Mercedes-Benz C-Class Buyer's Guide
Three tracked C-Class sales, £1,595 to £2,200, median £2,180, with one live lot as we write. A thin cohort, and a cheap one: the whole spread covers barely £600. The cars reaching auction are the W202 and W203 era survivors, the compact saloons that carried the three-pointed star to the company car park, now priced as ordinary used cars even when they are anything but ordinary in condition. One caveat before anything else: the AMG versions are a different market entirely and are not represented in our results; nothing in these figures says anything about what a C36 or C55 costs.
What to pay
£1,595 to £2,200 is the entire recorded range, so the ladder here is short. The floor buys a running car with cosmetic wear and an incomplete file; the £2,180 to £2,200 top of our range buys the better-kept examples, typically low-owner cars with the service book stamped. At this money the difference between the best and worst car is one repair bill, so condition is worth far more than the few hundred pounds separating the bands.
What goes wrong
Rust is the W202 and W203 story: wheel arches, door bottoms, boot floors and, on the W203, around the windscreen surround. It arrived from the factory on the worst years and no amount of servicing prevents it, so buy on metal first. Mechanically the engines are durable and parts supply is excellent and cheap, this being a Mercedes that sold in the millions. Interiors outlast the bodywork.
Our view
A rust-free, full-history car at £2,200 is honest, comfortable transport with a plausible future as a preservation-class curiosity. Buy the best shell in the cohort, spend nothing on cosmetics, and keep it dry. As with all cheap Mercedes, the car is only ever as good as its arches.
