New SL owners?

Looks like a great way for someone to get a line on where to "aquire" a new SL, or am I being suspicious?

Larry B.

ps. I couldn't afford a SL55 or SL600 in my dreams...

Do not get a SL600 unless you have plenty of money and another car to drive while your 600 is in the shop. The history of the 600 series is pretty bad as far as reliability is concerned. And if you think regular MB parts are expensive...well, you ain't seen nothing yet. The 600 is a limited edition car...not made for everyday driving.

Yes... you are. Was I asking for peoples home addresses?

Thanks for the feedback... I have a quirky Italian car at the moment (with a horse on the badge) and was looking at getting rid of that for something that was a bit more of a daily driver and didnt spend 1/2 the time in the shop.

I think some further looking might be in order.

The 3 valve, V8 500 motor is underpowered by todays crazy standards. The older 4 valve per cylinder had 15 more HP I think.

MB needs to release a SL350 (3.7 liter motor) for the slow pokes and up the power of the 500...it needs about 50 more HP.

The 03 SL was the first year production, right...that could be part of the reason for all the problems, look at the first two years of the ML, the first year (2000) new S class was plagued, etc.

Wait for 04...

Oh, a few people at:

own new SLs

Also try

C&D just did a roundup of ~$75,000 roadsters as an excuse to test the new Cadillac XLR.

The five cars they tested were the XLR, the Jag XK8, the Lexus SC430, the Porsche 911 Carrera 4 Cabrio and the SL500.

The SL won in a landslide. The gap between the SL (200 points) and the second-place Porsche (183 points) was nearly twice as big as the gap between second place and last place (the Jag, with 174 points).

The online version of the article doesn't appear to include the charts from the magazine article that showed the differences in scoring.

The Caddy did okay--it finished third ahead of the Jag and the Lexus.

Of course, this roundup didn't take into account long-term reliability, but it's clear that they thought the SL made a great touring car, and they thought the performance was very good, relative to its competition.

--Paul

** Note "removemunged" in email address and remove to reply. **