We're about to say goodbye to our 1983 240 GL with 122000 miles on it. We bought it used from someone who had maitained it poorly, as it turns out, and it was int the sun a lot, so it has basically no upholstery left, the dash is badly cracked; my son had a couple of mishaps in it; so cosmetically, it is no gem.

I am trying to figure out whether to invest anything in it mechanically before selling. The most significant problem mechanically is that idles VERY roughly; and it gets low fuel economy. By a rough idle, I mean the car shakes a little, and feels like the engine could die any second; as soon as I give it a little gas, it smooths out. In town, my son just got about 10-11 mpg on some short distance driving; I just drove the car home over a 150 mile distance, in Kansas, on moderate hills by the standards of the rest of the world, at 70-75 mph; got about 16-17 mpg in the process. I am able to accelerate up those moderate hills, so I've got power, just a really bad idle and excess fuel consumption.

I believe my son recently changed the spark plugs, but I think he did NOT change the distributor cap or use any fuel-injector-cleaner (both of which we did ourselves probably 30K miles ago).

Any suggestions on what the problem could be? And whether to bother with it, or just leave it to our buyer to deal with? There are plenty of other issues: AC is totally dead; electrical issues in the dash (temp gauge is erratic, warning lights come on when there is no problem).

Thanks.
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83 240 GL