Good morning, and welcome back to another thrilling installment of Shitbox Showdown! Today we have a couple of wagons that run and drive, but need some tinkering to get them properly in order. Before we get to them, however, let’s see what you made of yesterday’s sleeping projects:
Saab wins again. I believe the marque is as-yet undefeated here. Even an overpowered stereo and those aftermarket wheels you all hated so much couldn’t change that. I, of course, would choose the Dodge when presented with these choices, but it’s just more my speed. For a grand, if you’re willing to do a little work, I don’t think there is a bad choice there.
Today’s choices also need some work before being put into regular use, but they have an advantage in that both are capable of moving under their own power with nothing more than the turn of a key. Both are respectable and economical stuff- and people-haulers once you fix some minor issues. Which one is worth the work? Let’s take a look and then you can decide.
1982 Mercedes-Benz 300TD – $3,000
Engine/drivetrain: Turbodiesel 3.0 liter overhead cam inline 5, four-speed automatic, RWD
Location: Hammond, IN
Odometer reading: 111,000 miles
Runs/drives? Yes, but needs rear brakes to be safely driven
“Only the rocks,” as those of us who have seen or read Centennial know, “live forever.” But certain other things are giving it a damn good try: sea turtles, Mötley Crüe’s “Farewell Tour,” and the Mercedes W123. These old diesel bricks just seem to keep chugging along, now thirty-eight years after the last one was built. Well-built, mechanically simple, and pleasant (if not exciting) to drive, these cars not only keep going, but more importantly they are worth keeping going.
Being a 1982 model, this 300TD wagon benefits from a turbocharger that greatly improves its acceleration. It’s still nobody’s idea of a performance car, but it isn’t oh-my-God-will-you-move slow like the naturally aspirated ones are. The wagon version is comparatively rare as well; Mercedes only built a couple hundred thousand of them, versus 2.3 million sedans.
These things are well-known for piling on the miles, but this one shows only 111,000 on its odometer. Whether that’s accurate, I can’t say. I can only report. It’s straight, but seems to be suffering from some rust, the 123’s only serious nemesis. If it’s not too advanced, and it doesn’t appear to be, this car should make a good beater for a while yet. It runs and drives, but the rear brakes are “gone” according to the seller, and they recommend towing it home to be safe.
Inside, the M-B Tex is in fine shape (as expected), but the center console is a shambles of wires and vacuum lines. The climate control system in these cars is vacuum-operated and notorious for leaks, and I wonder if there might be some issue there. Luckily, there’s a huge community around these cars, so there’s plenty of help to fix it.
2005 Scion xB – $1,600
Engine/drivetrain: 1.5 liter dual overhead cam inline 4, four-speed automatic, FWD
Location: Taunton, MA
Odometer reading: 197,000 miles
Runs/drives? Yes, but overheats
Toyota’s now-defunct youth-oriented brand, Scion, gave us Americans access to the Toyota bB. These tall boxy wagons were popular in Japan for a few years before we got them in the States, but there was nothing else on the market quite like it. Was it a wagon? A minivan? A hatchback? Was it a cool car for kids, like Toyota wanted it to be? Or was it a frumpy old-person’s car? We weren’t sure. But we sure bought a bunch of them.
The Scion xB is well-known to Autopian readers as our rolling test-bed, subjected to all manner of messy indignities in the name of mobile gastronomy. But the interior is not a bad place to be when it isn’t covered in various soups and sauces. This one looks to be holding up well after almost 200,000 miles. Unlike our test car, this one is an automatic, which makes eating in the car far easier, but nowhere near as entertaining.
This Scion’s variable-valve-timing-equipped four cylinder runs well, but the seller says it is prone to running hot. The temperature goes back down when the heater is turned on, which makes me think it’s a flow problem: Either the radiator is partially clogged, or the airflow through it is compromised, or maybe the electric fan has quit working. The seller says, rightly, that if the overheating isn’t addressed, the next step could be a failed head gasket.
Otherwise, it’s in good condition mechanically, with the exhaust, battery, and alternator all new. The exterior is straight and clean, with what look like some rock chips on the hood, but no other obvious damage. It even still has the lower body cladding that seems to disappear from these cars one piece at a time.
“Runs and drives, but needs some work” is a category of car that can either be a great bargain, or a royal pain in the ass. A lot of it depends on the attitude with which you approach it: if you like fixing stuff, cars like these are opportunities; if you don’t or can’t, they’re liabilities. But what car you pick also matters; if you end up in over your head from the beginning, even the best attitude will go downhill in a hurry. So which one of these looks like the better fixer-upper?
(Image credits: Craigslist sellers)
I had an original xB with the manual transmission. After 3 accidents (2 with the previous owner, the last wasn’t my fault) and 200,000 miles, it needed a new clutch and $1000 of work, and I traded it in. Still miss it and wonder whether I made the right call, that was a fantastic car.
Scion for me, please.
Yeah, I don’t know what happened after the divorce (coincidentally right after the xB was paid off) but in that 6 years the only trouble was the blower ($29 from the recycler). I thought the manual made it a hoot to drive around town, and we pack all manner of “stuff” in it. For a Youth Brand, everyone I saw driving one in Austin or St Paul was over 40..
I really wanted to vote for the Benz, but the Scion is priced right for a beater. You’ll get $1000 out of it, but that Benz is going to take a lot more to get right. As a project, Mercedes maybe, but you’d probably find a better starting point.
I went in thinking the scion would be an easy win, I still voted for it, but that cvt is likely about out and the overheating thing could be simple or could be major. At any rate I almost went Diesel Benz as I have always wanted to try the fry grease diesel conversion, but LKQ has the Toasters engine and a manual trans I could get and swap….soooo, i choose the Yota.
While still maybe a gamble as a high mileage auto of unknown history, not an old CVT risk – the xB was a 4-speed auto. Toyota was later to shift (pun!) to CVTs than some others.
In The Good Life Lab, a young couple did the hippie/DIY/Walkaway thing and got an old M-B diesel to convert to run on vegetable oil. It became the bane of their existence because they needed reliable transpo to do their scavenging, and it was only capable of running well for entire weeks at a stretch.
They nearly gave up on the whole project when they got a deal on a newish VW TDI, and then suddenly everything got easier. The lesson they took from that was, “always start with stuff that works and improve from there” but I took a different lesson.
So, nope on the M-B. And those Scion shoeboxes are cute. You could probably even get a motorcycle in the back of one.
I voted for the MB of course, but only because the Scion is an automatic as well
I should want the Benz and it’s a worthwhile project car. However, the Scion is probably the better deal. The xB with the autotragic is dreadfully slow, but it is reliable and practical… and cheap.
My father-in-law owned an xB and it was the car my son learned to drive in. I’ll never forget the story of when my wife took my son out in the car. They got to the top of a freeway on-ramp and my wife said, “floor it.” Naturally, my son thought he misheard her and said, “what?” My wife goes in a much louder voice, “FLOOR IT!”. She was right, of course – it took some effort to wake the hamsters up. That’s the day my son learned proper acceleration is as important as proper braking.
Benz all day long. A friend of mine in high school had an 1985 W123 sedan that ran on cooking oil. It was pretty old even then–we graduated in 2011. It was eaten up with rust and covered in bondo. None of the locks worked, some of the windows wouldn’t go down, half the instruments were also dead. They did very, very little in the way of maintenance. But no matter what we did to it, that car would not die. The automatic transmissions can be weak points, but that one survived my friend throwing it into low gear at 50mph…more than once. He just wanted to see what would happen. It went off roading, rammed down snow banks, and we even got some air when cresting a steep hill at 80mph. Despite all that, and despite every wheel was bent to hell, it was smooth and comfortable on the highway and never broke down once. The upholstery even still looked perfect.
They sold it for more than they paid for it, mostly thanks to the vegetable oil conversion kit. It was still running and driving. Damn I miss that car.
I never got brave (or solvent) enough to do the veggie oil kit. I filtered the hell out of my used oil, then thinned it with gasoline. The way the law was written in Virginia, it doesn’t say what % counts as an ‘additive’ , so I figured I’d ask, “Where does it say that 90% veggie to 10% gasoline doesn’t count as an additive?”
Yeah the problem is the demand for the used oil is so high it isnt worth doing.i worked in food and everyplace had a deal on selling used oil. They no longer have to pay for dumping it.
I had friends who were very much into the used oil thing for a number of years, putting the veggie oil into converted ’80’s Mercedes vehicles. It was a lot of work to scavenge the oil and do all of the needed filtering. And then the oil became a hot commodity, and as you say, it’s being sold off. No more pulling up behind the local Japanese restaurant and pumping oil out of the grease bin. They gave up on this five or six years ago.
Yeah, sourcing WVO was an issue. I had plenty of supply in 2002, but by 2010 restaurants with useable waste oil had a deal with someone collecting at higher volumes than I cared to equip myself for. When the restaurant I had a deal with closed, I just stopped doing it
The VDO odometer in these Mercedes are well know for stripping a finicky little gear out when the driver resets the trip odometer while moving (of the 5 road-worthy 617.952 cars I had, only 1 had a working odometer). It very likely has at least twice the listed mileage on it.
The wagons have hydraulic struts out back-pretty pricey: $1500 for the pair some 10 years ago. Better check those. Also, the turn signals run through the hazards switch in the console. That’s less than $100, but a bit of a pita. Absolutely check that the blower fan works: only 2 options for replacement are available-the oem at around $500 or URO brand, which is absolute trash and won’t make it much past the warranty. Check the coolant recirculating pump and oil-cooler lines. Edit: Always, always bring a couple spin-on fuel-filters & and 4-5 of the clear in-line ones with you when looking to buy one of these. Algae grows in the tank over time, and will stop them up. The clear ones give you an easy visual check of what’s going on in the main one. Bring a quart of diesel, too, in case the manual primer-pump’s seals have failed.
Great cruisers-and you can really surprise people by watching the other lights at a stop: stomp the skinny about a second after their light turns red, then let off the brake as the tach hits 1700 or so. You’ll have much of the (iirc) 270lb-ft of torque pushing you from rest. Good times
Train had a song that featured a “crappy purple Scion” but Janis Jopin sang about a Mercedes Benz, so I gotta go with the latter.
This comes down to want vs need. If I need a car i’d take the Scion. If I want a project/collectible i’d take the Benz. However neither tickles my fancy, so I didn’t vote.
This one is tough because I genuinely would like to own both of those cars but ultimately went with the Benz. The Scion was tempting because of how much cheaper it is and realistically it probably does just need a radiator and a good flush but what if it needs more than that. Whereas brakes can be done in a weekend (famous last words)
I like wagons and the M-B has a reputation for longevity, but past experience has left me permanently prejudiced against these Benz wagons. Everyone I ever knew who drove one of these was a pretentious butthole. It’s completely irrational, I know, to reject a car out of hand because of a few miscreants, but I never want to have anything in common with those people.
So, it’s the Toyota boxcar in this round.
Strong lean toward “neither,” but I’d take the Scion if forced. Rust on the M-B bugs me, though nothing else about it does.
The Scion being in MA is likely to have plenty o’ corrosion underneath, but there’s always a chance it’s not bad down below. Between radiator shops and wrecking yards, overheating doesn’t bug me all that much. The automatic does bug me, but beggars can’t be…you know the rest.
I kind of Feel like this wagon has Mercedes Streeter’s name on it. She likes the odd and rusty stuff. this one might be a little reliable for her in the end, but right now it is just enough of a shit box for her to pull the trigger.
One of these needs body work for rust and the other doesn’t. Although if you’re going to do body work, you want it to be an investment, and the Mercedes passes that test. OTOH, my gut tells me that after you’re done fixing the xB, you’re done!…but the Merc is likely to be a lifelong maintenance project, ‘Ship of Theseus’ style.
Box all day. Had an ’06 that I still regret selling. My dream is to import an Open Deck once they hit the 25 year mark.
The Merc is barely run in at that milage so I’ll take it please. My great great great great grandson can can will it to Keith Richards when he dies. (My GGGG grandson that is. (We all know that KR can never die)
We really do need to think about the kind of world we’re leaving to Keith Richards and Willie Nelson, y’know. They’ll be fighting Henry Kissinger for the last Twinkie.
You can live on cockroaches. They taste like crap but you can live on them.
KR is already dead but the booze and drugs are keeping him alive to lead the zombie apocalypse. Which as the zombie hordes grow in San Francisco will be sooner than anyone thinks. So my vote MB for roominess, reliabilitiness, and run on oiliness.
The xB is the box my car came in, and they share quite a few parts (including, unfortunately, transmissions, though it’s not a bad automatic) – and I bought the Blueberry on the cheap in Massachusetts, too. A good omen.
The Benz is a cool, practical, handsome classic, but as with the 280ZX recently (and even more so, that Liberty) I’m not here to deal with rust *and* whatever else happens to go wrong. Also, those vacuum lines scare me.
I’ve driven a car before that overheated if the heater wasn’t on, and it honestly wasn’t that bad for a few months, although it wasn’t summer yet. Scion it is – as the poll says, it’ll drive home, and then I can fix it.
usually this means the main radiator is plugged or possibly the fans are not working, if it overheats at a stop light, then Fans, if overheating while going down the road, then likely it is a clogged radiator. few people flush them these days.
A JH I had always overheating according to the dial. A heat gun showed not the case. I think the voltage regulator was messed up and every dial and gauge red high. I wish i had known before running out of gas between Kingman AZ and Needles CA. in 120 degree heat. But great roads.
That latest Ski-Klasse article scared me away from the Benz. Especially with the rat’s nest of vacuum hoses being barfed out the console.
For the extra $1400 saved with the Scoyota, I think I can find a decent junkyard radiator and fan.
It would drain my bank account and the Scion would probably be the better choice, but my heart wants the Benz. I know I’d enjoy it more after the years it would take to have it in proper running order.
Scion, please.
As it stands, the Scion is a usable little box that – with a new radiator and a flush – will continue to be usable.
I came in here expecting to like the MB better, but the overall condition (rough interior, rust) put me off.
One thing that caught my eye is [what appears to be] the odd location of the left rear wheel. https://images.craigslist.org/00b0b_gczExNEMQSG_0CI0i5_1200x900.jpg
Is the wheel supposed to be that far forward in the arch? The tire seems to be nearly touching at the front, but maybe it’s an optical illusion. I looked at some pics of other 300td wagons and they don’t have matching front-back gaps due to the shape of the wheel arch, but today’s example looks a little off.
That made me think there may be more going on at the back than just the brakes, but I could easily be wrong.
I think it’s riding low in the back. If I remember right, these have air suspension in the back.
That’s entirely possible. I do wish sellers would include direct side-on pictures, rather than take them just from the corners.
Not likely on beaters but would sell quicker.
In a ode towards the old Car and Driver “War Wagon”, I chose the Benz. They made a project out of one that ended sadly when it hit a TV left in the road by ner do well teens.
Like I always say, turbo diesel Benz every freaking day and twice on sunday.
I had an ’05 xB that exact color. It was a great little car, but not worth a lot of work to keep it going. I think I traded mine in before 60k miles because it needed an exhaust.
When things start failing from rust in New England, I know it’s time to throw in the towel.
While that 300TD might need constant work, if it gets the TLC it deserves, it can and will outlast that Scion xB and possibly over a decade or two have an even cheaper overall ownership cost.
Plus it can be run on waste fryer oil and biodiesel.
Both of these have reputations for being unkillable, but one is on the verge of being killed?
I’ll take the Merc.
Both unkillable? Give them to me. Both dead in a month. Easy if you are trying.
If I’m taking a glacial wagon* that needs work, I’ll take the 300TD, the one that will do double moon miles and has its original seats.
*it hurts to say this because I love the first gen xB