MY 96 SL600 is beginning to have a pretty dire record of maintenance issues. Not all are the fault of the car, but all in all, it's a long list of problems.

Seized hood latches - $60

Tyre failure - $200

I hit a pheasant at 70 mph which wiped out a headlamp, turn light, headlamp wiper and plastic trim - $800

I hit another pheasant which wiped out the passenger door mirror - $300

Gearbox failed - $5000 for rebuild by auto box specialist, $9k Mb replacement

Normal Servicing - $1200

Short Circuit in Wiring Loom - $900

Failed Instrument Panel Lights - $40

2 failed windshields, covered by insurance but $110 deductible each time

And now, the SRS light is on permanently which could be anything from a loose wire through to a failed air-bag control unit

AND, I've just discovered the carpet behind the drivers seat is sodden, so water is getting into the car somehow

All in all, not good on a car which had done mid-80's k miles. Total spend this year is about 1/3 of the residual value of the car.

 

The carfax list of warranty work on my '01 filled a whole page. Although the original owner is a picky as I am, that still seems way excessive for a $95K car with 28,000 miles.
I bought all the extended warranty time I could, but at least I'm still on MBs dime. You might want to consider taking up pheasant hunting to thin those suckers out a mite

I feel your pain blue. I was upset this morning when the pano top defroster didn't work. Best of luck with the problems.

S

 

Quit hitting pheasants and you might save some $$$

 

I read that as "peasents" and knowing that you weren't from USA, combining that with the fact that I'm in Euro-History and we just finished up Absolutism.. oh man, you can guess where that's going!

 

BlueSL - you are making me paranoid..........
Tyre failure and pheasant issues are not really 129-specific problems. It the windscreen "failure" related to your pheasant culling trips?? Otherwise, how does a windscreen "fail" ?

 

I sympathise - I'm having bad month as well - horrible missfire between 6 and 15 miles. Outside these ranges she runs fine.

To date this month -

1) Investigate the cause - they state air mass sensor, regeneration valve and distributor caps to start with! $750 just to investigate.

2) Fit air mass sensor and regeneration valve - $1200

Still running so poor at the 6 - 15 mile stage that it has not got the power to climb hills!

3) Yesterday fit one new distributer cap $190

Will try again at the weekend to see if we have solved the problem. Too stressful driving in heavy traffic when it is running this bad.

If not in for the second cap replacement (they only had one instock!),

I'm where you were a few months back BlueSL - once I have sorted this will it be the end for a while! or should it go?

 

I listed the expense to show what the real world costs of running a 9 year old SL600 are. Some are misfortune to be sure but they all involve buying replacement parts or delaer service, and keep in mind that I do anything I can myself. The windshield failures weew 2 ft long cracks started with a stone chip.

As morebhp's experience shows (like my wiring loom failure), tracking down difficult to find faults in cars this complex is an expensive process and the independents don't have the ability or the equipment to do it themselves.

 

Even sophisticated dealerships with all the diagnostics equipment and trained techs, excuse me, engineers ... have a difficult time root-cause analysing failures. The typical approach seems to replace every part that "might" have something to do with the failure in the hope it goes away. There is seemingly no procedure to diagnose potential failed parts on proper operation without replacing it. This results in a lot of guesswork with you and me footing the bill. Try to get the procedure reversed when the dealership replaces a part that had nothing to do with the original failure ... we keep paying for the improper diagnosis ...

I've been able to figure out most of the electrical and electronic mishaps on my car and repair to the component level but it seems I'm running out of luck now some of the more expensive mechanical parts are failing. Looking at a gearbox overhaul because synchros (rear) are intermittently actuating. (53 K miles) Although there is little guesswork here, there seems to be a dealer impedance against changing only the failed part, rather they advise to replace the whole deal. So off to find the MBZ supertech in my area ...

NPI-FUEL

 

You are so right about the diagnostic process. When I had a Porsche 911, they used to switch electronic parts off of new cars to see if they cleared a fault. Part of the problem, in the UK at least, is that once a dealer has ordered a part from MB, they cannot return it unless faulty because once it leaves MB, they can no longer warrant what happens to it. That means that if the dealer orders an XYZ control unit for my car, they are stuck with it whether or not it clears my problem. Most failures are caused by a single component failure, so if the dealer is replacing more than one, they've probably got it wrong.

The key of course is having unambiguous diagnostics but the car is frozen in time from a technological point of view. The R129 was 6 years in development and so the electronics dates from a time when an 80286 with MS-DOS something-or-other was cutting edge. Oh, and a 20Mb hard drive. That limits the detail of information which can be saved and later retrieved from the car. As you rightly say, MB techs are not trained to develop diagnostic skills now and instead rely on what the computer says. The R129 sadly falls into a hole where it is too old to provide the comprehensive diagnostics it really needs yet still too complex to be fixable by MB specialists who do not have access to a STAR computer. In my experience, SL specialists here won't touch it for anything electronic or electro-hydraulic.

Used to be the case that 100k miles was the practical limit for any car, with mechanical wear and tear and body rot taking their toll. Those have been fixed now and I had hoped my SL600 would have a life much longer than that. What is beginning to kill it off now is the cost of maintaining it in relation to its value and, as I think of moving on from it, the unlikely prospect of finding a buyer for it. If this was an only car, not many people whose budget is only £15k/$25k will want to carry the running costs - maintenance, gas, insurance and big uncertainties; for those looking for an SL as a fun second car, they are much more likely to go for an SL320 because it delivers the same fundamentals at lower cost.

 

Mercedes need to look again at allowing dealers to book parts back into stock. Or good dealers look at holding used parts for testing their theories of what is wrong.

My first question after the new air mass sensor and regeneration valve did not do the trick (£1400 / $2700 down the drain and a car running as bad as it was when it went in!) was can we book these parts back into stock (I dont mind a restocking fee from Merc and even labour to remove). I got the unhelpful no! - do you want £300 of distributor caps!

I gave the stock no answer and went to an independent.

The £100 distributor cap seems to have cured it.

No wonder Mercedes comes bottom of the quality surveys. A bit of thought about customer service would not go a miss!

I'm out - SL500 and ML55 for sale! This has to be at their cost over the coming 5 years - with me at least!

I really love the R129 but unhelpful and damned expensive service spoils the fun.

 

Me too, time to move the car on. As of this morning, I now have a 2003 911 Carrera 4S. Traded the SL600, 86k miles for £13.5k, $25k. And, they are going to fix the SRS...

 

The Porsche sounds good BlueSL - have fun.

I would have really fancied buying your SL600 earlier this year knowing how well you look after it. With hindsight a good call not to get in touch with you earlier this year to ask if you would consider selleing!

I'm just back from a week in Dubai. 1st drive in the ML55 after getting back and it has spat all its power steering fluid up the road!

4 sale once it is drivable again!

 

Oh the joys of Mercedes ownership. I'm busy compiling a file of all the receipts and invoices of work done on this car during the time I've had it. There's a lot of it.

For those interested, there's a picture of the new car on the "how old..." thread.

 

Because of great experience with a local non-dealer MBZ shop here in Las Vegas as they worked on my 86 190D, I had them check the SL before I bought it and then took it in for the first major service after driving it infrequently.

Up to then since I bought the car with 135K on it since I wanted a car that would be something I could drive and work on to take my mind off work, all I really had done was Oil and Filter changes at the local "Quickie Mart" since I didn't drive it often and was taking care of hardware items (new brakes, rotors, shocks, fuel filters, interior, etc.) myself.

My main complaint, in addition to deciding I wanted a "real" MBZ person to perform the major service, was that the car had started running rough, downshifting wasn't happening unless I stomped the accelerator clear to the floor, and within the past six months it was becoming harder and harder to start.

After two days, I picked up the car. It ran worse and started harder than before. Their solution, leave it one more day, run "fuel injector and combustion chamber cleaner" through it, and tell me I was losing fuel injector pressure so at some time when I couldn't stand the hard starting any longer I would need some really expensive work, new injectors, etc.

After two months I was about ready to carry the car back to them when I came upon this board and started reading other comments about hard starting, etc. One reply that really got me thinking was one from someone who classified himself as as long time MBZ tech, regretfully I can't remember his name.

His comment was that before anybody started messing with the MBZ fuel injection system, he recommended new distributor cap, new rotor, new plugs and maybe even new plug wires.

Thought to myself, I can screw things together (maybe screw them up once in a while, but not often), so ordered all from Autohausaz.com because the plug wires and distributor cap looked at least 10 years old.

Three days later I had everything at about 60% less than they would have cost me locally, put it all in my car in less than an hour, and my car started and ran better than it has all the time I've owned it.

Idles smooth at 600RPM, acceleration is back with no hesitation and my mpg has gone up it seems like 20%.

I can't believe the shop didn't even think about suggesting I install a new distriubtor cap & etc. Back then I was ripe to pay retail parts and labor for anything that anyone told me would fix my problems.

I'm glad they didn't, because I saved a ton of money. But, now I don't know where to go if I need real work done in the future.

Chuck