I have a neighbor who is contenplating buying a Mercedes SLK as a daily driver for his wife. I know absolutly nothing about them. It is a 2006 V6 automatic. Anyone here know anything good or bad about the car or have firsthand experience?
I have a neighbor who is contenplating buying a Mercedes SLK as a daily driver for his wife. I know absolutly nothing about them. It is a 2006 V6 automatic. Anyone here know anything good or bad about the car or have firsthand experience?
Does my wife wants one count?
Run. Do not walk. RUN. As fast as he can in the opposite direction.
Those cars are horrendously expensive to fix.
They have issues with the retractable top switches which mean removing the headliner, replacing all the switches and the harness (Mercedes TSB but not a warrantable situation on a car that age) and I had one car which could not be driven because the top would not complete its cycle and lock the front of the top down. Trying to drive it would have ripped the top off backwards. We had to have it brought in loaded backwards on a flatbed with a tiedown strap over the top.
They have been known to have trouble with the 'rollover valve' in the top of the fuel tank which sets a PO401 or other evap system code. This will also cause it to spew fuel out of the fill neck while trying to fill the tank. Again, there is a TSB which involves replacing the adsorption canister etc at a cost of ~$1200.00 and that too is not warrantable at this age.
The turn signal flasher is part of the front body control module, soldered into the circuit board. They fail pretty regularly. Module = $800.00. Again, no warranty. The module cover can be removed, the flasher 'points' popped apart and cleaned but that is temporary, it will do it again.
An '06 is a bit early for this, but some of those V6's have had a failure of the cam chain idler gear. When this happens, the cam chain basically grinds the teeth off the gear. The metal 'fuzz' gets stuck in the cam position solenoids and it sets a cam position sensor code. The gear and the timing chain must be replaced, we are talking ~$3500.00. Mercedes MAY assist on this, maybe not. As I said, '06 is a bit early but not unheard of for this problem.
Changing the oil at the local oil change joint can create a problem: the oil filter cap has a round section O ring. Mercedes, Mahle and Mann filters come with round section O rings, cheapies sold everywhere come with square section O rings. Those have a 50/50 chance of failure, if it's bad enough it can empty the engine in ~50 miles. If the guys at Jiffy Lube don't know this, ouch. Also there may be no engine oil dipstick, if it's late enough: you have to check the oil through the dash info, known as the EVIC.
I don't care what Mercedes says, the ATF is NOT 'lifetime fill'. Ignore 60k transmission services at your (his) peril.
If he's gotta buy it to make his wife happy, well I feel for the poor bastard.
My first thought was "does it come with a warranty?" but it seems Curmudgeon has that covered... 
I dont have a lot of experience with SLKs.
I worked on a 1st gen one a few weeks ago that had 69k miles and a crap ton of problems.
I also highway raced one of the generation being discussed here and beat it in a dodge dynasty. To be fair, the mercedes was only listed as having 80 more german horsepower. 
A person on the mercedes forum has a later model e320 and after seeing the cooling fan to one of the control units I was very intimidated. I hate to say it but the best mercedes look like the 70s ones.
I've had the 70's Mercedes and they are truly a work of art. I used to disassemble things just to see how they did it. Not many gaskets, they were machined to that close of tolerances.
I had some electrical gremlins but they were always traced back to a hatchet job done on the ground and, even tho I cleaned it and re-attached it multiple times I was never smart enough to realize that I should just fix it right. Keep in mind that we didn't have many high tech electrical items on cars at that time and none of us had realized the importance of good grounds.
It was also fast. Mine was the 4.5 V8 in the small 4 door (280SE if I remember correctly) and I regularly beat Vettes of that era. It used to make a friend of mine sooo mad.
But vacuum operated windows were an issue as well as leather getting hard and cracking.
Back in the day they were scarce enough and high brow enough that they all were serviced by just a few dealers or high end shops and a work pedigree was easy to come by. People were proud of them . . . and then they went to the mass produced, high volume versions.
I can say I don't dislike my friend's SLK350. He has had it a year(05-6model IIRC) and he hasn't had a single issue from it. Also, I laughed at the 2 reverse gears....
They drive great. The interiors are really nice (but the dash/console in the early ones peel). I like the way they look.
I would never buy one unless I had an unlimited money supply and (just like owning an LBC) something Japanese I could depend on.
Isn't the Crossfire based on the SLK? Just curious.
I have no experience with SLKs, but I would never buy one myself or for a loved one.
Miata?
My boss has a 500 SLK he's been driving for a couple years now. No issues. He had an older 300 (? I think) before the 500. No issues with that one either. He now alternates driving the 500 SLK and a Cayman S.
CLNSC3 wrote: Isn't the Crossfire based on the SLK? Just curious.
It is based off of the old SLK 230/320 roadster.....Kinda like how the LX chassis chryslers are all mid-late 90's mercedes tech.....
yamaha wrote:CLNSC3 wrote: Isn't the Crossfire based on the SLK? Just curious.It is based off of the old SLK 230/320 roadster.....Kinda like how the LX chassis chryslers are all mid-late 90's mercedes tech.....
Aaaah, thats what I thought. Thanks for the clarification!
Where's that thread about new cars being the most reliable/best-engineered again... 
yamaha wrote: I laughed at the 2 reverse gears....
two reverse gears?!?
In reply to Curmudgeon:
Thanks Curmudgeon for taking the time to give a detail report that some are having. I shoed your response to my neighbor who know thinks hes going to pass on the 2006 SLK.
My cousin has one. I had the prior model. Mine had well over 150k miles on it. My cousin has 100k miles. Overall both cars were far more reliable than either of our e36 bmws...
mad_machine wrote:yamaha wrote: I laughed at the 2 reverse gears....two reverse gears?!?
Eh? I never heard of that.
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