New to Mercedes and SL55

[Dickster]

Hi guys,

This is my first post as a SL55 owner. Ive been watching SL55’s for a while now, following a ride in one, and finally took the plunge - I love it! Initially I was set on an Aston Martin v8 Vantage but now I’m not so sure!

Mine is a 2003 five owner car with 65k miles. The colour combination appears to be unusual and proved irresistible. It’s not without issues, and I’ll probably cover those in future posts. The dealer has agreed to sort out the following:

Air con not working
Battery warning light comes on sometimes
Slight oil leak from the rocker cover

And in addition, I have found the following issues:

The carbon fibre on the centre consul is lifting
Soft close not working on boot lid
Easy access to boot when roof is down not working

Cheers

Rich

 

[Bobby Dazzler]

View attachment 86685 Hi guys,

This is my first post as a SL55 owner. Ive been watching SL55’s for a while now, following a ride in one, and finally took the plunge - I love it! Initially I was set on an Aston Martin v8 Vantage but now I’m not so sure!

Mine is a 2003 five owner car with 65k miles. The colour combination appears to be unusual and proved irresistible. It’s not without issues, and I’ll probably cover those in future posts. The dealer has agreed to sort out the following:

Air con not working
Battery warning light comes on sometimes
Slight oil leak from the rocker cover

And in addition, I have found the following issues:

The carbon fibre on the centre consul is lifting
Soft close not working on boot lid
Easy access to boot when roof is down not working

Cheers

Rich

Welcome and congratulations on your new car. It looks lovely in the photo

 

[Dickster]

Cheers Bobby

 

[c63chris]

Welcome! They are great cars and lots of knowledge on here should you need it.

 

[E53AMG]

Welcome, hope the dealer sorts your issues quickly, keep an eye on the boot seals for leaks, the easy entry maybe a divider micro switch issue, make sure the divider is properly in place when using the switch.

Sent from my SM-G955F using Tapatalk

 

[oldguy57]

That looks really nice. You obviously did your research to be able to spot those none working functions quickly!

 

[millc63]

Hello and welcome, fantastic looking car you've got yourself! Great colour too, and i'm sure the performance will be excellent. Love the wheels!

 

[Smart320]

Lovely car, I would have loved one, however decided on an SLK hoping it would be cheaper to buy and run.

 

[grober]

These are complex cars with lots of things to go wrong with age depending on spec. Things that come to mind are ABC [active body control] Suspension and Sensotronic brakes---nothing insurmountable thankfully.

 

[Gbrowncls55]

Lovely car in a rare but fantastic colour.

 

[alabbasi]

I love it! Initially I was set on an Aston Martin v8 Vantage but now I’m not so sure!

Mine is a 2003 five owner car with 65k miles. The colour combination appears to be unusual and proved irresistible. It’s not without issues

Congratulations, In my opinion, the SL55 is a better car than a V8V by an order of magnitude. Good luck in getting your issues sorted.

 

[E55BOF]

Lovely car, I would have loved one, however decided on an SLK hoping it would be cheaper to buy and run.

It should be; it's a much less complex car, quite different to drive, and originally aimed at a rather different market. It's not really an SL competitor, though the R172 may I think have moved a touch closer to the luxo tourer/cruiser niche than the R171 ever was.

 

[Smart320]

Have never tried an SL , as have a bad track record at walking away from nice cars. We find the SLK remarkably comfortable on a long run, seats are excellent, plenty of space for us as we are not too tall or rotund! Suspension not bad although you do need to avoid potholes. As you say a N/A V8 and nothing too complex , if you ignore the stop /start on the engine ( like the mpg though ) and of course the roof mechanism.

 

[E55BOF]

View attachment 86685 Hi guys,

This is my first post as a SL55 owner. Ive been watching SL55’s for a while now, following a ride in one, and finally took the plunge - I love it! Initially I was set on an Aston Martin v8 Vantage but now I’m not so sure!

Mine is a 2003 five owner car with 65k miles. The colour combination appears to be unusual and proved irresistible. It’s not without issues, and I’ll probably cover those in future posts. The dealer has agreed to sort out the following:

Air con not working
Battery warning light comes on sometimes
Slight oil leak from the rocker cover

And in addition, I have found the following issues:

The carbon fibre on the centre consul is lifting
Soft close not working on boot lid
Easy access to boot when roof is down not working

Cheers

Rich

Welcome, Rich. Nice car, and there are none of the known expensive issues in your list.

Put a hose on the rear window for a couple of minutes, or leave the car out in the rain for a while, then open the boot and see if you can see any water marks anywhere - most likely is on the two carpeted ledges either side of the boot divider. Even if not, lift the boot floor, and see if either the block of foam rubber on the LHS is wet, or if there's condensation on the metal rim of the collapsible spare wheel. If there's any of those, a roof seal is leaking - usually the one along the bottom of the rear window.

Aircon will probably require a new condenser; nothing peculiar to the R230 - every car I've ever had with aircon not working needed exactly that, though if it's just a slow leak the dealer might just do a quick cheap top-up and hope it lasts longer than his liability period...

ALL M113 engines leak oil from the rocker cover breather chambers sooner or later; it's not very expensive to fix.

For the boot soft close, see here:

Have Trunk Soft Close / Trunk Assist problems. Here is how to fix DIY. - MBWorld.org Forums

All you could possibly want to know, and more. If you want to do it yourself (I did), the 'sealing up the ports' fix doesn't take too long, and it worked for me.

HTH

 

[Dickster]

Thanks for all the responses and kind words. I took the car to Stevensons in Larkfield and the service was brilliant. Steve highlighted a few issues - he is going to provide a report for me to present to the dealer - but he said it was still a great car despite the issues. I'll report more as it progresses..

 

[Dickster]

Lovely car in a rare but fantastic colour.

Thanks, any thoughts on what the colour is? The code might be 721 but I am not certain.

 

[MissyD]

Hello and welcome