1995 SL600 with 118,017 miles?

???for a first car...

 

I my honest opinion I could not recommend a SL600 for a first car for a number of reasons.

1. This is a very powerful car for a novice driver.

2. While the maintenance costs are high on any R129 they are by far the highest on a SL600. Unless money is not an object I would consider a SL500.

If you decide that you must have the car make sure it is inspected by a qualified Mercedes mechanic. I purchased and SL320 (a 6 cylinder not a V12) off of Ebay. I had a independent inspector look at the car and he missed over $5000 in problems.

 

Recently bought a 300SL 24v 1993 reg and have spent about $1200 on it. Think it is money well spent however because these are beautiful and well built cars.

I think the car can give you unlimited pleasure...but are you willing to take the pain that can come with it?

 

it's $ 12,995

 

if u have 20K to spend. buy it for 12,000$ then save the rest to fix it.

Mark

 

The price is good only if the car is 100%. If you have your heart set on buying this car take it to a qualified MB mechanic to make sure it is 100%.

 

What????????

 

There you go........you just saved yourself $7k

 

well i did that with my jeep, i had 10K to spend on a car..... i got the jeep for 7......and 1 month later i needed a tranny and a radiatio!!! good by 3K that i "saved"


so dont blow it all on the car, save 20% at least for repairs in the first year.

 

No, I would not recommend this as a first Mercedes, let alone a first car. As mentioned above, the SL600 is very expensive to maintain properly and if you do not stay on top of the maintenance, the repairs will simply get worse. I know - I have owned one for 4 years.

My SL600 was a money pit for the first 2 years of my ownership and I pumped ~$6,000 into it, not including various do-dad parts that needed replacement. However, I knew what I was getting, I had plenty of MB experience and I have an excellent report with the MB Parts Dept. To this day, the car requires a lot of maintenance to stay best-of-breed.

Before the start of price haggling of any mid-90's MB, get the wiring harness inspected. This could be one of the cars on the cusp of the infamous engine harness fiasco. If the wiring is bad, expect a bill ~$4,000. Also have the ADS checked carefully. The age of this particular vehicle is one year older than mine and I just got my ADS properly fixed... after 2 years of riding like a tank. Finally, have the variable valve timing system checked very carefully. There are subtle problems that occur there that are tough to find. Failure of this system (as in my car) is very, VERY expensive as you have to perform major surgery to the engine front.

Inquire as to when the hard top was last removed. And check the condition of the soft top mechanism. This can be very troublesome. Hydraulic leaks inside the windshield header are common. The car is a roadster and designed to be driven top-down. But in order for that to occur, you will need to find a place to store the hard top. Without a hoist, it’s a 2-person job taking it off. Think about this before jumping. If you're in an apartment or condo/town house, you may not have sufficient storage space. That then becomes an additional monthly storage charge unless you never take the top off.

The '95 is part of an awkward series of model years for Mercedes. Not all indie shops can properly diagnose them as OBDII is not installed yet - computer error coding is quite weak during this period, so a lot of $$$ is expended in just diagnosis time. The computer systems (and there are many) advanced rapidly through the 90's and not always for the better. Computer/electronic problems will be difficult to fix... except through Mercedes dealers. And even then they may have to await further information from New Jersey or Germany.

SL600's are great cars, *IF* the owner is willing to accept that they take a continuous stream of money to keep in top condition. Oil changes alone are costly as the oil sump takes 9 quarts of synthetic oil. Depending on geographical area, car insurance can be very expensive. Think carefully of the long term. This is not the car for the faint of heart or those short of a money stream.

 

Thankyou!