First of all I'm just a student so I don't have lost of money, if any. I have always like cars, specially roadsters and sports cars. I have owned a 1992 BMW 3 series and I had a horrible experience with a low milage car, and left me broke. Then I bought a 1993 MIATA that was Salvage, and I got it for cheap, with 80k, I never saw a MECHANIC, I put around 40k on it. MY LOVED STARTED WITH LITTLE ROADSTERS because of the Miata.
MY third car in College was a 1994 gsx eclipse,with 60k and drove it until 120 miles, and I NEVER SAW A MECHANIC, SERIOUSLY. Then I bought a modified 1996 Mistubishi eclipse, the car had 90k on the engine, and now has just been sold, with 150 miles. I owned that car for 5 years, and It was my every day car. I had the most wonderful experience with Mitsubishis and they are not the BEST Japanese cars. I guess HONDA and Toyota are more reliable.I have only change BREAKS and and timing belt on that car. NEVER SAW A MECHANIC.
Recently I purchase a BMW Z3 on autotrader 1.9. The car had 89k and I bought it for 9,000 dollars. It had M rims so I thought it was a steal. it looked great, and I always wanted a European car. and all I have to say it was CRAP, was so unrealiable, and the ROOF LEAKED!, so I had to sell it. I spend about 1800 dollars in a year fixing that car. I put 18k and someone bought it for 7500, you can imagine I lost money.
NOW I'm THINKING ON A BENZ slk 230 USED with around 80K that they sell for 13500. the car seems in good condition. I'm just in love with the looks and the folding roof.
BUT I"M SCARED, I had really bad experiences with European cars. especially with reliability. I would never buy a BMW again. My boss owned a CLK and he said he would not recomend that car unless you buy it new and sell it before the guarantee expires.
I can't afford a new car I liked, I will finance most of the SLK in case I buy it. since I'm paying for my college.


WELL here is the thing, and PLEASE BE HONEST, DO YOU RECOMEND THE SLK230 with 80k. OVERALL is it a car that you would consider reliable and wont give me any headaches? I'm planning on buying it, and hopefully drive it until it gets 120k or more. I drive a lot, I comute about 80 miles everyday from work 5 days a week. I'm not a rich person, I'm rather poor, so this will be my main car, since I dont have a family yet. If you have owned an slk and had it for a long time and put over 100k miles, I would apretiate your comment. I know this is a forum for people that love Mercedes, but please be honest,with ur commnets and let me know, if is a car I should buy and not be worry about.

 

I have a 2001 SLK 320, that I really like. I don't drive it very much because I drive a company truck monday threw friday. It's probably not in your best intrest to buy one of these cars for every day transportation.

Ken

 

Honestly? No.

Even scheduled maintenance is more expensive on these cars. And if you have a problem, watch out! Parts are expensive -- a piece of weatherstrip of the side window cost $72!!! The reason we drive Mercedes is because they're wonderful cars, even if they do cost more in terms of maintenance -- but that isn't going to work out for you.

Get another Miata for now. Wait until you've graduated and have some income before you buy an SLK.

 

These cars have moble one oil that is used, but its not the regular stuff, its the crap that costs 40 bucks just for the oil. The oil filter is 14 and if you don't want to buy the tool to get at the oil filter, the whole deal will cost 80$ So, if you don't have a lot of money, this isn't the car that's 80$ every 3-5k Otherwise, I haven't had any issues with mine, besides shattering the back window but that was the dealers fault......Thats right the guy never told me that the second bar on the pull out had its own track to run in, didn't find that out until I put my system in the car...made me very mad. But anyways if the oil change thing doesn't bother you then it is a sweet car all alround. I have had mine sense september and its my daily driver..rain, sleet, snow, or a nice day (but we don't see many of them in michigan) Hope my rambling helps. Derek

 

Thanks for the replays. Oil change don't concern me much, I have a buddy that is a Mechanic, and he can do it for me. Even though 80 bucks is a lot, considering this, is very nice to know this type of things. What concern is the quality of the engine, if is realiable to be a everyday car. Other than that I don;t see what else can go wrong with a car that has 80k. But I'm starting to be scare now, but please post more replays, and thank you all.

 

It's not the engine -- they are wonderfully built! It's all the other fiddly bits in these cars. And the parts are outrageously priced (note the 72 bucks for an 18" long piece of rubber weatherstrip). I just paid 350 dollars to have that strip replaced, along with a tranny seal that *commonly* leaks. My auto-dimming rear view mirror has failed -- that's another $189. And remember, just like BMW many of the potential fixes are going to be "dealer-only."

Don't get me wrong. I love my SLK, but I can also afford to have any problems fixed. It's simply part of the cost of owning a luxury car with many complex accessories.

If you can't afford to have something -- anything -- go wrong, think twice.

 

I also don't have a very huge savings for car problems, thats why I purchased the warrenty. Only costs 100$ to get anything fixed, the only stuff it doesn cover are break pads and tires.

 

Common problems are,
Peeling interior
MAFS going bad 200.00
Roof switches 200.00
PSE bad from water damage 400.00
Tail lights burn out 20 - 100.00
CPS going bad 200.00
Trans seal at the wire harness 30.00
Fuel gauge going bad 300.00
Cats go bad 500.00 or factory waranty under 80 k miles
and a few other things.
The motors have no problems but the trans can go anywhere between 50 and 100k or so if you do not take care of it. 5,000.00
All this stuff is a do it yourself with the help of the members here and if you have any car mechanical experience.
If you can't work on cars and do not intend to keep it under an extended warranty I would say do not buy it, unless you have a high paying job to have MB do the repairs. A "B" service is around 500.00 and basically it is an oil change.

 

I agree with everyone herein. I love my car but the parts prices are extremely high. My 99 has 80K miles on it and things are starting to go; if I wasn't mechanically oriented I could not afford the car. My MB dealer here charges $106/hr and inflates (I believe) the book time (quoted 2.5 hours to replace spark plugs that took me 25 minutes. Quote was $395 to replace the 4 spark plugs. I did it for about $20. The dealer wanted $275 to replace the fuel filter; I did it in appx 30 minutes and the cost of the filter over the internet was appx $25.

If you buy a used MB, invest in an OBD 2 (on board diagnostics) unit; this will cost you appx $75 and save you a lot of money in diagnostic costs.

In summary, I love my 99 and would buy it all over again, but since September I've spent almost $1,500 in parts and labor (some was routine maintenance). Paid $17,000 plus tax for the car with 75K miles on it.

Good luck!!!!!!!!!

Let the Forum know what you did and what you think

 

Yeah, your best bet at getting cheaper labor is ask if they can do the service you require and try not to tell them what type of car they are going to be working on, for some reason it seems like they don't ask a lot but maybe thats just around here, then when you show up with the benz you can see the ah @#$# I should of charged more look on there face. Thats priceless.

 

I purchased a 1998 SLK 230 last week. It has 95000 miles and was owned by a little old lady for the last 6 yrs. I love the ride and handling, but after driving around a few days (~300 miles) the engine stopped while sitting at a red light. I pushed it into a parking lot. No check lights came on and all electrical worked and the engine cranked fine. After a few minutes, it started up and I drove home. I tried to restart but just cranking. After 5-10 minutes I tried again and it started and idled and sounded fine, but died ~10 min later. I repeated this several times and the same thing happened. I thought it may be related to the fuel filter because everything else works fine, except for the gas cap which I can't get off now. Has anyone experienced this with this model. Any suggestions.