First of all, I would like to say sorry because my german is so rudimentary that I cannot express myself properly. In consequence, I would speak in English most of the time. I'm here because I'm the proud owner of a Mercedes-Benz 190e 2.0 from 1992. The car was bought brand new by my father and it is me who drives it as a daily since I got my driving license 3 years ago. Although the car is has now almost 90k km it needs a superficial restoration. I'm carrying it out when I have free time. The car is now at 70% completed. It has front electric windows, sportline 'lederlenkrad' and shift , klima, abs and alloys. I have joined this community because I would like to learn more about my car, since most of the workshops in my country (Spain), unlike in Germany, refuse to fix the car and look for its problems in order to solve them, so I'm forced to solve myself the most difficult breakdowns, although my knowledge when it comes to cars is quite limited. I send you a pair of photos of the car, it has at the moment hubcaps (the alloys are currently being restored).

Oh sorry, I had so many things to say that I forgot to say my name. My name is Miquel, and as I said, I'm from Spain. I expect to have the car finished by Christmas and then I will send you some new photos, although I still have to get some parts. And here, in Spain, it is a nightmare to find some things such as the ones related with upholstery or wood trims.

In fact, it is very curious the situation we live here in my country since in the scrapyards it is not unusual to see W201 and w124 in mint condition and with less than 150k km. Unfortunately, most of them are sent to Africa, specially the diesel ones, where they start a new life as taxis. That makes that the owners of these cars in Spain have to search a lot in order to find parts. In addition, there is a shortage of specialists here, unlike in neighbouring countries such as in Portugal. For instance, nobody here dares to repare the door panels or the seats (my rear door panels are in a very bad condition and I have to buy a nother ones). Same as in painting cars, there are only a few old-school car painters who work properly, and they are very demanded. See how pathetic is the situation here, that a friend of mine who had a 500e (w124) who had a problem with the automatic transmission, brought the car to the official Mercedes service, where, after paying 2000 euros he realised that the car still had the same problem, so he decided to go back to the Mercedes-Benz service, where he was told that they couldn't do anything but sending the car to Germany, where it would be repaired for an estimated amount between 10 thousand-50 thousand euros. My friend finally finished selling the car to a German retired mechanic who was supposed to know how to fix the problem.

The problem here, unlike in Germany, is not only that they (mechanics) are unexperienced young people who need to be tought about ancient cars, but also the experienced mechanics refuse to fix these cars because they say they are losing time and not earning money, and they have settled in using only diagnosys machines. In my country, w201 is unfortunately a bad-considered car, since most people tell you to get rid of it, and that is why more people each time take their cars to the scrapyards, because they have a lot of problems to keep them in good condition. Thank you for your welcome and sorry for such a long text.

Best regards,

Miquel