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SL500

Nice car, from someone who claims to know his stuff. But not worth more than that in the real world. (SL listings are full of ambitious listings that have been around for more than six months)

Seems cruel but you could buy a much more fuel efficient 2008 year old facelift nose car with the same mileage and impeccable service history for £12k. Or a perfect, main dealer history 2005 car, with a variety of design faults rectified in the second phase of manufacturing, for only £7 or £8k

Twenty year old SL's are bargains. The problem is finding someone with money to buy one.
 
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That's advertised on the TZ watch forum too, saw it a couple of days ago. Sounds a solid car.
 
Looks like an excellent example of (in my opinion) the best looking of all the SL's. With that age of car though, I'd always be worried in case Big Bill made an unexpected visit.
 
Well ok it is 17 years old,but if somebody wants one the owner seems to have tackled all the usual big ticket stuff,the price is about right,but they are not flying off the shelves,the asking price may need to come down for a sale.
 
I saw this on TZ too, quite fancy one but not in the Standard uniform of the time Silver and Black
 
Is £5999 all this car is worth these days?:
Not even that; it's overpriced. I sold my 2004 model, everything working, Teal Blue with light grey interior, lots of history (and big bills), on 115k, by eBay auction last Spring. It went for £3850.
 
I've gotta 2007 SL350 that's mint @ 140k miles that's had a full manufacturer service history and Mercedes specialists doing full engine and suspension overhaul. Even tho i don't plan to sell the dealership wanted to buy my vehicle and valued they'd get £12k, which was a hefty chunk of commission for them and this vehicle is good engine wise for another 100k miles.

so yes sub £10k 1st/ 2nd gen R230's are what the market values these vehicles at.
 
I can't tell you what the market values them at; I told you what one actually sold for, though...
 
I can't tell you what the market values them at; I told you what one actually sold for, though...

Exactly. Sold prices are one thing. Market valued / Advertised prices are something completely different.

Which reminds me of this low mileage facelift 5.5 2007 SL500, which has languished unsold at £13k on Autotrader since last summer, and there are plenty of other examples like it.



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Once a dealer has lost enough on a car, do they sell it on to another dealer at a realistic price so he, too, can lose money on it? I've often wondered.

Wait until interest rates go up. While they're so low the sellers aren't losing much by leaving their money tied up in cars, but once they could make significantly more with it elsewhere, selling at a realistic price will become a better idea.

Mind you, that won't apply to the "I know what it's worth" brigade; they know what it's worth, and they'd "rather keep it than sell it for that". Keep it is exactly what they do. I recall a nice, low-mileage Renault 30 for sale in Biggin Hill in about 1989; I made him an offer, he refused it; two years later, when I left, it was still for sale at the same price. I thought "stupid old sod" then, and I still do.
 
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Once a dealer has lost enough on a car, do they sell it on to another dealer at a realistic price so he, too, can lose money on it? I've often wondered.

Even Mercedes do it. There was an Approved Used Brabus Rocket (750 bhp version of the CLS 63 - allegedly the only one in the UK) doing the rounds of various MB dealers for something like 4 years. IIRC that was up for £195k to start with but ended up at a non-franchise dealer for £80k. There were quite a few threads here about it over the years.
 
Interesting..

I paid £6000 for my SL500 back in September. I was happy to spend it though as the colour combination is very nice. Jasper Blue + Cream Leather and wood trim inc. steering wheel.

It was a bit rough around the edges but I will be restoring it back to a high spec. With 78k miles also.

I had always said that it would be worth about 10/11k after I had refurbed/serviced all of that. Perhaps I have been wrong on that.

That said, I bought it to keep and will enjoy putting a few miles on it each summer and SORN'ing it over winter.

I feel the biggest thing holding these biggest thing holding these back is ABC. I would say that a large number of potential buyers read about ABC after Googling, then decide to purchase something else.

I personally plan on buying some ABC fluid and keeping it very fresh.
 
As far as value, what's the range in the UK? 3000GBP for a cheap one and 6000GBP for an expensive one? With these cars, the best thing you can do is buy based on condition and pay attention to recent work done because you'll run up a 3000GBP repair bill in no time on a cheap one.
 
As far as value, what's the range in the UK? 3000GBP for a cheap one and 6000GBP for an expensive one? With these cars, the best thing you can do is buy based on condition and pay attention to recent work done because you'll run up a 3000GBP repair bill in no time on a cheap one.

I'm inclined to agree.. but I would say that the upper end could edge closer to about 8k maybe a bit more depending on if it has recent, expensive ABC work done?

It's really hard to know.. because, while I am biased. I think that design of SL is very nice.
 
See my post #7 above. The big bills included two new front struts, a new ABC pump, and a new SBC unit. It didn't make £4K...
 
See my post #7 above. The big bills included two new front struts, a new ABC pump, and a new SBC unit. It didn't make £4K...

Wow, I missed that one. Ouch.

While I did buy my car on eBay auction also, I would suspect that something sold via autotrader as private or dealer might fetch more. Many people would wince at eBay, making the market that bit smaller. Probably a contentious comment, but that is my opinion.
 
There are lots of dealers, and private sellers too, who advertise cars on eBay as well as Autotrader. Mostly they are classified ads, not auction, and often they, particularly the pricey ones ;) for some reason, stay there for months on end. I can only tell you what somebody was actually prepared to pay for my car; what you do with that information is up to you.
 
As someone who was considering these recently, it was the ABC issues that unnerved me. Any car of this age is a risk but knowing there is a well documented common failure point which has no cheap after market fix, it did put me off TBH.
 

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