Well, my SL600 is finally paying me back for my liberal use of the power and torque a 6 litre V12 provides.

It started as an apparent misfire, dirty fuel I thought. Then there was this grinding noise from inside the centre console, followed in short measure by a clattering, engine revs rising without the car doing anything and then a loud bang and the car coming to a stop. Did I feel a fool while all these people skirted round me in their Hyundais? You bet. Broken down Mercedes with the roof down. Not cool, so up went the roof.

Towed in to the nearest dealer, no immediate diagnosis but from the noises when the engine is started, looks like the gearbox is shot. Maybe just the torque converter (noise happens in neutral and park) but whichever way you slice the pie, not good news.

One of these interesting end of life questions. The car is worth, maybe, $25-30k (96, 81k miles) and the cost of a new gearbox (reconditioned) could easily be $4 - 6k. How much money do you pour into a car like this before you say, enough!

 

As you need to get the car repaired anyway, I would do a careful review (by a specialist) of all other costly components; mainly the engine and your suspension (was it ADS?). Even as 100K miles is not that much for these engines, the car does suffer under its heavy weight (in terms of wear).
The unfortunate reason for the low resale value of the 600 models is the risk for incurring significant costs on engine issues...

Personally, I found that it made more sense selling cars rather then keeping them around; the less they are driven, the more they are susceptible to breakdowns.

If all checks out, keep it and earmark another $5K for service/repairs before selling it. If any components appear in need of upcoming replacement, sell it now.

Good luck,

Wolfman

 

BlueSL, you have quite a collection of expensive cars. So you should know that with expensive toys, come expensive maintenance and repairs. I guess it's just one of the facts of life for the rich

 

You're right of course, but nobody likes spending money just to kepp things as they were. It means that the lifetime maintenance cost of the car has just doubled...

 

Sorry to hear of this. But your description sounds exactly like what happened to my previous S430 and it was the Gearbox.

May be worth (given your SL55 purchase) trying to get MB to part fund it as a warranty issue 81k is not big miles for a gearbox. Even 25% off the parts would help!

Good luck.

I had a simlar dilemma with the previous S430 - after each major spend you feel that must be it - nothing else will go wring for a long time I'll keep it!

In my case with this particular (Friday afternoon!) car something else seemed to go pop every month.

For various reasons I ended up with a replacement S430 of the exact same year and spec with higher miles and touch wood this one has been no problems at all.

That said the Mercedes warranty it was covered by has just expired so its for sale.

 

Well, they took a sample of the ATF fluid out of the box; it was black and there were bits of metal in it, so the gearbox has disintegrated big time and they think the torque converter is shot as well.

Top of the head estimate is £5K (> $9k) and I'm waiting for a proper quotation. I'm also looking to see if I can get the gear box repaired for less outside the MB network.

 

MB came in with £5124.46 to do it, about $9500. Instead, I've had it trucked to a place in London who claim they can replace the entire interior of the box for £2k. We'll see. They told me this afternoon after getting the car that it's one of the worst-sounding failures they've seen/heard. What have I been doing to it?

 

Sounds good - who have you taken it into?

 

A place called Automatics in West London, seem to know their onions but of course the proof will be how it turns out. They say it's the second worst one they've ever seen.

http://www.fox-little.pwp.blueyonder.../automaticman/

 

blueSL

Do you think your driving was so agressive over the years that you "abused" the car?

You have always seemed to caution others not to "brake touque" or do "mods" that would harm the R129 power train.

You have always posted of how solid and reliable the SL600 has been for you. Is this a freak incedent?

Or an indication of how poorly reinforced the R129 power train was for the extra tourque of the V12 engine?

 

Got the car back yesterday after £2750 ($4900) of gearbox rebuilds. Working well so far.

Turns out my car has one of the first electronic 5 speed gear boxes with the S/W switch. One of the bearings in the original box was a bronze bushing. This was not up to the job and was changed to be a roller bearing in 2001. In my case, the bearing failed and rotating parts which are not meant to be in contact came into contact. The result had to be seen to be believed. Planetary gears with severe damage to their teeth, score marks on the various drums and metal imbedded in the clutches, including the torque converter.

The rebuilder's view was that this is something which was waiting to happen and not overly influenced by my driving style. It's possible morebhp's box failed for the same reason.

What's interesting it that if I had bought a new box, I probably would have got one which was made when the SL600 was still in production and therefore using the same old parts. At it is, for about half the cost of a new one, it's been rebuilt using the updated parts. There's alot of commonality in gearbox parts used across all Mercedes gearboxes.

The message is clear. If you have an SL with this box, keep an eye out for bad changes - mine tended to clonk as you came up to a stop light - and get the gearbox seen to before it fails catastrophically.

Makes me think I wouldn't touch the new 7 speed in the R230 for a long, long while.

 

Not great news.

Yours had about 85,000 miles on it, right? Would you say that is pretty high mileage for an average 1996 SL?

I wonder how many others have experienced this.

I'd better put more miles on the 1999 before the extended warrantee expires in about two ears time.

With only about 30,000 miles on now ... I doubt if I will make it to 85,000 miles in two years.

 

Yes, mine has 82k miles on it, high for an SL, but not so high for Mercedes - there's a huge amount of component sharing between different models, and there's bound to be lots of S and CL cars of the same era with much the same mechanicals and the same or higher mileages.

The 5 speed gearbox was widely used across the range of cars, all the way from the C class through to the S class and variants of it for specific cars are really just different mixes of a family og components; the SL600 box has more clutches in it which serve to distribute the greater torque more evenly among them compared to the box fitted to the SL500. But, take them apart, and you will see lots of identical components.

The view of the people who worked on the box and of the dealer is that I've just been unlucky; there's a low failure rate overall.

I am left wondering "what's next?". The catalysts would be my best bet. That's $2000, thank you.

 

Hi - new member here....just browsing through a few old(ish) posts.
I've got an SL60 AMG '96 with 31k on the clock. I bought the car a month ago and have had it serviced and checked out - its in great nick and goes like a train.

I've been considering whether or not to spend the best part of £500 on a warranty for the car, primarily to guard against big problems such as this gearbox failure - could be worth it.......
BlueSL - did the guys who fixed your gearbox recommend any preventative measures, or that all 600s (and therefore by association sl60s) should have the modification work done before catastrophic failure happens.
I must admit this has got me a bit worried. I'm used to electrical niggles (previously had an sl320) but thought that the engine and gearbox were pretty much bullet proof for 100k+ miles.......

rgds and appreciation for your many excellent and informative SL posts.
nick

 

The gearbox which gives the trouble is the 722.6, the later version of which is used in the new SL, including the SL55 AMG, so both my SLs have essentially the same box. So does yours I expect. If you have a W/S switch and it's 5 speed, it almost certainly has the same gearbox which the same potential bearing problems that I had.

The guys who fixed it said it was just bad luck, some fail, most don't and he told me that my habit of manual shifting alot would not have changed things. They are very helpful and it might be good if you were to call them - your can refer to my SL600 which they will probably remember. They also do alot of mechanical warranty work, so they really know what's what.

Certainly, if you were to keep an eye out on this box and had any misbehaviour sorted out before the catastrophic failure mine had, it would be less expensive, but taking the box out is not the work of a moment, so it's going to be expensive.

 

I think I'll set up my personal profile to automatically add ".....it's going to be expensive" to every post - would save time....

On reflection it seems a bit over-cautious to have the gearbox rebuilt when it works fine. Surely there's more chance of something going wrong with the rebuild than there is of my gearbox imploding in the way that yours did!!
I have had a few chats with a guy in Harrow called MercStar. He is a merc auto specialist and has never mentioned anything like this to me.
Result: Leave as is - mine's only done 31K.

rgds

PS I've had a great laugh reading some of the replies you get from sl55 drivers who seem to dislike you!!

 

I agree it's a classic case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" and you certainly should not have the box removed "just in case". However, it would be worth keeping a watchful eye on it. If it starts clonking on approaching traffic lights, or the changes start taking forever, or the changes become noticeably less smooth, don't ignore them like I did and get it checked out. It is a design weakness in the car, witness the changes they made to the parts of mine which failed.

I've been to MercStar in Harrow, I think he's more at home with older cars, like the R107 SL which preceded ours. I took mine to him to get some diagnostics done on the adaptive damping and got the impression he has not seen many R129s. This was the first to incorporate a lot of electronics which makes them difficult to diagnose without the right facilities; he had to take mine to a friend at Park Royal to "borrow" their computer.

As for the SL55, I love it but am not blind to its faults, the chief of which are truly awful brakes and I think the current generation of Mercedes are going to be horrendously expensive to fix down the road which will be reflected in depreciation. My SL600 has depreciated from £103k to, say, £18 - £20k in 8.5 years and 85000 miles. That's roughly £200 a week, or £1 a mile. Puts the cost of petrol, say, 20p in context.

 

There is just no point complaining about depreciation. If you've had that car from new and loved (almost) every minute of owning it, then it is great value.

Having said that, I've bought a car that cost around £105K new for less than 25% of that price. I know its 8 yrs old but I don't think of it as an "old" car. It is kept immaculately clean inside and out and seems to be in great mechanical shape - as far as I'm concerned its no different to a brand new car. I'm not expecting anything to go majorly wrong with it over the next 2-3 years, but even if it costs me £5K in repairs/maintenance (over and above normal service costs which would be the same for any car) I reckon £30Kish for a 6.0 V8 merc convertible is pretty fantastic value......
Put it another way - a 911 cab of similar age and mileage would have cost me about £10K more to buy, and I get more luxury and practicality from an SL than I would a 911.
It would be a bit of a shock to the wallet if the worst happened but, though I'm not in your wealth bracket (31 yrs old with young family) it wouldn't put me on the street. I think of it as a hobby and am prepared to spend a bit of money on it as and when necessary.

I am using George Fraser in Alperton to look after my car. He gets great reviews from most merc enthusiasts and he gives far superior service to dealers. I will mention the gearbox issue to him next time we speak and see whether he has an opinion. I agree with you about Mercstar - I'm sure he is great on older cars but......

I loved reading your thread on DB9 v SL55 - if only I had those problems.....The people ranting at you for complaining are simply missing the point. Intelligent people should be capable of rationally comparing their favourite with another. Some people just can't handle seeing harsh comments written about a car they've spent £90K on.......its an ego thing - maybe a transatlantic culture clash??

The super-luxury (£100K+) market is now one with more choice than ever before. But regardless of price and luxury, all cars have to compromise in one way or another and there will always be faults to find. I think most buyers are looking for exclusivity and on that score the DB9 wins hands down. MB are flooding the market with 55s, 65s, 69s on their way?? - it just devalues last year's car so much! It amazes me that people are prepared to pay £150K+ for a CL65 when you can rest assured that there will be a faster one out next year and 2nd hand 65s will be selling for £80K....

 

You talk a lot of sense - of course complaining about depreciation is pointless, it's inevitable given the rapid rate of change; I was offered £20k p/ex for my SL600 when I bought the SL55 but to me, having a car which I can use every day without worrying about where I leave it is worth it - that car has more value to me than a £20k new car I might buy as a daily driver for example. So I kept it.

I think an SL60 bought for £30k including maintenance budget makes a fantastic ownership proposition over 3 years and it was faster than my SL600 because it's lighter. I had the option of one when I bought mine, but was seduced by the V12.

You are so right about any car being a compromise. The DB9 is full of them - cramped cabin, small boot, plasticky switch gear, and that's before you start driving it. The packaging of the SL55 does seem a lot neater and I'm a bit concerned about the reports of leaden controls on the Aston which is exactly what I do not want, so I'm waiting for the chance to drive one...