1994 E320 Wagon
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C230
1994 E320 Wagon
Good morning all. First, a little background. My wife has an eBay store where she sells mostly houseware type items but will really buy and sell anything she can turn a good profit on. Her main source of inventory is thrift stores. Every few weeks she will make a run into the nearest large city, about 100 miles away, and make a run through 6 or 7 thrift stores. Her daily driver is a 2016 C300. It is a great car to drive but she needs more room for when she finds larger items or a lot of stuff. She has always been drawn to wagons/shooting brakes but, unfortunately, they are had to come by and newer ones are pricey. Last night I came across a '94 E320 wagon on Marketplace. It is claimed to be in really good condition, clean body, clean paint, the interior looks to be in excellent condition. The pictures seem to backup the claims in the listing. It has 266,000 miles. What is the reliability of these cars? I am aware of the wiring harness issue. I am a pretty good wrench as long as I have a DIY to guide me and am no stranger to maintaining older vehicles. My daily driver is a 1999 F150. I can pretty much do anything kind of maintenance needed short of major engineer rebuilds. I could do that too, I just don't have the facilities for that kind of work. Any thoughts or insight into what I may be getting myself into? As long as I stay up with maintenance, could I expect to put another 100,000 miles on this car without much concern. My biggest fear is my wife being 100 miles away and something breaking.
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Joined: Mar 2016
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From: SF Bay Area, CA
190E 2.6L 1989, 190E 2.6L 1988, BMW 535dXdrive 2014, BMW 428i 2015
Having owned a '95 W124 and a 2001 W210 wagon, I would say a super high mileage W124 is probably not a good idea as a daily driver for your spouse. Though my car never let me or my wife stranded for the 20+ years I owned it, we sold it only at 145K miles, due to a failed reverse clutch seal in the transmission. That is the Achilles heal and a proper rebuild/swap not done by yourself will set you back $5000K these days. I would make sure that was taken care off by replacing plastic reverse clutch seal with a metal one sometime in the last 30 years.
Though I like the looks of the W124 wagon a whole lot more than the W210, with the exception of rust I believe the W210 is a more reliable car than the W124. Probably a better fit for what you need specifically.
Good luck with the search/decision
Though I like the looks of the W124 wagon a whole lot more than the W210, with the exception of rust I believe the W210 is a more reliable car than the W124. Probably a better fit for what you need specifically.
Good luck with the search/decision
Last edited by dolucasi; Aug 7, 2023 at 11:25 AM.
