My new horrible beater

Joined
Jan 3, 2020
Messages
984
Location
Brittany
I've been trying to make my vehicles look good for many years. Between the amount of dirt a vehicle can collect over a few km when you live between farms and the parking lot scratches and dents, my mental health was at stake, i had to own something i could sacrifice to keep the other cars a bit nicer. :LOL:

This will serve my purpose, A 1995 Mercedes W202 C250 Diesel manual that i got for a couple hundred euros, it was very hard to start because of the anti drain valve in the fuel tank not working. What i've done so far apart from changing the fluids and adding a anti drain valve is put a new belt and grind off the rust, apply rust killing paint that doesn't match the body (but matches the interior lol), fix the holes with thick panels of fiberglass and epoxy and then spray linseed oil inside the cavities to prevent rust.

Here are the main features of this car:

- Very trashy exterior, can go anywhere without any concern.
- Disgusting carpets in the trunk, can hold anything.
- Clean interior.
- Has a tow hitch.
- Zero structural rust.
- 6L/100 km (40 US MPG) if driven conservatively.
- Runs on most alternative fuels thanks to the inline Bosch P pump (WVO, kerosene...).
- One of the coolest engine in my opinion, this 5 cylinder 20 valve sounds like something between a tractor and an race car.
- Drives perfectly, quite enjoyable despite being slow.
- A/C blows ice cold.
- Four brand new tires, new alternator, new starter, new battery, new glowplugs (those familiar with OM60x engines will understand), new fuel delivery system o-rings.

I still have to fix something in the front end, steering feels somewhat vague and it clunks over holes and bumps. Speedometer doesn't always work, when it stops, so do the odo and trip. Shows 375,000 km but it might be well over 500,000 km, i have no idea. Central locking doesn't work either. Also have a minor fuel leak at some of the delivery valves, which leaks air inside the pump overnight, runs on 3 or 4 cylinders for a few seconds when cold.

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Not bad-but I would take my ~40 MPG Corolla manual over it… $3.50-4 petrol>$5-6 diesel all day long! Plus when it gets really cold I don‘t have to plug it in! A turbodiesel MB manual would be a cool ride, though.
 
Not bad-but I would take my ~40 MPG Corolla manual over it… $3.50-4 petrol>$5-6 diesel all day long! Plus when it gets really cold I don‘t have to plug it in! A turbodiesel MB manual would be a cool ride, though.
I owned a turbo diesel for 11 years in NH and never plugged it in.

Also it was addictive to roll into the throttle in top gear and it would just accelerate with no drama, no wailing, just torque doing its thing.

Ah those were the days. :)
 
This car should still last a while even considering the way i use it. With basic maintenance it should last a few years. Apart from filling up the tank, what i intend to do is an oil change once in a while and what i've been doing with success for years to prevent rust, pressure wash it often and once every 6 months, remove all the plastic mud traps and clean everything.
 
Very nice. By your signature cars you are a Mercedes fan for sure. Its fun to take an older car and restore it on a budget. I hope you get several years of service out of it. New cars are so high priced it's the way to go.
 
Do you get taxed aggressively on HP, displacement, or price?
On all three, options as well. That's why a typical W124 in europe was a 2.0 gas or 2.5 diesel with manual transmission, no A/C, manual windows, cloth interior, no sunroof while the US base model was something like a 3.0 or 3.2 with all of the items i've listed.

In France, when you buy a new or used car you have to pay for the new title. The price depends on the "chevaux fiscaux", which means something like "tax horsepower". For exemple, i used to own a base model E200 manual, it had 7 "chevaux fiscaux" while the 220 i currently own has 14 because of the added displacement and the automatic transmission. The title for this car cost me 500€. I'm too young to remember but i think that up to the 90s, you had something to pay each year depending on that number. The number is lower for diesels, even if the displacement is bigger or if it has an automatic transmission. With diesel being cheaper, that's why most cars are are diesel. Correct me if i'm wrong but France used to be the country with the biggest percentage of diesels on the roads.
 
I had a '94 C220 for 10 years, body and drivetrain absolutely rock solid Mercedes quality. But '94 on the electrical system was dubious....the dreaded biodegradable wiring loom. The only things to fail on mine were electrical.
I will have to deal with the same issue on my 93 220E with the same engine if i decide to keep it. I've owned three W202 and all of them were very dependable cars. Not a single issue.
 
Very nice. By your signature cars you are a Mercedes fan for sure. Its fun to take an older car and restore it on a budget. I hope you get several years of service out of it. New cars are so high priced it's the way to go.
Yes, sometimes people i know roll their eyes at my cars, some are clean but most are beaters to varying degrees. The fun part is that they're having more problems than i do with their fairly new cars with the warranty expired, the monthly payment + bad repair bills showing up.
 
Yes, sometimes people i know roll their eyes at my cars, some are clean but most are beaters to varying degrees. The fun part is that they're having more problems than i do with their fairly new cars with the warranty expired, the monthly payment + bad repair bills showing up.
It's nice to have that extra money for other things or investments. You buy a nice car that is perfect but pretty soon it's a scratch here, a ding there, a chip or two here and there and it's money lost down the drain to depreciation. My lowly Honda Civic gets driven more than any of my other vehicles because it's just a daily driver and I don't have to worry about expensive repairs because it's very reliable. Some vehicles cost a small fortune to repair.
 
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