I desperately need some help here. First off, I’m a chick that knows little about cars in general, although I’m not a complete girly girl. So, should you be so kind as to answer my post, keep that in mind.

I need some clarification as to the cost of a rebuilt and/or original engine for a ‘87 300TD. Here’s our situation:

My husband purchased this vehicle on Ebay from a dude out of state for $2300. We knew it needed a ton of work and was not running and expected that the engine would need to be replaced. He purchased it back in late May of ‘07.

We had it shipped straight from the seller to a seemingly reputible shop that deals with German makes that’s been around for quite some time. They looked it over and amongst other things, determined it needed a new engine, to no surprise. My husband informed them that at the moment he wanted to pay no more than about $4-5K to get it running and they agreed this would be no problem because it seemed the engine was the main thing needed to have it running decently. However, they said they would have to locate one.

It took them 4 months to locate an engine and in the meantime, diesel gas had practically doubled overnight, which is one of the main reasons my husband purchased the car in the first place: to save on petrol.

We called them periodically to find out what was happening with the vehicle. We always had to make the contact, despite our requests for them to let us know what was going on. Here and there, they were making little repairs, which was fine...until my husband phoned them up again and they told us they had found an engine for $7200, replaced it and the bill was up to $9100. He told them to stop working on it because he was told it would be half that cost and they said that was fine and it was running nicely with the new engine. We acknowledged other stuff would need to be done and my husband decided to take on the task of fixing up all the other bits and pieces in his spare time.

Although we were floored at the cost of the bill, they told us this engine was a very hard to find engine and my husband seemed to be under the impression that the cost of the engine was still worth what he had to pay for it. My husband seems to recall the mechanics telling him the engine was an original engine that had 40K miles on it.

Fast forward to the past few months, 2009. My husband has determined he simply has little time to devote to the car, so we listed it on Ebay about a month back, hoping to get at least $7000 for the engine, even though we had socked $14K into the car so far.

To our surprise, we had a few people email us and say the engine should only be worth $1500 to 2500 max. One guy sent me a list of parts places around the country which I called and the ones that were helpful told me this price for this engine for this vehicle was accurate, even if it was rebuilt and even if purchased in ‘07.

I called the mechanics who worked on the car and asked them if they could explain to me why the engine cost $7200. After much hemming and hawing, the only explanation I was given was that diesel was cheaper then and these types of engines were more in demand as a result. (I’ve since heard from others the cost of diesel gas in ‘o7 would have no bearing on the cost of replacing the engine). I was actually just looking for him to explain to me WHY this particular engine was so unique and WHY others were telling me they are practically a dime a dozen. Because he could not explain it to me, I asked him for a copy of the invoice of their purchase of the engine. I understood there would be a reasonable mark-up on the cost of the engine and made it clear I was not disputing their labor costs. I just wanted to know why the engine cost what it did, so I could relay that to potential buyers who were telling me the engine should be less than half that cost. In looking at their labor invoice, I told him I needed to know if it was an original engine, as my husband seemed to be told, or a rebuit one, as his invoice indicated.

For over a month, I have been fighting with them to produce the invoice from the place they purchased the engine from. I have been on the phone almost weekly, having to explain over and over again to the same 2 guys why I would like to see their purchase invoice. They cannot seem to tell me who they got the engine from and nor can they explain why this engine cost what it did.

My patience has run out and if a Mercedes mechanic cannot seem to tell me the specifics of this engine and for over a month cannot find this mysterious missing invoice for the purchase of the engine, my only logical deduction is that something very fishy is going on.

I went on this site’s diesel forum and posted a general question as to the cost of the engine. I also went on Benzworld.com and I got about 3 responses saying this engine cost anywhere from about 7K to 9K.

Can anyone tell me if this is accurate and why I would have Ebay buyers and parts guys throughout the country telling me differently? What piece of information am I missing here? If I can confidently determine this engine’s cost was around $7000 and understand why, then my husband and I can move forward on making a decision as to what to do with the car: sell it and take a massive loss, or let it rot in the garage until he has the time to work on it.

So, in a nutshell, I need to know what the cost of this engine would be to replace. Would it make a difference if it was original or rebuilt? If so, which would be the higher cost. (I assume it would be the remanufactured one). If this engine was so rare, why?

Any help would be appreciated! Thank you!

 

I just read over my post and noticed a confusing bit. FYI, when I called the parts places, they told me that this engine should only cost about $1500 to $2500 also. And also, to to clarify the $7200 we paid for the engine did NOT include the labor of putting it in. This was the cost of the block itself.