Are you mad at the previous owner?

[TJ 450]

I've been mad at many previous owners, but that's just how it it. The cars get into the wrong hands.

Tim

[WGB]

How could I hate AMG 69 - He's almost as nice a guy as I am

Similar to him - modesty is one of my many strong point as well.

The only way to buy a well maintained M-B for sure is to buy it new and then look after it yourself.

Anything else is just the way life is in the old car business.

Bill

[1979 300SD]

Hey man, I feel you... lucky for me my mother passed down her navy blue shelterd 1979 300SD with only 53,000 orginal miles the car is now my baby... i plan to do more up-grades such as the AUX input for the Becker Europa II stereo and replace the worn speakers with equal to better replacements w/o cutting, drilling or wiring my upgrades will not damage any part of my baby as possible if you would like to check out info on the Becker radio see www.beckeraudiosound.com on the other hand my daily driver is a 1981 300D that when i first saw it i thought it was abandond, the outside was in shambles the int. was ok for being neglected i found the owner who just so happen to to be the 3 owner sold me the car for $500 bones it needed a little love but the "was owner" has a surpus of spare parts ie mirrors, trim, weather stripping which he galdly gave with the car. i went o to work.The water pump was shot, the transmission burnt rubber going out of 1st, that was the only immidiate  problems so i replaced the pump and repaced the honey comb of vaccume lines but i decided to make my troubleshooting easy by using the 240d vaccume system (vice the 3 swtich over valves on the top of the engine since only one is used to shift the tranny the rest is used for emmisions) i narrowed it down to one swtich over valve, and isolated the door locks since i can deal with reaching around to unlock doors. now the car drives like a champ i drove it to virginia and to flordia many times the car has blow by but only burns 1/4 quart to every 1,000 miles that is one thing i am mad about from the previous owner but i keep up with oil changes and keeping a watchfull eye on the gauges and with a mad mix of Shell Rotella HD and STP oil treatment i have seen my burn rate drop. among many things i have made my own coolant recovery system on the car which i recommend to anyone who has just a hose coming out of the neck of the radiator . as for my 300SD She is safe in a climate controlled grauge coverd since i live in virgina and the car is in texas i do not spend much time with my 300sd as much as i like, but better there than here since i have had my car swiped and bummped into here in virginia and if found some  skidmarks on my SD, I GIVE THEM A SWIFT EDUCATION IN @$$ WOOPIN' thanks for reading!   

[Ilike300sd]

I guess I feel the opposite of the OP.  I thank the previous owners of all my cars very much.  I know what I am getting into when I buy a car and if there are things I don't want to live with or fix for the price I don't buy the car. 

As the buyer, I am responsible for making a good purchase, it has nothing to do with the previous owner.  The car is what it is.  It has either been well maintained or it hasn't.  If it hasn't, I don't buy it (unless for a few hundred dollars for parts etc.).  It's that simple.  I've looked at plenty of worn out and rusted w116s I wouldn't touch with a 10 foot pole.

The last 2 cars I purchased were from owners who sold it to me precisely because they wanted to keep it nice.  And with winter coming and no garage they were worried about it rotting.  I think they were happy to sell to someone who will take good care of them.  Many w116 owners really appreciate their cars and feel bad about letting them deteriorate.  I've noticed many are very reluctant to sell also because they are attached to the car.  Of course there are owners who don't give a rip also.  My point is the buyer has to be responsible for making a good purchase and the car is what it is.  Failure to see flaws in the car is on the buyer, not the previous owner.

[oscar]

You make good points there ilike300sd. Can't argue at all coz as buyers we're all responsible for saying "yes" to a deal, though i do hate reading about peoples misadventures with some deals. I suppose we all do. Hate as in feel sorry for the buyer that just might not know fully what they're getting into, or worse, being lied to. 

It's a good thread subject though.  I'd like to take the opportunity to dump on my dad as being the PO of my 350. Although i didn't know what i was getting into when i took on my 350se, it soon became clear that dad's regime of continually topping up oil rather than undertaking regular oil changes wasn't ideal for the health of the engine. I say that in jest but he's always been one to complain about mechanic costs and drive a car into the ground. I can't help but think how much better the car would be now had i been the caretaker from 1990 when he bought it, onwards.  I suppose it's a neglect phase that most w116s go through during ownership by their third or fourth owner.

[gf]

Cant say im mad at the previous owner even though my cars been far from perfect. He refused to sell it for 10 years after being disabled by a stroke As it wasnt going anywhere i dont think he really serviced it other than turn the engine over each month for 20 min. He wouldnt give it to the kids or grand kids cause he knew it would get trashed. In his situation i think he probably did the right thing. Im just mad that a near rustless car starts rusting even when garaged in tasmania!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[goldacre]

Ah yes, the POS acronym which is not to be confused to mean 'Piece of S#it' although there is a correlation in  many cases when applied to vintage and post vintage vehicles.

POS = Previous Owner Syndrome (written in the negative past tense), first came across this one when shopping for a Lotus as this term is very very widely used in those forums, another one is Garage Queen which represents a car that is so precious the owner will not take it out often or at all and as such inherits issues from inactivity.

My 450SEL was a one owner car by a gentleman who lived on the NSW-Queensland border and always kept it in a shed and drove it on special occasions. Serviced by Mercedes up to 60,000klm until he found a cheaper local mechanic    Only issues where defunct AC and stuffed heater controls but still working on a fix for that and am quietly confident.

The car is a credit to the previous owner, i congratulate him    (ummm, 'CPO' Credit to Previous Owner, now there's  a thought)

C3PO = Credit to the Three Previous Owners LOL, i got to get out more 

G

[JasonP]

R2D2 - Are two "D"s too many?

[Casey]

Well, you'll probably snag the best W116 in the state then! Everybody says get a desert car - no rust.

No rust, but every trim piece badly cracked and the rubber bits all completely gone and a lot of fading.

[Mforcer]

The only way to buy a well maintained M-B for sure is to buy it new and then look after it yourself.

My car was purchased new by my grandfather. After he passed away, my father looked after it and now I have the pleasure. I know that the car has always been looked after and money never spared on anything the car needed. Yet, now that I have started to work on the car myself, I am witness to some disappointing work in the past.

I am not mad at the previous owners but am mad at the mechanics, including dealer workshops, that have not taken the care with maintenance the car deserves.

[Bakoo]

If I ever saw the previous owner again I'd kick his teeth in, tie him to my rear bumper and drive him to Africa.
The electrical wiring was a mess, he had installed all sorts of random stuff that didn't even work and messed with the original wiring. When I was done I had a full shopping bag stuffed with wires that had no practical function whatsoever. There was worn, low quality cloth glued to the inside roof, the original roof underneath was in good condition if there just hadn't been glue all over the place now. The interior of the sunroof was spraypainted black (looked like shit). In the back of the car, it seemed like he'd smashed two holes with a sledgehammer to fit the rear speakers. Not to mention all the rust...

I shouldn't complain too much though, I got the car cheap and I've learned a lot repairing all the damage he had caused

[Type17]

I'm not mad at the previous owners of my 116, in fact I'd love to shake the first owner's hand and thank him, but it hasn't always been that way with previous cars I've owned, and the source of much heartache around the world comes from these little b*st**ds:





3M are a great company, making wonderfully useful products, but they were really having a bad day when they came up with the Scotchlok™ - nothing butchers wiring looms more, nor encourages taking power from the wrong circuit better.

[RustInPeace]

Type17! You captured one of those godawful knife-clamp-gizmo-things away from its natural habitat in dark depths of trunk, hiding behind plastic trim in puddles of rusty condense water.

That's the main reason I walked away from the 450 I looked at recently. Ugggh! Telephone, cruisin' lights, floorlevel lighting, towbar, CD changer, masiv amplifier-booster-boom-box, extra cigarette lighter sockets (?) - everything held together with this abomination. There was even retro-fitted relais from something non-mercedes in there!

Did I mention that the owner did something even more naughty to the paint? Milano Brown became Metallic Pink!

I never gave myself the chance to hate that owner

[Kjhall65]

I applaud the previous owner for the condition of the car but am disappionted at him for converting it to LPG. I had been looking around for a long time to get a 450SE specifically and wanted one in very good condition.  This one fits the bill and was too good to pass up despite the LPG.  Now I'm looking for another one as a parts car to lift the entire fuel system and convert it back to K-Jet.