Hrrngg

"flatisflat" (flatisflat) 10/27/2020 at 11:13 • Filed to: None

4

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My friends, the want it is strong.

E90M3 > flatisflat 10/27/2020 at 11:18

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Not sure if that’s a good price or not, but it’s sure clean! I bet the clock still works. 

fintail > flatisflat 10/27/2020 at 11:18

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At least it’s a manual.   Price isn’t cheap, the head unit isn’t pleasing, but really clean ones are only becoming more rare.

VincentMalamute-Kim > flatisflat 10/27/2020 at 11:45

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That is a great looking car. My dad had the exact same one, same color, everything. It was nice; solid , stable. Felt like quality.

I’d love having one but then I remember it was miserably, excruciatingly slow. He got a 300TD later and the turbo improved it to excruciatingly slow.

VincentMalamute-Kim > fintail 10/27/2020 at 11:51

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Too bad about the head unit. I love the look of the old Becker and Blaupunkts. Given how original the owner kept it, I’m sur prised he didn’t try to get one of the modern reproductions.

Rock Bottom > flatisflat 10/27/2020 at 12:31

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Not to burst any one’s bubble, but these cars are not made better with a stick. The 4 cylinder variants are especially painful to drive, no matter what transmission. It’s a uniquely miserable driving experience. “But it’s a diesel, so it must be torquey” they say... and they are wrong. It’s kind of like driving an early VW Bus in that you have no torque down low , so you wait for it to “come up on the cam”... and it doesn’t do that either. It just makes a little more noise as RPMs rise and you get passed by a garbage truck. I drove semis in the late 90s and would rather go for a Sunday drive in one of those than another W123.

Decades ago, I had a 1983 300D with like 50 more horses than a 240D and it was terrible . I thought mine was just worn out (only had like 200,000 on it) but then I rode in a friend’s 240D and boy did that change my whole world view. It was a whole new level of slow. B eing that slow in the 55mph era was probably tolerable , but even by the 90s, it wasn’t. Sure, people suffer through it and tell themselves “this is fine”... but it’s a painful existence. You live in constant fear of moderate hills or red lights , and that’s no way to go through life. God help you if you ever need to pass a semi...

I still have that OM617 from my long-gone 300D and every once in a while I briefly think of swapping it into my 1991 Jeep XJ (which lots of people have done). Then I remember the mis erable slowness, and also the fact that my 4.0 will share eternity with the OM617 while making a LOT more power and leaking the exact same amount of oil. They’re both basically immortal engines that will live forever if you want them to and die young if you hurt them, but the 4.0 doesn’t cause an anxiety attack whenever I  see a steep driveway!

Sorry, I’ve wandered a bit off topic...

TLDR version : Test drive a W123 on the highway before you romanticize it. Especially the particularly miserable 240D.

fintail > VincentMalamute-Kim 10/27/2020 at 16:12

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First thing on the agenda would be to replace the radio with a correct unit. Becker is still in business, and refurbishes old units too - they can do bluetooth and aux upgrades to old sets. My fintail has a year-correct Becker Europa, with a hidden aux jack .   A friend has an 84 300CD with a correct Becker Grand Prix he recently sent in to have bluetooth added.   The old sets just look right.

fintail > Rock Bottom 10/27/2020 at 16:15

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Maybe not better as in good, but for something so slow, every advantage helps, and gaining a few seconds in acceleration could be life and death. But yeah, a 240D is borderline dangerous for highway driving, in some areas anyway.

A friend of mine had an immaculate one, he’d take it on club trips where I’d take the fintail, and my now- close to 60 year old car would dust the 240D, especially on mountain passes.

flatisflat > Rock Bottom 10/27/2020 at 16:49

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I have no qualms engine-swapping what is an otherwise immaculate piece of classic beautiful  machinery.  :)