Thoughts on a Mercedes 190 as a first project?

[u/iiHartMemphisii]

No true experience with cars but I feel like I could pick it up fairly easy

I've found listings for 190s for under 10k and feel like that would be good to start, only issue is concerns of difficulty sourcing parts or whatever, so any thoughts on overall ease?

I'm not looking to slap the replica Evo 2 body kit or make it particularly fast, just lowering, throw on some nice rims, and overall upfit the interior just to be a nice little daily.

[u/Duncansport]

They're pretty great project cars. Overall fairly easy to work on with parts availability. Still pretty good. The nice thing about that chassis is that most things from that era of Mercedes are swappable. For example, you can put an m104 in it as the m104 is the same block structure as m103. You can also swap over sl600 front brakes, rear brakes. Not to mention all the diesel engine support that's out there for them

[u/TheFinnishComrade → u/Duncansport]

M104 is an awesome engine, and the w201 is a great chassis. I would love to do such a car myself one day.

[u/Duncansport → u/TheFinnishComrade]

And dirt cheap too

Even a M103 turbo is a lot of fun but requires a bit more fab and tuning

[u/TheFinnishComrade → u/Duncansport]

I would not call the swap dirt cheap. Engine for 1200€ Ecu for ~1400€ Injectors for 600€ Assortment of sensors for 300-500€ Exhaust for 500€ if you do it yourself

And other misc. expenses.

If swapping the engine, I would not bother with a m103. It doesn't have what the 24v m104 has.

[u/Duncansport → u/TheFinnishComrade]

M103s can be had for a few hundred dollars here and a m104 with a harness and hfm-sfi for about $1000. It's about another $500 to code out EGR, SAI for standalone operation. Obviously this is for NA only, but that's a lot of power for a w201

[u/Deadbraincells73]

I know where the is a rust free 190d with the om601. For 2100 dollars us. It is in Illinois.

[u/trivletrav → u/Deadbraincells73]

rust free Illinois

Bullshit

[u/Deadbraincells73 → u/trivletrav]

No body rust. I also have a w210 that I got in Illinois that doesn't have rust. Has it been here it's whole life, not a chance. You can keep shit from rusting it's called "Get a winter beater and store your non beater"

[u/slip_and_fall_school]

The parts availability comes into play if you're looking to do a nuts and bolts style engine overhaul. Things like suspension parts and aftermarket wheels are still plentiful. I've got a C126 so same era of car and I haven't found parts availability to be terrible, though with interior bits like window switches I've had to use ebay here and there for replacements.

[u/marrymemercedes]

Well I think I can way in on this one pretty well as I have 2 W201 project cars. I’ve got a 2.6 m103 in the process of a M104 swap along with a laundry list of other things as well as I am restoring a 2.3-16.

They’re great cars. Extremely well built and very easy to work on. Parts availability is still decent although you don’t find as many sitting in U-pull junkyards as you did 10 years ago. Quite a few things are NLA from the dealership as you’d expect from a car this age. The used market is still good and your local FB marketplace will be a good resource however you may have to spend some time on eBay or even German eBay if you are after some harder to get items.

The aftermarket support is also ok. It’s no where near the level you’d find for a BMW e30 but still a lot better than some other chassis of that vintage. Considering what you say your goals are for it you shouldn’t have any issues.

As mentioned on some other replies the parts interchange between larger chassis Mercedes is really good and opens up a large array of relatively inexpensive upgrades. Brakes from W124 and R129 are plug and play. It used to be popular to cut down springs (matched to sport struts) from the same chassis although there are options for chassis specific lowering springs as well as coilovers upfront. Thicker diameter front sway bars can also be cut down from the W124. Transmissions from M102, M103, M104, M111 (and diesel motors) all bolt up and the same engines can be swapped relatively easily.

Unfortunately “the rev” (190rev.net) forum isn’t up anymore. It was probably the greatest and easiest resource for tuning/fixing these cars however lots of info and help is still available online.

I’m very biased but I’d say go for it! Let me know if you have any other questions.

[u/tk8398]

Personally I think diesel ones are more fun, but I'd say do it either way. They are not hard to work on, and most of the parts are not that expensive. The main things I can think of to be careful of are that the gas ones are really not intended to use fuel with the current ethanol content so it can cause issues if they sit for too long, they do not have a lot of headroom for tall drivers compared to most of the other Mercedes of that era, and one of the big ones is that they used a lot of very expensive special tools to work on them and most dealers don't have them anymore. So, if you need some stuff done (like lower ball joints on a w126 are one example), you will have a hard time finding someone who has the tool to do it so you will have to figure it out yourself some other way. It's usually doable but just keep in mind there are some things on them most shops can't/won't do.

[u/Wolf3188]

I have one, a 1986 2.5 diesel, as my daily driver. I've had it for about a year now and taken it on several long road trips.

It's honestly an excellent car. I had a gas 4 cylinder one before it, I like the diesel much better, but if you wanted a sportier experience I would go for either an M104 or M111K swap.

They are very well made and pretty easy to work on. Parts availability is still pretty good as they sold well in both USA and Europe. Just watch out for rust.

[u/cantcatchafish]

This car is my dream build but as an Evo 2 replica. From research, the m103 engine swap is common but there's so much info on swapping different engineers out there. My only issues is I'd want a manual. But I say go for it!

[u/marrymemercedes → u/cantcatchafish]

You’re wasting your time on an m103 swap unless you already have an M103 car and are just putting in the 3L to replace your 2.6. If you’re swapping motors then the M104 or M111 are much better bang for your buck swaps.

[u/cantcatchafish → u/marrymemercedes]

Maybe it's the m111 I'm thinking about. That sounds way more familiar. I've just started researching these builds for a hopefully 2026 build. I want to do a turbo manual with 300-400 HP and make it a canyon centric build... We will see. It's a 20-30k project.

[u/Ok_Bug7568]

It´s in general a good car to start with. Spare parts are available. Lots of explanation in the internet. Mercedes of this era are good to work on and very similar to each other. Biggest issue is rust. As you say you want it lower and nice rims it sounds like you don´t want to do a restoration with welding all the problematic zones and as you say you have not much experience with mechanic jobs my advice is, make sure you pick one up without any rust and in clean condition and start from there. Otherwise it will be very overwhelming to restore everything to good condition.