Very Nice SL55

[alabbasi]

David L linked to their SL65 earlier. Quite apart from the Marmite interior, I buy my cars to drive, and it's £26k; way too expensive for the increase in performance over a stock SL55K, let alone a tuned one.

I think that you need to drive something with the 6 liter AMG V12. My SL55 has super car performance. My CL65 is a ballistic missile.

 

[E55BOF]

Maybe, but I definitely don't need to buy something with V12 maintenance costs...

 

[DavidL]

Out of interest what is the order of magnitude difference in running costs from 5.5 Sc to v12 biturbo?
Presumably apart form the engine the rest of the car is the same as an sl55 ive or take a few options.

 

[alabbasi]

Big issues on the V12 (pretty much any V12) is that there are two of everything making parts more expensive and very limited accessibility making labor more expensive. This turns small jobs like engine mounts, spark plugs and o-rings for the turbos into big jobs. There's more likeliness that you have to remove a bunch of stuff that's not broken in order to get to whatever you need fixing.

The Mercedes V12 is quite a reliable engine but because it's crammed into such a tight space, every job under the hood is a huge PITA. The same applies for an early 70's 300SEL 6.3 vs it's 3.5 counterpart or a V12 XJS vs the 6 cylinder model.

Ferrari seems to have the right idea, where every x umber of miles, you pull the engine out and do everything while it's on a bench.

 

[Will]

I struggle to comprehend that an SL55 is approaching 17 years old.

Wow, that’s gone quick!

 

[alabbasi]

They seem to look better with age. I've not driven mine in over a year until I took it out last week. While it's always a delight to drive, walking back to it at the parking lot. I could not help but admire how good the lines were on it.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

Rather a lot of SL55s have come on to the market in the last few weeks, and a fair few are under £12K, from both dealers and private sellers.

One word - sun. The past weeks hot weather tempts folk into “trying the market” for their summer cars.

Expect the market to shrink back in the next week or so...

 

[E55BOF]

One word - sun. The past weeks hot weather tempts folk into “trying the market” for their summer cars.

True, but what's interesting is that the asking prices of the recent arrivals on the market are relatively reasonable.

Well, I went to see the car. I think the seller probably regards me as The Nightmare Buyer From Hell, and he'd be right...

The bodywork is in decent nick overall, though both rear wings are just starting to bubble, the interior is generally tidy, the engine fired up fine, idles steadily, and didn't make any unwanted noises.

So far as the 'dyno chart' is concerned, I think it's probably a fake; anybody with half-decent computer graphic skills could have created it. There's no date, no company name, and no details of the dyno used on it, nor any invoice relating to it, and the car's S/C pulley measures 87/88mm, so is I think original.

The ABC pump and shock absorber invoices are from 2010/2011. The service book record ends in 2009, and there are no invoices for any routine servicing after 2010.

There's only one key, and no keycard, so the keyless go is inoperative. The Distronic is u/s too, but apart from the low battery that's the only fault code the car displays. I'd not use the keyless go or the Distronic, though, so no real problem there.

However, it was soon obvious that it needs plenty of mechanical and electrical work to make it good (discs & pads, roof seals, steering wheel, window switches, wheels refurb, full service of everything; probably engine & gearbox mounts, propshaft rear coupling and at least one rear subframe mounting, quite probably rear brake pipes, and there could well be more...).

I don't think it's a dog or a shed, but it's been unloved recently. He'll take an offer, but I'd lost interest, and didn't even bother to take a test drive. I briefly considered offering £7K (and would expect to spend anything up to £5K, maybe more, having Terry Gates sort it out mechanically and electrically), but didn't.

The search continues....

 

[rockits]

I guess this is often true of cars like this of that age. It could have been well looked after until the price drops to a level to attract owners that can just afford to buy but not really run. Suddenly an owner or two not spending 1-2k per year over a few years and 5k+ needs spending. Then all of a sudden it doesn't really work unless the car is silly cheap.

Even more reason to suggest the gap between a good one and a not so good one might widen and rightly so

 

[Crewie]

I guess this is often true of cars like this of that age. It could have been well looked after until the price drops to a level to attract owners that can just afford to buy but not really run. Suddenly an owner or two not spending 1-2k per year over a few years and 5k+ needs spending. Then all of a sudden it doesn't really work unless the car is silly cheap.

Even more reason to suggest the gap between a good one and a not so good one might widen and rightly so

Totally agree

 

[gramey]

Have you seen this one........

2002 Mercedes-Benz SL Class 5.4 SL55 Kompressor AMG Convertible 2dr Petrol | eBay

Personally I thought that looked quite nice although the reviews for the seller don't all appear to be glowing.

 

[gramey]

I thought this looks quite nice - Mercedes SL SL 55 AMG KOMPRESSOR | eBay

and if the blurb is to be believed about what has been done on this car it could be quite sound. Apart from a couple of years of appearing to be owned by someone with my sort of budget in 2011/12 it's sailed throUgh every MOT? - 2002 Mercedes Benz SL55 AMG Kompressor - Appreciating Classic | eBay

 

[DavidL]

Should the roll bar be up all the time or is it a sign it has deployed? Can you manually raise and lower it?
But yes looks ok on the face of it.

 

[flowrider]

Should the roll bar be up all the time or is it a sign it has deployed? Can you manually raise and lower it?
But yes looks ok on the face of it.

Roll bar operates automatically in an accident and can Be manually raised and lowered.

 

[E55BOF]

Those last two are realistically 'priced to sell', I think, but I don't greatly care for the SL in black, and I've gorn orf the idea of an R230 SL55 anyway; if anybody is interested, see this thread

R171 SLK 55 Remap

for why. The raucous little thug has grown on me...