Greetings and Sanitations!

I'm an avid car enthusiast and lately I've been drawn more and more towards the Mercedes star when considering my next vehicle purchase. Specifically the SLK and CLK. I've read some posts on the forum here about what to look for when buying a CLK, and there's some good advice. But a lot of those posts are older and they don't take into consideration the now old age and high mileage these cars (may) have accumulated presently.

I'm looking at a 2002 CLK 430 with 198,000 miles. It's a southern car, so no rust. It's in a wealthy area and the paint is excellent, so I assume it's been garage kept with the possibility of decent maintenance from the previous owner. That, or it's an excellent repaint. The interior, trunk, and under the hood look excellent to immaculate. The exception is the drivers seat which has moderate wear on the leather surfaces, and two tears at the seams where the side bolsters meet the upper section, which seems common. Other minor things are some discoloration of the wood trim on the door, a spot on the drivers side carpet, a button missing from the radio, and wear on the radio control buttons, none of which bother me.

The final issue is that it supposedly needs a new AC compressor, therefore the AC doesn't work. This also doesn't bother me too much because I can do AC work, and a new compressor can be had for around $200, or a used one goes for $100 in my area. Plus, it's currently winter.

The car is a very nice steel blue-grey color with 17" AMG wheels and grey interior. The price of the car is only $2000. It's very tempting, but I'd like some input from people who have owned and maintained these cars. This is a beautiful car, but at 200k miles, is it a Medusa waiting to turn me to stone? Or, do these cars carry on with the tradition of solid German engineering which carried so many of the 450 SEL to 500k miles?

Some background about me: I work on all my own cars and I do not ever visit a mechanics shop except for alignments and tire mounting. The only labor costs I ever incur are those that might come from a machine shop to have something resurfaced, bored, etc. So as far as maintenance and repairs go, I'm usually looking at the cost of parts only.

Any input you guys might have is greatly appreciated. If I don't get this particular car, I'm still looking to get a CLK, or possibly an SLK.

I forgot to mention that the car is at a high end used car dealership, so I don't know who the previous owner was. But, I think it was a trade-in and the sales manager doesn't want to bother sending it to auction. By high end, I mean they sell mostly Mercedes but also have a handful of BMWs, a few Porsches, a Bently, a couple Mustangs, etc.

 

The W208 is a great car. Most of the normal wear parts are inexpensive and simple. We're running a W208 / 209 article in the next Southwest Star, and highly recommend that perspective buyers have their car inspected. If the car is regularly maintained, an inspection should reveal very few problems.

 

Marcus F nailed it! For 2K I'd definitely buy it, since your mechanical inclined lol. Definitely check the drain plugs on both driver and passenger's side door, they seem to get debris inside. Overall pretty good vehicle to purchase.

 

And if it wasn't a dealer that car would be priced more like 1400 or so.
I would always try to get that price down. It is a very high mileage car, I know you do all your own stuff, me too, but still see if you can drive it some place to have estimates on the cost of repair, and use that as a bargaining chip. Also see if you can get any receipts on service done to it through the years, if work was done at dealer ship maybe they have a record. And again more bargaining chips. Only a DIY person like you can buy that car and don't let the sales people know you do that sort of work as that is not a bargaining chip. You really don't know what happened with the AC system, if the compressor did go, there could be a mess in the system. I bet the dealer would estimate $3000. to fix the ac. that's a real good bargaining chip.
The average non DIY person can not afford that car. They need a car that has a life time power train warranty and some used car dealers have those. Even then AC would not be covered.

 

I'm guessing it's a vert? Based on cross-shopping a SLK. Vert top system has expensive breakdowns, even if DIY. As for the mechanicals, they are very solid cars. Do all the regular maintenance stuff like rubber parts and fluid changes with proper spec fluids and you're good. Some have experienced electrical gremlins, so look out for that. Cosmetic defects are always the harder or more expensive things to fix, so if any of that bothers you, then look into cost to replace with used parts or at an upolstery shop.