A couple of months ago, my best friend got tired of his car that has been a complete nightmare for him the last four years, and offered it to me for a price I couldn't resist.

The good news is that the "nightmares" included loads of parts that had to be changed for new ones, so most of the front suspension is rebuilt, new alternator, and so on... so for its price I got a mechanically quite sound car.

But it is not exactly beautiful, however, since I got it for a price that I couldn't resist, about half the price it would go for from an used car dealers lot, I couldn't really complain.


The first night at home




And some daylight pics....


Powerplant. C180 N/A. SOOOO slow that it is driving me nuts sometimes. Yeah, I have driven old diesels too but at least they have SOME low end torque, this one feels like it is powered by a 12V hairdryer....
At least it is quite a lot of space around the engine for DIY work.

It is quite low spec in all other aspects too, I don't think that I've got any more extras than the Audio 10 CD-player, rain sensor for the wipers, and A/C (there is actually some very povo spec 203 cars without that, but I doubt they were even sold in Sweden).

Travertine beige paint, or as I prefer to call it, "cardboard brown metallic". Black fabric interior.

Rust? You bet.

Front fenders are toast, new ones on the way.

I think the tailgate can still be fixed. You can see the debadging here too. Cleaner looks and "C180" is not cool to brag about anyway.


Rockers are better than I thought under the side skirts. No holes, just loads of surface rust.

The only hole I managed to find this far, under the side trim.

Seems like someone tried to weld the muffler with quite bad results.

El cheapo fix - straight tube. Can't say that it is any louder now....

The front brake hoses had some cracks so I replaced them, not very interesting work but...

The original shifter was cracked and smeared glue on my hand when I was shifting, another el cheapo fix that I actually is very satisfied with, it feels very good to the hand....

As there is quite a difference in climate between winter and summer here, all season tires won't work, we need studded stuff in the winter and regular summer tires in summer.

There was some cheap chinese rubber that was almost bald on the summer wheels, so I got a set of new Kumhos for it.

Don't know if I'm very satisfied with them, a bit nervous when it rains and makes quite a lot of noise, on the other hand, I'm comparing those 225 tires with the Nokian 195 tires on my W123, maybe the extra width is what does it, but I have never compared to a 203 with Contis or Michelins....

The guy in the tire shop was trying to convince me to buy some chinese crap since it would be the cheapest and good enough, "no way", I answered, so I almost had to beg for being allowed to buy those Kumhos since it was the cheapest brand name tires they got...


Rear wiper, was stuck, rusty and with bad rubber.

So, much better, now it is working, repainted and has some kind of aero blade that IMO looks better on a modern car like this. (I would never put it on the W123)

Well, that was the work done to it the past two months.

And....I have to admit that I am a bit strange sometimes.
This morning, I was starting to get way too anxious about the wedding tomorrow.
"But that is only natural?", you might think.

Maybe. But then you have to consider that it is not even me that is getting married...

So, better start doing something constructive instead of just walking around in the house like a maniac.



Before



After. I have to admit that it is not very clean, but I guess that you need a, what is it called in english, a "wet" vacuum cleaner, and to take out the seats, to save this interior...

At least I have saved some weight now by removing loads of sand, hay, fur and a CB radio that my friend forgot under the seat....


Some cleaning in the trunk area too....as I said, it is not really great but it is better than it was before, the strange smell and a lot of dust and grime is gone. I found some receipts from 2011 too, so maybe it has not been cleaned since then.


Found some new rubber for the brake and parking brake pedal in a bag in the trunk. Great. But now I have to fix the clutch pedal too........

So....what do you think this far?

I like it for its character I like cars that are fun like yours where you really don't have to worry about a new scratch or something stupid like that.
Is that shock leaking?

No, brake fluid from the bleeding process, I was luckier than I thought and got pressure immediately.lots of it.

Curb 1
Brand new tire 0

Before, 14 year old "Classic" grille, faded plastic and peeling chrome.

After, brand new "Avantgarde" grille, a huge improvement if you ask me.
Not OEM though, and to be honest, crappy quality compared to the stock grille, it was not even notched for the hood release lever, can't understand why.
But, good enough for this car, and I knew what I bought.
Time for a new license plate I guess, this one simply don't match anymore.

New air filter, now we'll see if this will bring the fuel consumption down, it is a bit on the thirsty side for what it is now.

New drive belt, but I still get warnings about the charge.... :/

You may need a new belt tensonier I would research that because I know on the early w203's they liked to fail on the m112's and yours looks just like that style.

Will check that up, thanks!

I too like the character this car has. It will be a totally stress free driving experience especially when parking it. No worrying about someone denting the door. One thing I've observed is that old beat up cars never get hit by shopping carts or by other car doors. It's the shiny ones that do

Case in point when I had my old rusty beat up 2000 Nissan Maxima with 340,000kms it never once got hit in 5 years of owning it. I've owned the Benz for 2 years and I've been rear ended twice this year and someone opened their door in such a way that it dented mine and took the paint down to the primer where it got hit. Had to touch it up.

Yes, I will give it new front fenders and a partial repaint though, not because I want to bring it to showroom condition, more to stop the rust process for some years and to make it look a bit more fresh.

If it is worth it? Money wise maybe not. W203s are getting cheap those days. On the other hand, if I get it right, to get a "good" W203 it should be a 2005 model or later because the faults with rust and electronics are fixed by then. And then I should stay away from the M271 because of the chain problems....

So the model to have is a 2005-07 diesel, and then we're talking much higher prices...
And then it would be tempting to get a W204 instead which I've heard was a much better car from the beginning....and....

Nah, I will run this one as long as it still sticks together and runs. When it breaks down, I probably will have the payments on my house done, and much better economy than today, then I will get something more interesting as a daily. I don't have any kids so I really don't need much room, and I don't drive enough to really care about gas mileage so that will open up for many alternatives, but that's not actual yet, so...

Pretty much nothing has happened on this one, I had a leak on a fuel line and I had thousands of things to do this summer, on my house and such, so I decided to park it and use the W123 instead.

Fixed the fuel leak some weeks ago, it took two days and for some reason I got a hole in the plastic gas tank, don't ask me why....

So, now when I've got a gas tank from the southern parts of the country (a search in a database over swedish junkyards told me that there was just five station wagon tanks available, and I think the sedan tank are different), for way too much money IMO (but it's not like I had a choice), so now it's just the huge job of swapping the tank left...dropping the rear axle and such....nice!

Time for a tank swap.....

Got a new tank from a junkyard in the southern parts of the county, not easy to find one, 203 models are a bit too new to be common on junkyards in Sweden yet.

At least it is easy to disconnect the fuel lines and wiring...

This caliper is toast, another thing on the "to do"-list...

Springs are broken too.....not too uncommon from what I've heard.