New to me Mercedes 240D

well i got a mercedes 240d from my friends sister for $300 and im wondering what i should know about this car. it seems to be in great shape, little to no rust and the engine need a little work to get it working perfectly but other than that it seems to be a good little car.i was wondering if i should know about any pros or cons with this car?

-Ben

Plan all passing and merging events with a calendar? My mom had two of them and they were miserable to drive because they were so underpowered. Full throttle, all the time.

W123 or W115 chassis?

I have a manual transmission 220D that isn't too bad for slowness in the day to day driving.

I had a 220D. Plan pulling out in traffic very carefully. Like: "Oh, there's a car coming 3 miles down the road. I better wait...."

Buy the biggest battery you can find that will fit under the hood. A spare glow plug and wrench(s) is not a bad thing to keep handy.

I want one. Reliable as an anvil and much more stylish.

I dunno about the reliable part. Mine was always having something fall off. At the time, I had one day off a month. That was the day I had to fix whatever fell off the car that month. It got real old real fast. I had rebuilt the motor and it was doing fine (put >70K on it) but the rest of the car was falling apart around the motor. It was comfortable, as long as you weren't in a hurry. The AC would blast you out of there, but then the York AC compressor took about a quarter of the motor's output to run. And make sure no one is too close behind you at a stop light or they will plow into you as you shift to 2nd gear at 10-ish MPH.

The only reason I've every really wanted one of these is the possibility of running waste vegetable oil for fuel.

I expect the frugality would help offset the misery factor.

Reliable as gravity, but much slower.

Check out the diesel discussion forum at www.peachparts.com (not a porn site, MB made them change the website name). I used to spend quite a bit of time around there before GRM lured me away.

I had an 82 240d with a 4 speed. There's a certain way to drive them. Floor it, clutch, floor it, etc. If it's an automatic, crush it. Those are for a long gone time.