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I have purchased another W202 C250 Turbodiesel, similar to the one we purchased for my wife. Hers is a 1999, mine is a 1998. Mine has about 30 000km more on the clock.
After getting a PM on the Mercedes Forum OZBENZ - Australian & New Zealand Mercedes-Benz Forums • Index page about this car, receiving photos of it and having a report from the people who serviced the car for the last 8 years, we decided that this was a reasonable buy. We paid a deposit and bought air fares to Adelaide and arranged for the vendor to pick us up when we arrived.
We arrived in Adelaide on Tuesday morning at around 11am, we met the vendor who picked us up from the airport and drove us to Gepps Cross. We completed the deal there, before we drove off to Whyalla.
We caught up with a friend (Gilfish) and his wife, who provided us with 200 litres of biodiesel in 20L containers in the boot and topped up our fuel tank. We spent some time talking with them before we left to find our accommodation.
After a poor sleep (hard mattress and flat pillows) we arose at 3:30 am and had a couple of cups of tea before deciding to get an early start on our journey home to Perth.
As it was around 3 hours before sunrise, we kept the speed down to 80 km/h to give us a chance to see any "Skippys" before they caused any damage to the new car. We passed thru Kimba around sunrise then accelerated to the speed limit. We swapped drivers every 2-3 hours, with the non-driver getting some sleep for an hour or so, to ensure their concentration when they resumed driving.
We spent the night at Cocklebiddy on the Eyre Highway and had a good night's sleep in a comfortable bed with good pillows.
The trip home was pretty uneventful, apart from finding that the wiper hub needs lubricating and as a result the wipers were too slow to be of any use at all. Fortunately, we didn't have any rain until we were 2 hours from home and then we just looked thru the wet windscreen.
The only other issue we had was that the car starved of fuel on one occasion, when a 1/4 tank remained. I guess that the higher viscosity of biodiesel (compared with petroleum diesel) meant that at highway speeds, the fuel levels in the "saddle tank" was unable to equalise fast enough, and the side from which the fuel was being drawn, ran empty. I topped up the tank and despite a lot of cranking, the car would not fire.
I opened up the prefilter and filled it with biodiesel. We cranked a little more, before I opened the prefilter again and topped it up with biodiesel. We only had to crank a little before the engine roared into life. My wife held the engine revs to 3K for a couple of minutes to ensure that all air was out of the system. We then resumed our travels, with no further problem (mainly because we added 20 litres every 250km or half tank, which ever came first).
In the 2500 odd km traveled, we averaged 8 litres per 100 km, traveling at ~110km/h.
We are very happy with my new C250 Turbodiesel.
I am investigating installing a fuel pick up on the Driver's side of the tank, to overcome the issue we had. I may investigate adding a fuel pump to assist with priming.
A big thank you to Gilfish for his support this time. It is a pity that we could not catch up with Shiner (who supported us last time we passed thru Whyalla). We had half a tank of fuel and 20 litres of biodiesel in the boot when we arrived home.
Regards,
Tony
After getting a PM on the Mercedes Forum OZBENZ - Australian & New Zealand Mercedes-Benz Forums • Index page about this car, receiving photos of it and having a report from the people who serviced the car for the last 8 years, we decided that this was a reasonable buy. We paid a deposit and bought air fares to Adelaide and arranged for the vendor to pick us up when we arrived.
We arrived in Adelaide on Tuesday morning at around 11am, we met the vendor who picked us up from the airport and drove us to Gepps Cross. We completed the deal there, before we drove off to Whyalla.
We caught up with a friend (Gilfish) and his wife, who provided us with 200 litres of biodiesel in 20L containers in the boot and topped up our fuel tank. We spent some time talking with them before we left to find our accommodation.
After a poor sleep (hard mattress and flat pillows) we arose at 3:30 am and had a couple of cups of tea before deciding to get an early start on our journey home to Perth.
As it was around 3 hours before sunrise, we kept the speed down to 80 km/h to give us a chance to see any "Skippys" before they caused any damage to the new car. We passed thru Kimba around sunrise then accelerated to the speed limit. We swapped drivers every 2-3 hours, with the non-driver getting some sleep for an hour or so, to ensure their concentration when they resumed driving.
We spent the night at Cocklebiddy on the Eyre Highway and had a good night's sleep in a comfortable bed with good pillows.
The trip home was pretty uneventful, apart from finding that the wiper hub needs lubricating and as a result the wipers were too slow to be of any use at all. Fortunately, we didn't have any rain until we were 2 hours from home and then we just looked thru the wet windscreen.
The only other issue we had was that the car starved of fuel on one occasion, when a 1/4 tank remained. I guess that the higher viscosity of biodiesel (compared with petroleum diesel) meant that at highway speeds, the fuel levels in the "saddle tank" was unable to equalise fast enough, and the side from which the fuel was being drawn, ran empty. I topped up the tank and despite a lot of cranking, the car would not fire.
I opened up the prefilter and filled it with biodiesel. We cranked a little more, before I opened the prefilter again and topped it up with biodiesel. We only had to crank a little before the engine roared into life. My wife held the engine revs to 3K for a couple of minutes to ensure that all air was out of the system. We then resumed our travels, with no further problem (mainly because we added 20 litres every 250km or half tank, which ever came first).
In the 2500 odd km traveled, we averaged 8 litres per 100 km, traveling at ~110km/h.
We are very happy with my new C250 Turbodiesel.
I am investigating installing a fuel pick up on the Driver's side of the tank, to overcome the issue we had. I may investigate adding a fuel pump to assist with priming.
A big thank you to Gilfish for his support this time. It is a pity that we could not catch up with Shiner (who supported us last time we passed thru Whyalla). We had half a tank of fuel and 20 litres of biodiesel in the boot when we arrived home.
Regards,
Tony
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