Sgooter

I sold the '06 SL500 yesterday. Had a year left on the ext warranty which certainly helped in selling the car. Really loved the SL, but not the repair costs and frequency of shop visits.

douwe22

Great to see you sold your car, Now we all anticipate what's next.... lol
good to see that you seem happy with what you got for it, must have been sad to see it go tho!

fmzip

Repair costs? Curious as to what since you also mentioned you had a warranty

BlownV8

ABC problems?

jbenz99

my SL500 is a 03 with over 100,000 miles and I haven't need any repair service in over 2 years and counting !

BlownV8

How many miles have you driven in the last two years?

jbenz99

about 20,000 miles

BlownV8

Not bad. I'd bet there was a crap load of money spent before 80,000 miles. I spent around $15k to $20k between 60,000 to 80,000 miles and nothing from 80,000+ and most of that was on the ABC suspension.

Sky Pilot

My thoughts exactly.

jbenz99

Thats you and some others That properly buying new parts on stealership !!! I only spend about $200 for used valve block on ebay and it was easy to installed and $15 for Pentosin fluid each,and about $50 each for used lower control arms with about 45,000 miles on them, $45 for new ball joints ,new battery $100,drive belt $35,$10 for MB coolant,$20 for max life transmission fluid and $19 for filter. I performed all work myself and save money. You got to be smart and shop around and stay away from stealership. That is crazy spending around $20.000 on a car for repairs and only driving about 20,000 miles after 60,000 that My opinion .I would never spent that much not even on a rolls !! I always shop around first and love to buy on Ebay and do the labor myself !!

fxrs1955

I do most of my own repairs myself and what I can't do my mechanic does. I love my SL but the cost would be through the roof otherwise.

BlownV8

Problem is that when you are always at work or on the road traveling you don't have the time to deal with these issues. I had the money but not the time so the dealership got the work. It was at a time these cars weren't out for very long and the only ones working on the suspension issues were the dealership. I don't recall any other available avenues to save money. The independents had no clue on an MB so new.

Now that time has passed there are more options but I still don't have the time part available. The last thing I want to do on my day/s off is to work on a car. When I was younger and had the time and no family, I did all the work on my cars. In fact, I still have a car in the garage that I rebuilt the engine and installed an aftermarket electronic engine management on but I don't have the time or desire to go back and program the system, change the injectors to low impedance ones, and bring the car to life.

COMEINPEACE

the dirty little secret is, from what i have been readin, is that the dealers are not that familiar with these cars either.there is a turnover of mechanics at the dealerships,and the 03-07s are few and far apart. the newer mechanics(i guess it is where you are located)do not see to many of the 230s

rune solem

I can totally agree with that. When I got a charging problem after I had put in a sub in the trunk, the mercedes mechanic was convinced that the problem was with the new wiring in the trunk.
But it was only the fuse that had been blown, that's in the right side in the trunk.
Also had to get the car moved to a different MB dealership to get the parktronic fixed, because they hadn't the expertise to adjust the parktronic.

After I had changed the brain of it. The new young computer mechanic only changed some parameters and got the new one to work.