My new project, 190e 2.6

Thomas. PLease.

Thomas. PLease.

Thomas. PLease.

Soldato
Joined
5 Jul 2007
Posts
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Location
London
So, after selling my old 106 XSi, I decided as I already had a little punto as a daily drive, I wanted something else I could tinker about with and fix up. After considering mk2 golf gti's, mx-5's and a few other cars, a Mercedes 190e 2.6 caught my eye. Advertised for £600.

I went to view it yesterday, and while it needs quite a lot of work to look decent and a few mechanical bits I bought it for the princely sum of £460. It performed the drive home perfectly, the 2.6 straight six 12v is a great big lazy engine, but does go quite well if given the beans, and its ever so smmooth. The manual gearbox is ok, not the best gearbox I've ever used, but I realise merc aren't exactly known for the quality of these.

Anyway enough talking, here's a few pics. It needs a bloody good clean as its flithy, but I'll wait till the weather is a bit nicer.

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Jobs to do are.

A proper clean
Water pump needs replacing fairly soon.
Needs new rear springs
New bootlid to go on
Interior clean

Overall I'm happy, its a pretty cool looking car, and I can't wait to get working on it.
 
I was told thats standard, its full of quirky little bits like that. I love the windscreen wiper as well. It has a single wiper which extends and retracts so it can increase its reach into the corners. :cool:
 
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I don't think I could cope with the fuel consumption using it as a daily! Plus using the punto means I can work on it and it doesn't have to be on the road for the next day. Not looking forward to going back to the punto after driving it though :( I almost fell asleep driving it home, having been used to driving 106's and a punto on the motorway, driving this was like sitting in the lounge.
 
Oh, with a 2.6 i was hoping for much more 200bhp is what i had in mind, can't be that hard to build a cheap supercharger setup for these?
 
Guys it's an engine from the 80's, 166bhp from a 2.6 is pretty good - in the 90's BMW were offering a whole 170bhp from the 2.5 in the 323i and Ford 167bhp from a 2.5..
 
[TW]Fox;14617284 said:
Guys it's an engine from the 80's, 166bhp from a 2.6 is pretty good - in the 90's BMW were offering a whole 170bhp from the 2.5 in the 323i and Ford 167bhp from a 2.5..
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Nowhere did I say that the power/litre wasn't commonplace for the era, I just said that performance would be arse ;)
 
Also, bear in mind, the car weighs less than 1.2 tons, that's not a lot for the type of car it is, so I suspect it gets along just fine with that engine. If anything is going to let it down, it'll be the gearbox most probably, and with 2 valves per cylinder it won't be hugely eagre to rev I'm sure.

It really does look a lot heavier than it is, very solid old school Merc, I guess it shows just how many changes have gone on under the skin over the last 15 years to so dramatically increase the weight of cars.

Hell of a buy for less than £500 that, good find, I always liked these for some reason. I would have no objections to driving one myself, there is just something about them.
 
I had a manual 2.6 190e about this time last year. It was a great car for cruising along motorways, but as a lot of my driving was around town where it gave <20mpg and that manual box made it quite difficult to drive smoothly around town I sold it within a month.

I'd love another one now my commute is on motorways, but I would probably go for an auto. Great cars though, does it have cruise, AC, leather, anything like that?
 
Firestar_3x said:
Always loved the 190E one mirror shorter than the other? never noticed that before.
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Most mercs of that era had the odd mirrors.

Also it was only the passenger one that was electric, the drivers had a toggle :)

That one looks quite a tidy one, enjoy. Shame its a manual though.
 
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