A bit late to the party with this one, considering I have owned it for nearly 2 years now.
But I have just been browsing google photos and have enjoyed reviewing all the photos I took of my CL at various stages of my ownership/repair so feel like maybe some folk would like to see the qualms and costs of owning a fairly high-mileage V12 Mercedes!
A bit of a foreword then about things:
So prior to purchasing a CL I had a BMW 630i. Very enjoyable, reliable car, good enough poke, rare manual gearbox version, interesting styling, very comfortable long distance cruiser. I love BMWs and had to own probably the last best naturally aspirated straight-6 they produced.
I finally got to a point (new job) where I could potentially afford something in a higher class and began the search for something I could replace it with. The criteria was fairly simple: bigger, more powerful, more comfortable, 12 cylinders. It's at this point you realise how few options there are that can meet these criteria. The three car shortlist winded up being; a CL600, a Bentley Continental, an Aston Martin DB9.
To cut a long story short all three powertrains had weaknesses - the CL600 and it's infamous coil packs, the Bentley needs the engine out to do pretty much anything (vacuum lines on the top of the gearbox?!), the DB9 has it's timing cover leak (engine out job).
The CL600 was going to be the most pragmatic choice. And so the search began. 10 months later and I found what I was looking for - a CL600, black exterior, black interior, black piano trim. 110,000 miles, no major issues. Well, except the owner had owned it for only 5 months and was selling it because he "could not afford to run it".. at a hair over £10k I thought I had gotten a great deal on a lot of car. Not the prettiest/most exciting looking, and the black paint was showing it's age, but it's all stuff that I could remedy.
The drive home was incredibly enjoyable. The previous owner had gutted the mufflers (something which would later come to irritate me) but having just purchased the car it was a dream hearing 12 cylinders purring away on the uneventful drive back.
More tales of the subsequent 2 years to follow....
But I have just been browsing google photos and have enjoyed reviewing all the photos I took of my CL at various stages of my ownership/repair so feel like maybe some folk would like to see the qualms and costs of owning a fairly high-mileage V12 Mercedes!
A bit of a foreword then about things:
So prior to purchasing a CL I had a BMW 630i. Very enjoyable, reliable car, good enough poke, rare manual gearbox version, interesting styling, very comfortable long distance cruiser. I love BMWs and had to own probably the last best naturally aspirated straight-6 they produced.
I finally got to a point (new job) where I could potentially afford something in a higher class and began the search for something I could replace it with. The criteria was fairly simple: bigger, more powerful, more comfortable, 12 cylinders. It's at this point you realise how few options there are that can meet these criteria. The three car shortlist winded up being; a CL600, a Bentley Continental, an Aston Martin DB9.
To cut a long story short all three powertrains had weaknesses - the CL600 and it's infamous coil packs, the Bentley needs the engine out to do pretty much anything (vacuum lines on the top of the gearbox?!), the DB9 has it's timing cover leak (engine out job).
The CL600 was going to be the most pragmatic choice. And so the search began. 10 months later and I found what I was looking for - a CL600, black exterior, black interior, black piano trim. 110,000 miles, no major issues. Well, except the owner had owned it for only 5 months and was selling it because he "could not afford to run it".. at a hair over £10k I thought I had gotten a great deal on a lot of car. Not the prettiest/most exciting looking, and the black paint was showing it's age, but it's all stuff that I could remedy.
The drive home was incredibly enjoyable. The previous owner had gutted the mufflers (something which would later come to irritate me) but having just purchased the car it was a dream hearing 12 cylinders purring away on the uneventful drive back.
More tales of the subsequent 2 years to follow....