Oppo Crew New Canaan

"Mathias Rios" (Mars478) 09/07/2014 at 21:22 • Filed to: None

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ShelbyRacer78-Fusion Modifier > Mathias Rios 09/07/2014 at 21:57

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I love that image for the thumbnail.

DrScientist > Mathias Rios 09/08/2014 at 02:28

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who has the sl? and what's it like? is it worth picking one up?

offroadkarter > DrScientist 09/08/2014 at 06:29

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JGrabow brought that. If you can find one and fit in it then its worth picking up.

sefeing, actually bought an E46 > Mathias Rios 09/08/2014 at 07:29

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damnit forgot to post mine. I'll do it now.

JGrabowMSt > DrScientist 09/08/2014 at 23:26

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The SL is mine. If you want to get into SL ownership, I suggest looking for SL500's between 1997 and 2001. They use a very reliable V8, and are relatively straightforward to work on yourself. I've seen plenty that get tasteful mods (like 6 piston AMG brakes, and other out of sight things), and they don't break the bank. The V8 means you can get a slightly more reasonable amount of gas mileage too.

Mine is a 97 SL600 Sport with the AMG tuned V12. Known for hurting your wallet specifically. It needs a bit of work, but is otherwise in "very good shape." A good condition SL500 will run you between 6-9k. Try to talk them down to the lower end of that. There are many SL's out there for sale, and a good 90% of the owners have no idea what they're actually worth, only what they want to get for them. It's a bad combination. I've seen 1993 SL320 R129s with asking prices of over 18k. They haven't been worth that kind of money since 1996 if I'm being perfectly honest about it.

You can tell the 97+ models apart by the headlights alone. Starting in 97 they used a projector low beam with halogen high beam. Anything 96 and older has a two stage bulb, no projector. The 97+ cars had a number of other updates that makes them far more reliable long term, and the cars are no problem for higher mileage. Mine just rolled over 98k miles Saturday night, easily double what most others have.

If you look at low mileage ones, things of concern are the wheel bearings, tires, dry rotted hoses, water pump, and the convertible top because it's fully automatic and hydraulic. If the top hasn't had any latches replaced, be prepared for it, because the stock latches will go, it's just a matter of time. They blow a seal, and the fluid will start pouring out. If it's the windshield latches, you'll find out rather quickly. If it's the rear latches, the top simply wont work. It will be very expensive to get that fixed by someone else, so I strongly suggest doing it yourself. Dry rotted hoses are an age thing, but lower mileage cars go in for service less, naturally, meaning some "little" problems grow extremely fast. The suspension is also self leveling hydraulic, and it can raise the car with a button, or lower it automatically based on the cars speed. The suspension is stupid expensive. Prepare for the worst. You could easily pay half your buying price just fixing the suspension if it ever fails. Drive the car often, and always let it warm up to temp, and you should keep most of these problems at bay.

I couldn't let go of this car. It drives amazingly well, looks timeless, and honestly isn't very expensive to run, just expensive to keep up. I'm not going to start bitching about the costs of owning a V12, I didn't buy the car because of that. I did that because the SL600 is very rare, the SL600 Sport even more so. I wanted it bad, and it showed. I tried to let it go, and just couldn't. It's going to be a long road getting it back to 100%, but luckily the MB online communities are a wealth of information for other people not afraid to dig into these cars.

I'll also say that I have no intention of flipping the car or selling it at this point. I can hope that the value goes back up (I bought it for a fair chunk less than 1/10th the sticker price, which was 131k+options) because I consider this car an investment. It will take a long time to go back up, and I'm not holding my breath, but I want to keep it on the road. Plenty of people didn't agree with me about it, but that's okay, because it was my decision. I bought the car for other reasons as well, but I do love it. Any used car comes with it's set of problems. To let that dissuade you from buying such a wonderful car is ridiculous. You can always test drive one and decide it's not for you, but I think you'll find that it may very well be just for you.

DrScientist > JGrabowMSt 09/09/2014 at 11:56

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wow. thanks for the response. this is exactly what i was looking for.

i have to say i really do like all of the SL series (sorry not familiar with the body W-codes yet). each have their own unique style, pluses and minuses. but they're all quite classy. knowing where the sweet spots are for model years takes some research: knowing when key upgrades were made—and that's always important on a car that was in production for over a decade. so thank you for your post.

congrats on the v12. i have one myself, in an xjs. seems like a similar situation. in production for ~18 years. lots of changes throughout, but underneath, the hoses dry out because of age and lack of use. little things left to go bad get really expensive really quickly. so driving and upkeep is the name of the game.

if you CT guys ever make it to the city, you can usually see my green xjs parked around the east village... with a puddle of some fluid or another under it. ;)

one last question. just actually bought a c-coupe for my mother. and was wondering which is the best MB forum out there? or actually, what are the important differences in how they're run and what kind of info gets posted. i have come across at least 3.

thanks again!

JGrabowMSt > DrScientist 09/09/2014 at 12:20

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I'm about an hour from the city in NJ. I don't usually drive in because traffic is insane. I've been stuck on busses from hit and runs for hours, so it would pain me to drive in and have a problem.

You should come up to CT with us sometime. You'd fit right in. We can be V12 buddies even haha. Aaron Brown works at Classic Car Club Manhattan, and Mathias Rios is his partner in crime usually, it's rare to not see the two of them driving around causing mayhem together (but they're both in college now, so until the summer, things are a stretch).

I for one would love to see your XJS sometime, maybe next time I'm in the city I'll hit you up. I need to actually put the SL on a lift for some serious cleaning and some basic checkups, but I'm sure I'll get there in time. Maybe if I can get into CCC sometime with the SL, we can meet up there. Now that I'm out of college, it's down to just finding the time off work to do the fun stuff.

For MB forums, I'm on mbworld.org but I'm hardly ever active, as I really just needed info for the top when it did have a problem. The users there are pretty fair about things, and very knowledgeable, but as with every forum, it's best to gauge some of the more active users before posting. I've had bad experiences on some forums, but the .org hasn't given me trouble, even when I was somewhat "noobish" about the SL.

I actually had a worse time when I was looking for forums about my Magnum. Finally found a very good one, but there must be something about most Dodge people on the internet.