Tom & jfg:

Sure wish I had found Tom's post before I bought my 350SL. Such a valuable check-list. I have had no mechanical problems at all except for a leaky injector. Fortunately the PO of my car was a well-off fanatic who spared no expense at maintenance. That said, I would only add the following advice. Ensure you get a car that has a pristine interior. Also, the HVAC systems are frequent problems, and the older more simple style w/o climate control is not immune either. The mechanical problems can be expensive, to be sure, and if you can avoid them or anticipate them with Tom's good advice, you are money ahead. Even paint work is not a show stopper.

Basically, any competent shop can do mechanical repairs and paint work. However, some of the interior work is hard to do. Not seats or door panels, but dashes, consoles, A-pillar and hardtop B-pillar soft items, basically everything that age and heat can destroy, most of these trim parts are simply not available in popular colors unless it is black. Some are not available at all. And many trim shops are total imcompetents when it comes to taking apart and reassembling a quality machine like an SL. Once you have detailed your SL with shiny paint and reliable running, that cracked dask, or crumbling crash padding will nag at you as a reminder that you baby is not perfect. And an HVAC problem can bedeveil you as much as a bad running engine.

Just a thought...

230/8