Originally Posted by nyycebro

Hi, I live in Charlotte, NC and next Tues or Wed I am buying a 1997 SL500 from a frat brother. The car drives and handles very well and has both tops. It has an excellent interior and fair to good exterior with 142,000 miles. He orginnally brought the car new 10 years ago and most of the miles are highway miles. When he first brought the car 10 years ago I told him I wanted the car when it had depreciated enough for me to afford it. Well that day is here and I am getting it at I think at a fair price of $12,900. Oh, I forgot it has the sport package as well with the AMG rims. My questions are:

1. What oil do you receommend for this car? He is currently using Castrol high mileage 20-50 syncblend. I would like to use a full sync. maybe mobil 1 or amsoil, thoughts?

2. He did not originnally have a factory Cd changer, but added an aftermarket one that plays through the radio. I hate those things and am currently bidding on a factory unit on ebay. Is it hard to install? Do I need a special cable, my understanding is the car should be prewired for the changer.

3. Due to the low hanging front dam and his love of hitting it on curves, I have crack damage on the front bumper. I think a good body shop can b repair this for me. Anyone have simlar problems with this? Did you have to replace entire front bumper?

4. The car have never been wreaked, but he did have it painted a couple of years ago and it was not so good paint job in places, as an example the put the letters back on the truck as "LS 500" instead of "SL 500", he never noticed until I pointed it out to him. I plan to have painted professionally in the next year. Question, how much would you expect to pay for good paint job for this car at the same Dark Blue color.