or internal decapitation (neck snapping and cutting the spinal cord) as your head whips forward excessively, so car designers have always tried to work out ways to stop the humans in a crashing car relatively slowly.

Before airbags, there were crumple zones, where the front (or rear) of the car collapses to protect the occupants from excessive g-forces, but at some speeds, the forces continue into the cabin (despite best efforts at a "safety-cell" design) and the occupants are injured from stuff like heads striking collapsing a-pillars and legs being crushed by floor/pedal-box/dashboard intrusion.

Airbags meant that car bodies could be made much stiffer, with virtually no intrusion, but the occupants could still be stopped relatively safely, with less risk of chest and head/neck-based fatalities.

The problem now is that if an older, crumple zone-based car hits a new rigid, airbag-based design, the crumple zones are overwhelmed and the occupants come off much worse than if they had crashed into another crumple zone-based car.

Saying that, premium-brand crumple zone-based cars like Mercedes and Volvo were better designed (better safety cell, less likely to be overwhelmed), so they are probably still a reasonably safe bet, especially if mostly used in urban areas where speeds are lower, so there would be less energy in a crash.

BrianD3

This link below relates to Type 17s point. In a full overlap head on crash at 35 mph with a solid object (an undemanding test of the body structure by modern standards) a late 1980s design Renault 19 is safer than an early 2000s design Megane II with a faulty airbag
https://www.welt.de/motor/article1244415/Warum-ein-altes-Auto-sicherer-ist-als-ein-neues.html

Yet if those two cars collided with each other, especially in an offset crash, the Megane with either a working or a non working airbag would be far safer and rip through the R19 like tinfoil.

Older cars - even the best of them - are a disaster in any serious real life crash, bad enough if hitting a car from the same era and worse again if hitting a modern rigid car and worse again if the car is weaker than it was when new due to rust etc.

To bring this back to classics, the more exotic cars are probably even worse than the likes of a W124. I'd say something like a Ferrari Testarossa would be terrible, would anyone refuse to drive a Testarossa because of poor safety, no.

outfox

That's interesting. I didn't know that crumple zones had been phased out since the introduction of airbags. I'd always assumed that modern cars incorporated airbags AND crumple zones. Running an older pre-airbag car as a daily driver, at least for long commutes in fast busy traffic, looks like it might not be a good idea.

Type 17

outfox wrote: »

That's interesting. I didn't know that crumple zones had been phased out since the introduction of airbags.

Not completely phased out, but effectively so, because more emphasis is put on making the cabin area very strong, which means that the front chassis legs and a-pillar area are a lot stronger in airbag cars. The area in front of the front suspension mounts is still a crumple zone in low speed accidents, where the airbags may only just fire (depending on the levels of force applied to the sensors, and other factors such as the weight of a seat's occupant, modern airbags fire at different speeds).

PS: The worst case scenario is in veteran/vintage cars, where there is little or no deformation of the stiff ladder-style chassis, and with no seatbelts or airbags, the occupants were either thrown out through the windscreen or smashed against the rigid steering column/dashboard - people frequently died in 20mph accidents.

ba_barabus

unkel wrote: »

VRT on cars over 30 years is a fixed €200

You'd want to hurry up buying a car in the north as after the end of next month you will be paying 21% VAT and 10% import duty on top of that VRT

VRT appointments are all booked out until Jan

Type 17

ba_barabus wrote: »

VRT appointments are all booked out until Jan

:eek::(

Andrew33

I’ve recently purchased a ‘93 200E, comfy and solid. It wasn’t floating my boat (because it’s a saloon) and I had put it back up for sale but it is growing on me. It’s a bit like an album that you don’t like the first time you hear it but end up loving it maybe.
Regarding safety, I’ve a ‘95 Rav4 as well, I know which one I’d rather be driving in the event of an accident!

unkel

Andrew33 wrote: »

I’ve recently purchased a ‘93 200E, comfy and solid. It wasn’t floating my boat (because it’s a saloon) and I had put it back up for sale but it is growing on me. It’s a bit like an album that you don’t like the first time you hear it but end up loving it maybe.

Comfy, solid, utterly reliable and over engineered. If you get a good one that was well looked after, it will drive like a much newer car too. Gotta have a lot of respect for these cars.

BrianD3

Expensive car here back in the day, I posted an early 1989 pricelist in the Renault 19 thread and a Mercedes 200 (carb?) was 32k punts.

6k more than a 520i
About the same as a V6 Volvo 760
About 4k less than a Lotus Esprit.

unkel

BrianD3 wrote: »

Expensive car here back in the day, I posted an early 1989 pricelist in the Renault 19 thread and a Mercedes 200 (carb?) was 32k punts.

For comparison, in 1990 you could buy a 3 bed semi detached brand new house in Lucan for 30k punts

w124man

unkel wrote: »

For comparison, in 1990 you could buy a 3 bed semi detached brand new house in Lucan for 30k punts

I have an original Irish ordered 1992 300TE 4matic with a lot of option boxes ticked. Heated electric memory Sportline seats, automatic aircon, cruise, alloys, off road suspension with underbody protection, detachable towbar, etc etc .....

Using a 1991 UK price list I reckoned the cost of this car was ir£100,000 give or take! Im the second owner, the first being Principal Management or U2 to you and me.

Andrew33

w124man wrote: »

I have an original Irish ordered 1992 300TE 4matic with a lot of option boxes ticked. Heated electric memory Sportline seats, automatic aircon, cruise, alloys, off road suspension with underbody protection, detachable towbar, etc etc .....

Using a 1991 UK price list I reckoned the cost of this car was ir£100,000 give or take! Im the second owner, the first being Principal Management or U2 to you and me.

pic?
As I’ve said, i have a saloon but a W124 estate would really suit me better.

RobAMerc

Andrew33 wrote: »

I’ve recently purchased a ‘93 200E, comfy and solid. It wasn’t floating my boat (because it’s a saloon) and I had put it back up for sale but it is growing on me. It’s a bit like an album that you don’t like the first time you hear it but end up loving it maybe.

I ran a clapped out 230TE for a year. I wasnt all that wild about it to begin with other than knowing what it was. It was slow, sounded a little wheezy, totally under geared ( 120 mph had it at over 3k rev if I remember ). By the time I sold it ( read gave back to original owner ) I was totally in love.

I've the XJ40 Jag now - which in comparison is a sports car and actually looks and feels much more special but brittle, but I cant help think I miss the W124 and would gladly buy another ( but a 6pot for sure )

w124man

Andrew33 wrote: »

pic?
As I’ve said, i have a saloon but a W124 estate would really suit me better.

Andrew33

w124man wrote: »

Lovely colour.

w124man

It'll be €56.00 road tax on 01/01/2022 as well.

I have a diesel manual estate that could be for sale if you are seriously interested

Andrew33

w124man wrote: »

It'll be €56.00 road tax on 01/01/2022 as well.

I have a diesel manual estate that could be for sale if you are seriously interested

Thanks but Merc weren’t known for slick manuals back then, and I’m guessing it’s not a 300

w124man

Andrew33 wrote: »

Thanks but Merc weren’t known for slick manuals back then

Generally, people who say that don't know how to drive especially when you see that more manual W124's than automatics were built! These cars are not sports cars, they are cruisers, reliable cruisers.

Andrew33

w124man wrote: »

Generally, people who say that don't know how to drive especially when you see that more manual W124's than automatics were built! These cars are not sports cars, they are cruisers, reliable cruisers.

Hmmmm. Driving 35 years, mostly manuals but autos as well, drive to ADI standard, have driven a lot of different vehicles from motorbikes to coaches so I reckon I know how to drive.
Cheers.

unkel

Andrew33 wrote: »

Thanks but Merc weren’t known for slick manuals back then, and I’m guessing it’s not a 300

And it's a diesel

No surprise w124man wants to get rid. The diesels seem to still make half decent money in Ireland. Not surprised about that either. A diesel would save the classic car owner at least €100 per year

w124man

unkel wrote: »

And it's a diesel

No surprise w124man wants to get rid.

No I dont want to 'get rid' as you say. Its quite rare to see the 'workhorse' of the whole W124 range in condition like this one. Anyway if there was anything I wanted to 'get rid' of its the nasty, thirsty nonsensical Toyota hybrid thing I have at the moment while my Passat get fixed, having being hit by an equally nasty Nissan Leaf!

There are very few like this one left! Flawless MOT history until I brought it here and it continues with a flawless NCT

2019 MB Club Concours

80sDiesel

Nice car . Had a w124 estate petrol and a diesel version would really have transformed it into a serious daily driver work horse. Whilst an auto would be preferred, the added gear would be hugely beneficial on motorways.

Now , give me a 5 speed auto estate diesel with leather ! Heaven.

80sDiesel

Nice car . Had a w124 estate petrol and a diesel version would really have transformed it into a serious daily driver work horse. Whilst an auto would be preferred, the added gear would be hugely beneficial on motorways.

Now , give me a 5 speed auto estate diesel with leather ! Heaven.

unkel

Looks lovely. One of the best cars of the golden era of Mercedes-Benz. Pity about the engine.

80sDiesel

unkel wrote: »

Looks lovely. One of the best cars of the golden era of Mercedes-Benz. Pity about the engine.

You have made your point already.

Can you just let others enjoy the thread.

unkel

Sure. Enjoying your 80's diesel yourself? Just make sure you run it nowhere near people.

Andrew33

unkel wrote: »

Sure. Enjoying your 80's diesel yourself? Just make sure you run it nowhere near people.

They’re a touchy bunch!

w124man

unkel wrote: »

Pity about the engine.

With only 75,000 miles on the clock, it still has at least 925,000 miles to go before it will need changing. It does have the 1,000,000 mile engine!!

I wonder how many batteries you would go through to do that?

Andrew33

w124man wrote: »

With only 75,000 miles on the clock, it still has at least 925,000 miles to go before it will need changing. It does have the 1,000,000 mile engine!!

I wonder how many batteries you would go through to do that?

A lot of pre 2005/6/7 (I dunno, pick your year) engines will do a million with regular maintenance and normal usage.
Modern engines are highly stressed and disposable and yet they keep pushing the LIE that modern cars are more environmentally friendly.
People sheeple

w124man

Andrew33 wrote: »

A lot of pre 2005/6/7 (I dunno, pick your year) engines will do a million with regular maintenance and normal usage.
Modern engines are highly stressed and disposable and yet they keep pushing the LIE that modern cars are more environmentally friendly.
People sheeple

Well the OM602 wouldn't be stressed. Its a lazy old 5 cylinder lump and sounds lovely. I took it down to Spain two years ago and covered almost 3000 miles at an average of 55 mpg just pooteling about. A lot cleaner that a lot of modern cars

Andrew33

w124man wrote: »

Well the OM602 wouldn't be stressed. Its a lazy old 5 cylinder lump and sounds lovely. I took it down to Spain two years ago and covered almost 3000 miles at an average of 55 mpg just pooteling about. A lot cleaner that a lot of modern cars

I won’t disagree with you. I like the sound of a five pot.
Shame there aren’t more of them.

Bandito909

Been great reading through this thread. Have just aquired this tank... Slowly doing a resto on it

Anyone know the car??

Andrew33

Bandito909 wrote: »

Been great reading through this thread. Have just aquired this tank... Slowly doing a resto on it

Anyone know the car??

I don’t but I’m not long in the W124 ownership club. They definitely grow on you.

Bandito909

Andrew33 wrote: »

I don’t but I’m not long in the W124 ownership club. They definitely grow on you.

Lol I hope so, my wife wasn't too pleased when she saw the shed I'd just got!

Andrew33

Bandito909 wrote: »

Lol I hope so, my wife wasn't too pleased when she saw the shed I'd just got!

A few more photos of the interior would be nice.
My wife doesn’t like driving it but likes being driven in it.

unkel

Bandito909 wrote: »

Been great reading through this thread. Have just aquired this tank...

Well wear! Just watched the latest vid from Jonny Smith's show and guess what cars were on his driveway? Yep. Two W124 stationwagons. You're in good company

Andrew33

unkel wrote: »

Well wear! Just watched the latest vid from Jonny Smith's show and guess what cars were on his driveway? Yep. Two W124 stationwagons

Car pervert? He truely is a petrol head who is embracing EVs as well. Maybe that’s the perfect answer.

unkel

Yep. Not as evangelical about EV only and hammering the point down like FullyChargedShow. I've heard that was the reason why they split and he went his separate way. His channel is picking up very quickly. Not surprisingly. Really nice guy and a true petrol (and electric) head.

Here's his channel

Linky


And here is his vid about the Nissan Figaro where you can see the W124 wagons on his drive:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS1FlKwtS9Y