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Car Forum / Mercedes-Benz Cars / November 2007600sl buying advice
Stumbled upon this and wanted some feed back. It's 1993 600SL, 70k original miles, interior is mint, everything works, no rust, good paint, soft and hard top both in good shape, runs and drives nice. Now for the things i'm not so sure about. Car has a prior salvage title due to a front/side accident without airbag deployment. Owner who has his own shop says he bought it and fixed the accident damage and it wasn't all that bad. The little strut warning light thing is on and i'm not sure what that means. The ASR warning light came and stayed on when we first ran the car. He got it to turn off by turning the car off and then back on again. Said it's never done that before. When I accelerated from a stop at WOT, I noticed the traction control kicked in around 30mph but i'm not sure if I hit road paint or a wet spot and made the wheels slip? When I went to select reverse, it just revved, so I moved the lever down a tad more between R and N and reverse engaged just fine. PO said the linkage needs to be adjusted. Rollbar keeps popping up and needs a sensor. These are the main issues I had with the car, and was wondering if i'd be getting into a real headache? Asking price is aorund $10k. Buying a 600 anything would be a headache due to its high maintenance and repair cost; buying THIS 600SL would be like shooting yourself in the head, IMHO. You cite various faults that you noted during a brief test drive, just think what you'll find after you buy this car. Take it to a M-B dealer for an repair estimate and you'll soon see what "money pit" is all about.  Signature© 2007 T.G.Lambach. Publication in any form requires prior written permission. This car is just going to be one insanely expensive headache after another. You ought to take it to the dealer just fun to see how big of an estimate they can ring up. Then realize that is only the starting point and that other stuff will be constantly be popping up and probably never cost you less than $1k per incidnet to fix (if you are lucky). I would not be surprised if the original owner intentionally wrecked the car just to get rid of it and salvage a little insurance money. Seriously. > This car is just going to be one insanely expensive headache after > another. You ought to take it to the dealer just fun to see how big of an [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > car just to get rid of it and salvage a little insurance money. > Seriously. I have an article from Road and Track (June, 1998) that compares a 600SL, 850i and XJS and they talk about how reliable and cheap a 600SL is to run for a V12! Are they really that bad? I have owned an XJS before too so it surely can't be as bad as that car was! What are some other common faults to check for? >> This car is just going to be one insanely expensive headache after >> another. You ought to take it to the dealer just fun to see how big of an [quoted text clipped - 11 lines] > it surely can't be as bad as that car was! What are some other common > faults to check for? Bear in mind that R&T writers rarely keep a car for any length of time. Their "long term" tests last a year, if that. A friend of mine is a long-time writer for R&T and he once asked ME for advice on buying a car for his wife! Up to that time the only car he actually owned was an early 911 he bought out of the press fleet and rarely drove. This SL sounds like a real nightmare. By the time you get the car right you will have spent a whole bunch more than if you found a pristine example and payed the going price. Alan > Stumbled upon this and wanted some feed back. It's 1993 600SL, 70k > original miles, interior is mint, everything works, no rust, good [quoted text clipped - 14 lines] > These are the main issues I had with the car, and was wondering if > i'd be getting into a real headache? Asking price is aorund $10k. Run away. Do not walk. Run. > > Stumbled upon this and wanted some feed back. It's 1993 600SL, 70k > > original miles, interior is mint, everything works, no rust, good [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > > - Show quoted text - If you don't run, then for sure get it thoroughly checked out by a reliable mechanic, either a local shop that knows MB or the dealer, before you buy it. I suspect as others have suggested that you will find some of these things could cost $$$ to fix. > These are the main issues I had with the car, >and was wondering if i'd be getting into a real headache? Asking price is >aorund $10k. Salvage title, warning lights, erratic TC behavior, transmission hiccups... more red flags here than May Day in China... run away |
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