TrueMiester

I am interested in buying a 1993 190E 2.6 Sportline Le, if anyone can tell me more about this year and model I would appreciate it. The ad says it has Recaro seats in it and they are all original. The seats are black with red inserts in the backrests front and back and they have red piping. The door panels also have to horizonal red stripes acoss the panels front and back.
This car has 136,000 miles on it and I was wondering what usually goes wrong at that point and anything else I should look for before I buy the car.
So far I have found that the sunroof track is broken and the driver door lock will not open the car doors. Can anybody tell me were to get parts for repairing that and approx. how much that would cost. Thank You for the Help!

shanetoast

I also would like to know what kind of problems i should look out for before i buy the car.

MTI

The Sportlines are pretty much mechanically identical to the standard models, so all the same issues that apply to the cars applies to the Sportlines. The primary differences are:

Sportline suspension, lowered 1/2" from stock via coil springs. The suspension also includes larger sway bars and HD style struts and shocks.

Steering is lower ratio via the 2.3-16 steering box.

Badges (side panels, shifter)

The LE has the 16 valve sport seating with red piping and inserts. The LE also has the CF trim panels. BTW, all W201 seats were made for Mercedes by Recaro.

shanetoast

What are the things that stand out in your car that would make you not want to buy another car that has that same problem? Like idle hard or feels like its going to die at 1500 rpm ect...

MTI

When dealing with a nearly 15 year old car, the biggest concern for any future owner is the maintenance (or lack thereof) that the previous owners did. By this age, if the suspension hasn't been overhauled, it will need it soon, given the amount of rubber and metal bushings, arms, dampers and connectors built into it.

The 2.6L is notorious for headgasket leaks around 90K miles and above.

The A/C system is a bit undersized for the car (typical of German cars) and system leaks are not uncommon.

Rust locations to check are:

The 4 extreme corners of the car
Around the lower rocker panel jack supports
Bottom edges of door if the window seals are old
Area around radio antenna
Trunk (pull the carpet and snap in walls to inspect weep holes at the bottom of the trunk.)

shanetoast

Thanks for all your help. Lets hope the car is a clean as it looks in the picture.

TrueMiester

Thank You MTI for the response, I've talked to the owner again about the items that you brought up and he said that the headgasket does leak but I shouldn't worry about it. Now from what I know if it leaks externally it won't be long before it leaks internally and contaminate the whole engine. I plan on keeping the car and called a shop they said it cost $900 to replace headgasket. The owner says he has had two 190E 2.6's and they both had leaking headgaskets but he drove them any way.

MTI

The gasket leaks are probably the result of having an alloy head on a cast block and affect the M102, M103 and M104 motors because of their similar design. The M103 may seem to be more problematic since it's in both the W201 and W124 chassis, so it just seems like there are more of them to leak.

If the leak was "external" then it would probably be easier to ignore, just keep adding oil and not look at the mess it was creating on the engine block and transmission case. Internal leaks will have oil find its way into the coolant, which is neither good for the oil or the cooling system. The $900 estimate is proper.

Garfunkle_W124

You better get this before I do. I already offered him my car.