1985 Mercedes 230TE

[leesmith]

Hello everyone,
Im 19 years old and from the UK. I have aquired a 1985 230TE that belonged to my grandad. 4 years ago he sadly passed away and myself and my close family have been holding his car in storage at a friends garage. The car is in very good condition, its metallic blue, sunroof, electric windows, its a diesel engine, automatic gearbox and has done roughly 165,000 miles. This car means alot to our family and has such a huge sentimental value that we really do not want to see it go, however tthe engine is far too big for insurance companies to even consider insuring myself on, therefore the family has decided (reluctantly) to let it go. I am asking if anyone who has had expirience with these cars or knows anything about what they are worth, could you possibly take the time to reply to this and give me, what you think, would be a fair selling price for the car.

Thankyou in advance

lee smith

 

[NormanB]

Hi

I am not an expert on the W123 but I suspect that it is worth very much more to you than anyone else.

Hopefully an expert will come along and give you a better guessestimate. But condition is everything - if there is no rust, the engine and transmission are OK and the interior is in excellent nick then at the outside you might get near a grand. If it is less than that condition you may be talking just either side of £500 if it has a years ticket - this is just my opinion so treat with scepticism.

To be honest, if you can keep it in storage at your friends garage for not much money, I would hang on to it. Put it in storage properly (loads of advice on the Web) for this, and then as a hobby set about giving it a good sorting attending to any areas that need attention and haunting the breakers for useful replacement parts. Also I would if I were you have a ring round the insurance companies and see what you are quoted - you may be pleasantly suprised - if not just wait a couple of years while you build up your NCB on something smaller. Also consider classic limited mileage cover for the summer.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do, hopefullly an expert will jump in and give a better valuation.

 

[flagstaff]

if it's a 230TE then the engine would be petrol, not diesel. petrol variants of this age tend to fetch less than their diesel counterparts - not least because they are a bit heavy on the gas, especially in town and especially auto box examples.

aside from this i would agree with normanB's rough valuation. how many miles has the car done? does it have a service history? does it have 7 seats? leather? aircon? any electric goodies? does everything work as it is supposed to?

have a look through the autotrader online, and the mercedes section on ebay. you'll get a fair idea of what these things are going for.