Peter Vieira
Wow, you're reading this? Thanks! If you're into RC cars and I seem vaguely familiar, it's because I spent over 25 years writing and editing RC car news, reviews, and tech articles in print and online. What else, what else ... I have a degree in Film Studies (useless), most of a degree in Graphic Design (useful), and I'm married to a wonderful woman with horrible taste in men. Thanks to her, we have a terrific daughter who just earned her Journalism degree and is way, waaay more together that I was at her age. Or right now.
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Holy cow!
I was often tempted during the two decades I ran Mercedes 5-cylinder turbo diesels to step up into a fun gas one. But stories like this thankfully forestalled that.
This litany of woes rather tops the combined repairs/maintenance I did to my 5 dailies in that period.
Maybe he just needs to sell it for even less than he wants, and let his karma bounce back resurrecting one of his other 13 or 14 “in process” car…
Quick search yields that there are many 2003 Mercedes SL500 for sale, starting around $3,500, then $5,000 and several in the $10-12,000 range. Those prices seem close or lower than his repair total.
But, thank you for allowing me to better appreciate the reliable, (slow), pedestrian Subaru I drive with about 148k miles.
Ugh…. Just sell it cheap – only ask for a “give it away” price, and move on… Life’s too short to martyr yourself mentally and financially; you’ll still get the goods for an awesome new S.W. Gossin drama-adventure story to share! Its just won’t have a Hollywood ending.
Ya done got DaimlerChrysler’d.
“A Vega would be more reliable”
Hmmm… I think we should get this man a Vega and test that theory.
None of these failures will matter if you strip out the unnecessary electronics, cage it and race the car with the 24 Hours of LeMons.
When I hear of cars like this, the best solution seems to be what they do with frame-off resto-mods – strip it down to basically a body in white, throw out all of the existing running gear, and build it back with all new wiring, crate engine, suspension, custom interior, etc.
In this case, even the hydraulics need to be tossed out and something new fabricate from off-the-shelf components.
Basically the automotive equivalent of Ellen Ripley’s nuke the site from orbit plan, in other words.
“ even the hydraulics need to be tossed out “
I would just leave the roof in the up position and then disconnect the power to it so it will never go down again.
Then just treat it like a coupe.
For the air suspension, I would switch it to coils.
For the door locking, I would just leave that pretty looking heap unlocked. It getting stolen would be a blessing in disguise.
As for the janky automatic climate control, I wonder how switching that to a manual setup could work.
The primary value of this thing is that you can drop the top.
It would be like leaving the top up on my PRHT Miata all the time. Just, no… 🙂
In my view, the primary value of any vehicle was being able to drive places. Stuff like dropping the top is secondary.
You’re definitely not wrong.
The top would go to scrap metal and at most I’d rig up a simple “get you home kinda-sorta dry in a sudden cloudburst” top since it won’t be a daily driver.
You might be able to repurpose some or all of the top as a topper for a short box pickup truck bed… like what you have on the Maverick.
“For the door locking, I would just leave that pretty looking heap unlocked. It getting stolen would be a blessing in disguise.”
Congratulations! This is some of the BEST car advice I’ve ever heard! Especially for this car…
That’s actually very helpful advice, IMO.
That sounds absolutely horrible.
Meanwhile, my 2013 M6 works perfectly. The only maintenance it has needed is replacing the coolant rubber hoses on top of the hot V.
Unlike earlier designs of this engine, the rubber parts in question are like 3 inches long and easily replaced. I did it in the driveway in 30 minutes, didn’t even put it in the garage.
This is a rare car I wouldn’t take even if you gave it to me. I’ve heard too many horror stories of obscenely expensive repairs (with no known workaround) or unobtainium parts. It’s not a car anymore, it’s an albatross.
I’ve only owned a single Mercedes product, a ’98 CLK 320. It’s also the only new car I ever bought. It was the right size and pretty to look at, but comically unreliable during the year that I kept it. Every morning, it was a complete crap shoot as to whether or not it would start up, or just sit there with a dashboard full of warning lights and error messages.
I was really busy professionally when I had the CLK, and I drove it to SF from LA and back a few times, sometimes in the same day. One of the times this quick round-trip was necessary my CLK was in the shop (yet again) and the dealership had lent me a C Class (C230 I think, the one with that relatively noisy supercharged four cylinder engine) and I drove that up to Alameda and then back home to Hollywood the same day.
Except for the lower power (compared to the six cylinder NA engine in my CLK) and louder, somewhat agricultural-sounding idle of the 230s engine, I liked the C Class almost as much as my considerably more pricey CLK. I only borrowed it for a short while, but I never saw a CEL or any warnings at all with it. It was comfortable, and felt solid, and had a decently roomy trunk (we never got that generation of C Class as a wagon in the US unfortunately).
After my experience with the CLK, I’d never buy any Mercedes product built in the last 20+ years at all, even if it were as pretty as SWGs 500SL. The W202 gen C Class I borrowed is probably the most recent Benz I’d even consider, despite the fact they’re known to have engine/transmission/electronics issues sometimes. Before that, of course there are nice W123 and W124 models that would be well worth owning, but the price of entry on those have climbed to the point where I’m unlikely to buy one now, especially the W123.
To me, Mercedes has lost its way a long time ago. I feel similarly about BMW and Audis too: there are very few of them built within the past couple of decades that I’d actually consider buying/owning/running given what I know about the experience and cost of doing so.
Who knew the 1990s was peak car, with some good ones in the prior/following decade? Not me.
There’s a list of a half-dozen realistic/affordable cars that I test drove (mostly in the 1990s and early 2000s) that I now wish I had purchased. When they come up for sale now, they’re either beat to hell on their seventh owner, or if low-mile/in good shape on BaT, they cost a relative fortune despite being 25-30 year-old ‘regular’ cars. 🙁
Time for some Sicilian lightning.
It’s ok, they learned their lesson and now replaced everything with screens.
TBH, that mirror story / pic is absolutely wild. Even 23yo plastic in an Arizona car should not exhibit this.
I might be interested. Let me know once you have it fully rebuilt.
Well, the closer the car gets to 100%, the closer it gets to the Book Value.
Although, even at a $4K discount, there doesn’t seem to be much of an audience for this generation SL in this price range/condition as evidenced by the zero showings I’ve had over the last 8 months.
I’m doing the convertible top hydraulics this weekend. Miserable, joyless and money-draining.
Well, at the rate you’re going, it’ll eventually be a brand new car!
Believe me, I know what it’s like to try to fix something that WILL. NOT. STAY. FIXED.
Username checks out…and I’m jealous! I want a field full of awesome rusty, junky classics…but probably not this Mercedes, ha ha
I had a haunted and possibly cursed E36 323i. It had 13 previous owners, and turned out to be a cat C write-off, making it unsellable.
In the year or so that I had it, before donating it to charity, it has a new fault at least once a week.
I remember rage-hurling the 12 foot long gutter trim across the car park I lived in because what I assumed would be a minor trim adjustment so I could close the rear window involved taking off what turned out to be a single-use trim and it. Would. Not. Go. Back. On.
I then had to shame walk to go pick it up again.
I think that’s the last time I let a car make me angry.
Although I did once, after a rough weekend taking my entire car to pieces, march into the Body department at Lotus demanding to speak to whoever it was who designed the rear clamshell of an S1 Elise to be an utter bastard to remove.
Apparently they’d all left.
the photo of disintegrated mirror clearly illustrates how overcomplicated modern cars are.
it’s a mirror, a piece of reflective glass…why is it electrically powered?? why was a heat/UV sensitive resin selected?
complicate, then add weight
It’s electrically adjustable so when you share a car with someone you can each have the seats and mirrors linked to your memory button.
It also means that when they service your car you don’t have to spend the first five minutes adjusting everything back.
People pay extra for guff like that, so manufacturers add the features.
The choice of biodegradable plastic is either a faux environmental concern to appeal to the conscience of the first owner (so money) or a financial decision to save in materials or testing (also money).
i agree with your assessment of the economics that engender features like the $400 mirror.
my sense is that it’s over-complicated, ymmv.
It’s exactly to sort of bullshit feature that makes the Lotus fan in me furious.
Also Lotus have it in their two ton electric SUV.
This is the worst timeline.
I will never understand though. It literally takes roughly 30 seconds to a minute to adjust multiple things…not 5 minutes! If it takes more than a minute there is something very wrong. I completely agree that it is overcomplicated.
Normally I try to have some helpful advice. But in this case, all I can do is metaphorically slide a drink down the bar to SWG.
This car is an automotive Kobayashi Maru. It is possible to make all the correct choices and still lose. Such is life.
Thanks for the metaphorical beverage, my friend. I needed it.
I have a 2003 SL500 from new, still in pristine condition. No huge disasters apart from a new wiring harness , several sets of trunk struts, cracked plastic trim and melted dash buttons from the Arizona heat . Key was preventive maintenance-did the ABC replacement before failure.
It was always a spare car.
The issue now is parts-cracked centre brake light-nothing available apart from some aftermarket junk, no replacement red carpets anywhere.
Still, it is a perfect car for a quiet evening desert cruise, no sports car but an inmensely comfortable way to have a relaxed drive.
How many miles on it?
33,000
So a suspension replacement, wiring harness failure, and cracked/melted interior.
None of these things should happen on a car that cost tens of thousands more than my house cost me (this car retailed for $175K).
Car is stored in an uncooled garage from April to November each year . Months at 120F are not great for it .