01x09 - Mercedes-Benz W123 230E Part 1

[bunniefuu]

Welcome to Wheeler Dealers,
where I show you how to buy,

restore and sell modern
classics cars of my generation.

For no more than a thousand pounds and
with the help of my very own mechanic Ed

China, we're going to
show you how to get the cars

and how to return them
back to tip-top condition.

I'm going to be showing
you the best places

to find the cars and
how to source the parts.

Ed's going to be fiddling
with the spanners and

breathing live back into
these motoring icons.

This week we'll be using our thousand
pounds to find and fiddle a luxury

Mercedes 230 or a W123 to give it its
proper title.

I love the Mercedes 230
because even after this particular

one has done 130,000
miles, it still sounds like that.

Thanks to this three-pointed
star and this unique

DNA, it had other
manufacturers playing catch-up.

But I love it most of all because if you
ask anyone to draw a picture of a

Mercedes, the chances are they'll draw
that one.

This is one of Mercedes' best-known and
respected models.

On the quarter of a
million were built from

1976 to 1986 in huge
estate or stately saloon.

They had the chrome dash
of the seventies and the

imposing flash of the
eighties all in one package.

It was the preferred transport
of doctors and diplomats

with a price-topping 30
grand in today's money.

For that you got electric
everything, gizmos like cruise

control and of course the
three-pointed star on the front.

The ultra-strong 2.34-cylinder motor can
go for 200,000 miles.

Naturally, the auto is the one to have.

It's much easier for cruising.

Finding one shouldn't be difficult.

There are plenty around in the motor in
weeklies.

But finding a good one that's cheap,
that's more of a challenge.

I started my search through word of mouth
but only found younger models.

For older cars it's sometimes worth
looking in places like shops.

There are more cars in your news agent
window than you'd think.

In the end I struck gold just around the
corner.

Now, one of the best places I found for
cars recently and it's really unexpected,

it's here in the supermarket on the
supermarket notice board.

It's the perfect hunting ground for that
elusive bargain.

You'll find everything on here.

From a gas cooker for sale only one lady
owner from new for 75 quid.

So a Ford Fiesta of 4,200 pounds on a W
plate.

It's a bit too rich for me.

But look at this one.

This is a Mercedes 230E B plate automatic
in petrol blue, lovely condition,

600 quid.

You can bet I'd be giving them a ring.

What sort of person advertises a car in
their local supermarket?

It's a smaller, less specialised audience
than the motor in weeklies.

I think this guy Colin doesn't want any
hassle and is as honest as his motor.

Hope I'm right.

Colin?

Yep.

How are you fella?

Alright.

You alright?

Thanks for meeting me.

It's really nice to you.

I know it's a bit late.

You'll probably want your dinner.

It looks alright, doesn't it, eh?

Petrol blue.

Good colour.

I like the colour.

Yeah, it's nice, isn't it?

B plate.

What happened there, fella?

Yeah, no, it was like that when I got it.

Yeah.

Well, I thought it was all a bit of
damage, didn't it?

You did.

You was honest on the phone.

You said there was a little bit of damage.

Right, OK.

Well, it looks alright, doesn't it?

It's honest.

Look at the size of that.

You've still got the original triangle.

Oh, I peeled you to it.

It's honesty, you know, it's originality.

Do you know, I still
think that's the best

engine they ever made
as well, the 230 engine.

230?

Yeah.

I still think that is the most solid
little piece they ever made.

Shame he's got a bit of water.

I never recommend you go and buy a car
actually when it's a little bit rainy and

speedy because you can't see the marks and
dents on it.

But to be honest with
you, at this money and

in this age, no one
can complain, can they?

So why are you selling it?

Well, I work in a city
now and probably the

congestion charge there
and everything else, parking.

It's not worth me having it.

I can drive it to work every day.

Don't tell me you've gone all tree-hugging,
you've started cycling to work.

I do say all the work I've done.

Really?

Yeah.

It looks lovely inside.

It looks cranking inside, doesn't it?

It's very, very nice.

Nice and original.

110,000 miles.

That's right, yeah.

It starts alright.

Well, do you know what?

Some people, they turn
up to see a car and the

engine's been jet hosed,
you know, it's all shiny.

I can't stand that because that hides a
multitude of sins.

I love to see a car like this,
good and honest.

I always recommend
you look down here on the

legs, make sure
they're nice and straight.

I know you've got a bit of
damage down here, but you

want to make sure it hasn't
bent inside the inner wing.

No, it looks nice and tidy.

Big heavy duty battery.

It's got the immobiliser alarm.

Yeah, it looks alright.

It's not bad at all.

Right, other than the
obvious, the bit of damage on

the wheel is taken for
a spin, if you don't mind.

That's alright, yeah.

Do you trust me for that?

Yeah.

I'll only take it up the road and back.

It's a nice big bouncy car, this.

It feels so comfortable to drive.

It makes your drive a little bit more
serenely.

You don't want to rush from A to B,
you just want to be wafted along.

So far so good, pleased with the gearbox.

It's set for that little noise coming from
one of the drive belts.

Other than that, it feels fun.

There is a wobble actually in the
steering, and it's now got up to speed.

You can really feel it,
but bearing in mind, this

car's got a bit of damage
on the offside front wing.

The chances are, if he struck another car
or struck a curb, then what could have

happened is that he
could have bent one of

the tractor on ends
on the front of this car.

He could have even buckled the wheel.

Now, he only wants 600 quid for this car,
which to me sounds like a right bug,

and he's given it away, but you've got to
bear in mind it's a 20-year-old car,

so finding parts for it isn't going to be
easy.

I reckon there's a couple
of hundred quid to spend

on this car, so I think I
know what I've got to do.

I've got to bid him.

Well, Colin, good news and bad news,
mate.

Thanks for the drive.

That's all right.

It's good news and bad news.

The good news is I quite
like the car in a strange kind

of way, because there's a
couple of things wrong with it.

I don't know how far you delved into it
when you was buying it, but,

unfortunately, I know what I'm looking at
and listening to.

When you drive it, there's a vibration in
the steering, and it looks like,

when it's had that bit of damage down
here, that the possibility is,

once it's had that bit of damage,
it could have buckled a wheel or even

damaged a tractor on end, which is, you
know, a little bit expensive, unfortunately.

Don't get too depressed.

Don't stop breaking that into this.

The other thing is, as well, is that it's
got that noise.

You hear that?

When you drive away... Well, it might be
the drive pulley on the gearbox,

because it's slipping, and
the gears are tiny a bit, and if

there's a drive pulley on the
gearbox, that's expensive as well.

So, sorry, Colin, but I've got to bid you.

I've got me size 10s on.

I'm not going to go in too hard.

Well, in fact, I'm lying.

I am.

Don't grimy so hard.

Right, you've asked 600 quid.

What would you say if I said 300 quid?

Not a chance.

Not a chance.

Cash.

I can deal with about 300.

Come on.

300 quid ready.

It's cash.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, what would you take for it,
then?

Only for five.

You can do a bit better than that.

Come on.

It needs a load of work to do.

It's damaged down the back.

It's tractor on end, slippery gearbox,
350.

Cash, it's gone.

You and your bike can be one.

350 is just lying off, isn't it?

Well, what would you take for it,
then?

350 is what I'm offering.

For cash, I'd take 400.

400 pound.

Hold out your hand.

Hey!

I bought a car.

Nice one.

Even cheaper than I dared hope.

My 230 years, I reckon, an utter,
utter bargain.

But what will my mechanic, Ed China,
think?

He's the one who's going to be doing all
the work on it.

Come on, Ed.

Tell me I bought the best Stuttgart taxi
cab money can buy.

Yeah, done.

Oh, it's very, very proud indeed,
I think.

This is a gorgeous car.

I love it.

It is stunning.

It's really, really small.

I love its originality, but I tell you one
thing I love about it.

It's forehead dress, automatic gearbox,
electric windows, electric sunroof.

It's got the lot for no money whatsoever.

That's fantastic.

It's really, really rather lovely.

But, all right, I've noticed this little
thing...

It's had a tiny impact here, but some
people would see this, get nervous and

walk away from it, but Ed, with geezers,
we're blokes.

We can repair this and put it right,
can't we?

We can, but we're going to have to put a
new wing on this, and it's metallic paint,

and it's old metallic
paint, so mixing it all in

together to make it look
nice is going to be more tricky.

But while I'm a bit dry,
I think it's probably felt

a bit funny, because, I
mean, this is hard, I reckon.

It's going to have something to do with
this.

You are right, because where this dent is,
it's obviously hit the top of the wheel,

and it's forced the geometry out and the
steering.

It does wander around the road a bit.

So we have to play with the steering a
bit.

But this really is the worst bit of the
car.

Let me show you some of the good bits.

Have a look in there, my son.

See, these cars, I've got the tall
Germans, and although I'm not a German,

I fit nicely.

It's good.

I like this interior.

Exceptional inside, I was really pleased
with it.

I mean, bear in mind, in its day,
this was the equivalent of a 40,

50 grand car to somebody, you know,
this was middle management.

If you had one of these, you were really
doing well.

This is really lovely.

Everything looks really lovely.

It just needs a bit of a hoover,
I suppose, and we're pretty much there.

Does everything work?

Yes, everything, except for the sunroof.

Except for the sunroof.

What doesn't work about that?

It just doesn't work.

I've tried the switches, tried the
buttons.

I even thought about taking a
window switch out and swapping

it for the sunroof switch
to see if it was a switch.

But it just doesn't work.

And what do you think of that?

That's good.

That is very, very clean.

And utterly original.

A good look down in the world.

No signs of accident and damage.

And look at this.

Underneath here.

That's very special.

Spare, tools, it's all there.

And a proper little warning triangle as
well.

Even the warning triangle.

It's so clean.

You've done well.

Good.

See, you're quite pleased with this car,
aren't you?

I like this car a lot, yeah.

Good, because I don't want to give you too
much work.

So it's the wing, the steering.

Now, when I was driving it, there was a
noise coming from underneath.

It sounds like a fan belt slipping.

Right.

But it's worth, I think, changing the cam
belt.

Yeah, cam belt.

And do a general... Just a
hot service, everything else.

I think it makes it, really, here.

Don't forget the sunroof.

The sunroof has got to be working for us
to sell it.

Yeah, all right.

But you're happy, ain't you?

I know.

This is a really lovely car.

I like this a lot.

Well, good luck.

Here's the keys.

Thank you very much.

I'll catch up with you and see how you're
getting on with it.

Okay.

See you later.

All right.

That's it so far.

Coming up in part two, Elle will be
getting busy with the spanners.

Welcome back to Wheeler Dealers.

This is the Mercedes I got for a measly
400 quid.

The challenge is to buy and restore a car
like this for £1,000 and sell it on later.

But now it's time for Ed to start working
his magic on it.

On the drive back to the workshop,
the handling of this car was really woolly

and precise, and there was a bit of a
vibration.

Now, you can see from the dent in this
wing that this car has been in a bit of an

accident, and I reckon that's where the
vibration comes from.

This wheel is probably a bit bent, and
as easy to fix, I can just get a new wheel.

The real problem can be seen from up here.

As you can see here, I've
got loads of movement in

the steering, but nothing
happening at the wheels.

Now, this excessive play is caused by
years and years of wear and tear,

and it means that I'm almost certainly
going to have to change the steering box.

The steering box converts
the rotational motion of the

steering wheel into a lateral
motion via the steering arm.

Nesting down here in the depths of this
engine bay is a steering box.

It's a real pain to get to.

It's going to cost £300 to replace,
so I really want to avoid that if I can.

There is a quick fix I can try that will
save me time and money.

The steering box contains cogs.

If they're worn, you can tighten them together
and remove some slack in the steering.

OK, that's really about as tight as I dare
go.

I don't want the steering to be too locked
up, obviously.

So now I'm going to
bring it back to the centre

and see what kind
of slack we still have.

Well, it's a little better, so it was
worth a try, but to be honest,

it's hopeless enough to need a new
steering box.

The first thing I'm going to try and
remove are the steering control arms.

Because this big arm here is going to be
really hard to get off.

So I can do that in a vice or
space once I've got these guys

out of the way and get the
steering box actually off the car.

I've got one bolt left holding
the steering box to the

car, so I'm now going to take
off the power steering pipes.

And a good little tip is to stop all the
fluid going absolutely everywhere.

I'm just going to bung
a glove over the end just

to collect some of the
fluid if it's only come out.

Now, I really must go carefully with this
because it's very heavy and quite awkward.

And the only thing that's holding it onto
the car after this bolt is the coupling

onto the steering column, which is going
to be a little bit stiff.

So it's going to be a little bit of
jiggling before it drops off onto my hand

and then presumably onto the floor,
which may hurt.

So just be very careful.

There are still some
bits on the old box I

need, but getting them
off requires brute force.

You've got to reckon on a good few hours
for this job, and it's pretty tiring.

It's now time for me to fit this to the
car.

Now, the thing is, there are some jobs you
just can't do on your own.

This is way too heavy for me to lift up
and then bolt on.

So I've enlisted the help of Ed too.

There you go.

And he's going to lift it up for me while
I bolt it on.

On you go, mate.

OK, now that's the steering box attached
to the car, albeit loosely.

So I've just got to go around and do
everything up.

Well, I'm absolutely filthy.

I'm 300 quid lighter.

Has it all been worth it?

Oh, look at that.

The response of this thing is going to be
awesome.

It is going to handle so beautifully.

Now, before I take this car out on the
road, what I need to do is bleed the system.

Now, it's not a very complicated thing to
do at all.

I just put the steering
wheel all the way to

the right and then
all the way to the left.

And you can hear the fluid moving around
in there.

And then just do it one or two more times.

A foot to the right, a foot to the left.

And then, before I actually go for a drive
while the engine's running, do it a few

more times and then the system will be
completely bled and ready to go.

And now, I'm going to go and have a bath.

Next job is the broken sunroof.

This has to work, otherwise it will put
off potential buyers.

The faults could be with any part of the
sunroof.

Now, worst-case scenario is going to be
with the motor or the mechanism.

Now, with both of those jobs,
it's going to be time-consuming

to fix and could put a
bit of a dent in our budget.

If I'm lucky, it could be something
simple.

So, I'm going to start by having a look at
the switch.

Now, I can just pry this switch out with a
screwdriver, which is handy.

Okay, well, before I have a look at all
the wiring and stuff, I'm just going to

check the switch itself and just see if the
mechanism does what it's supposed to do.

Now, although I don't know what each of
these terminals does, it would be easy to

put a meter across and actually just check
to see what happens.

I'm checking the switch with a multimeter
on the resistance setting and it shows

every output of the switch is working
fine.

I now know that the
switch works, which means

the problem could
well be with the wiring.

Now, before I look for any
broken wires or anything, I

need to find out whether
there's any power at the switch.

Now, I have four wires on the back of this
switch, and the green and the blue one,

I would think, are probably the go and
stop, or backwards and forwards.

And then we've got a
brown and a black, which

I think are going to
be power and earth.

First of all, I'm going to need an earth.

A door hinge is normally
quite a good place to

look because it's just
plated rather than painted.

So I'm going to use that.

And we've got a beep,
which means that the

brown one is actually
connected to the earth.

OK, so I know where the earth is on this
wiring.

So the next thing to do is look for the
power.

So I put it onto voltage on the
multimeter, and I'm going to put the

ignition on so we have some power in the
car.

OK, it's up to my earth.

Let's have a look.

We should get... and we don't.

OK, so we have no power on this switch
whatsoever.

Now, that might sound like bad news,
but actually it's really good news because

it could mean that it might be something
as simple as a fuse that's blown.

So I'm going to have a look at that now.

Whoa!

Look at that.

This could be the cheapest fix I've done
yet.

There's actually an entire fuse missing.

Now, I've got no idea which
one it is yet, but very kindly,

Mercedes give them a list of
what fuses do and where they are.

So let's have a quick look.

There's a couple of words here,
and lots of different descriptions.

Sliding roof.

OK, and that's supposed
to be a 16-amp fuse, but I've

noticed I'll just make
sure that these are a thing.

Yep, there we go.

So there's that fuse, it's our fuse,
and it's missing.

So I'm just going to get a 16-amp fuse,
they're normally red, and off we go.

Now, in theory, I could now check this
again for a positive with my multimeter,

but I'm feeling really rather lucky.

So I'm just going to put the switch
straight back onto the connector.

I've got to be careful I don't trap a
fiber optic thing.

OK.

Fantastic.

Well, this fix has only
cost a couple of pence, and

it's made all the difference
to this Mercedes interior.

Hmm, a lesson for Mike, perhaps.

Always check the fuses when you look round
a car.

I couldn't wait to try the
steering and sample the sunroof,

but on the road I spotted
something that Mike had missed.

There are heavy scratches across the
windscreen that could fail an MOT.

I hope they might polish out, so I called
in a specialist.

Hi, Neil, how are you doing?

Now, this is the screen I was telling you
about.

I've got these scratches in here, and I'm
wondering whether we can polish them out.

Um, nah, they are too deep, too polished.

I think we're going to have to replace it.

OK, thought as much.

Let's go.

I could do this job myself, but
windscreens are easy to get wrong,

so paying for it to be done adds peace of
mind.

Plus, after the very cheap sunroof fix,
we've still got cash in the kitty.

Although the Merc is 20 years old,
you can still buy original glass,

complete with a green sun visor tint.

Great.

An excellent result.

I hope Mike is impressed with the work so
far.

I'm looking forward to seeing Ed and our
lovely original Mercedes 238.

Remember, it was the
one with a little dent in the

front wing, but I expect
he's done that by now.

Plus, he should have done a host of other
repairs.

So I'm so excited about seeing it.

Ed.

Hello.

Good to see you again, fella.

How are you?

Lovely, actually.

A little bit disappointed if I was to be
quite honest with you.

It doesn't mean you've done too much.

I've done all the work underneath the car,
all the important stuff.

Remember, the steering was really woolly
in vain.

Yeah, it did have this sort of ESP
steering.

You put an input in and
then wait a while and it

would decide to go off
in a different direction.

Now it's very sorted.

New steering box in the end.

Cool.

Lots of messy, messy, nasty work.

Very fiddly, very oily.

So it's all done now.

Tough to do?

Yeah, it was, actually.

Good.

I'm pleased about that.

Anything else?

The windscreen.

You might not remember, there was a huge
scratch, two scratches across the screen,

really rather nasty, so I got that sorted
out as well.

I didn't even ask you to do that and
you've done it for me.

I did actually get a mate in to help me.

Thank you very much.

That's great.

The best bit, I think.

Well, there was nothing wrong in here.

Oh, what about this?

The sunroof, that's right.

Yeah, it didn't work.

I thought that was going to be a huge job.

Well, it would have been, except there was
a fuse missing.

Just a fuse?

Just a fuse.

I was thinking it was
difficult to get the fuse

in, but it was actually
quite a result there.

When you can see all this damage here,
it's all mangled at the front.

It's pretty hopeless.

I kind of need your help on this one.

Well, I'm not going to do it.

Well, no, I need a new wing.

Right, well, maybe I can help with that.

What, just source a new wing?

Is that the easiest thing to do?

The easiest thing to do is replace it
completely.

Right, OK.

So what do you think of the old girl?

I really love this car.

I love working on it.

And once the wing's done
and the engine's been serviced,

it's going to run beautifully,
it's going to look great.

I'm going to be really sorry to see it go.

So far, we've spent £530, £300 on the
steering box, £2, Bob, on a fuse,

and £230 on the windscreen.

They only leave £70, and we've still got
to find a new wing.

That's going to be tough.

So the old girl's willing her way to being
lovingly restored thanks to Ed's hard work.

So far, he's done the sunroof and he's
fixed the steering rack and he's even

replaced the windscreen, and I didn't ask
him to do that.

But the big test is yet to come.

We've still got to repair that dent on the
front wing.

So join us next time on Wheel of Dealers,
and I'll show you how to source some cheap

body parts, and Ed is going to get to
grips with the rest of the car.

See you soon.