I bought my SL last December and she needed a lot of work for a 50K car...Previous owner just drove it and let everything go on it... It spent its life parked in the streets of NJ most of its life but was tucked away in the winter outside in a yard...The metal part of the body and paint was actually very good considering....There were a few dings which I had removed, rear bumper cover had lots of scrapes which I had refinished, along with the front bumper cover which was cracked and crunched from hitting curbs and such...The side sills did not fair well either, the pass side was crunched in and cracked so I had both of them repaired/refinished, the drivers A pillar had a huge dent in it and was painted and replaced...All body parts were removed before refinishing...The rear window side trim was all faded and cracked and were replaced as well...Headlights were horribly faded and needed a good restoration...Power top did not work. Trunk closer did not work...Luckily just the front cylinder was bad, and did the epoxy repair on the closer latch...Consumer battery had to be replaced...Air suspension worked but acted funny at times, needed valve block rebuild, new fluid, and filter which I did...It had hokey turbine 18 inch wheels with the wrong offsets with dry rotted mismatched tires which had to go. Replaced with 19 inch wheels, center caps and new rubber....Installed lowering links 'cause it sat like a 4x4...Did a 4 wheel brake job which it needed too...I used low dust Akebono's which are amazing...Motor mounts needed replacement the drivers side had collapsed...I added the front splitter and rear spoiler as well....Other than that a major cleaning was in order...I should note the engine, transmission, rear end are great...Most power functions, A/C, heat all work well...The interior was pretty good overall...The headliner was coming off from broken tabs and missing hardware, some plastic parts which I fixed and re-glued, re-dyed the seat bolster, and lots of things I cant remember...Well anyway it came out nice and I feel it was worth it...Now t looks like a car with 50K on it! Actually looks like a car with 10K on it now...I really didn't take many before pics unfortunately...Oh well bad memories anyways...Still have to chase down a few more gremlins but I have my new SDS system to help with that but I am almost done finally....

On stands all winter!

Crunched front spoiler

Coming apart

If you want to remove your rear bumper all of this has to come out!

Has to be in service position too!

Rear window side trim

A pillar replacement

Getting there into March now

Finally!

Don't slam me for the AMG emblem!!!!

Thanks to this site and you for all of the valuable information as I knew nothing about the R230 platform after owning an R129 platform, other than I wanted one...I could not have done it without this forum!

How much did you pay for that? I'm assuming when you say 50K car you meant 50K miles and not dollars right? Looks good now, great job.

Thanks, Yes 50K miles...Paid 9800...Total investment so far 14500 including SDS and laptop...

Damn, it's amazing how low these cars are these days, make me sad. How's the ABC?