Thinking of trading in my BMW for an late model to vintage SL. Are there years to avoid? My requirement list is:

cool looking
reliable
It doesn't need to be a high performance machine.

And I'd like spend less than (yikes) 10K. Looking at ads in the The Star and else where show this is possible for 70's and 80's vintage.

Any help would be great.

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73 2002tii
95 E320

I don't think you are going to find all of these things in one package for that price. I don't want to sound pessimistic, but at this point in time, most 107 cars (the car your criteria sort of points to) are getting on in the years and are going to be rather expensive to maintain. It was a very expensive car when new, and as such, will reflect this in the cost of overall ownership. I know some one will probably chime in and say "well my 107 has XXX,XXX miles on it and all I've ever done is changed the oil". This is not the case for most owners of these vehicles. I've been in the dealership service sector for some time now, and rarely does an old SL, no matter how clean looking while parked in my service drive, not have a large amount of issues that should be attended to. Mercedes-Benz vehicles, especially of that era, were rock solid reliable pieces of machinery. Now they are twenty years old, and will have twenty year old car issues. I certainly don't want to discourage an MB owner from aquiring a new toy, as I do love the cars, but one maintain a certain level of practicality when considering a new vehicle purchase. A good example of a 107 will still fetch upwards of 20K, depending on your market. A 10K SL is going to require some work. It's helpful if you aren't afraid to do a little wrenching. This board is an incredible resource if you are so inclined. I would recommend looking at the "consider this before buying SL's" thread that raged for eternity in the SL section of this site. You'll get opinions from all sides and some decent first hand testimonial (along with some flaming crap). I wish you the best of luck in your search for a good car, and hope that my assesment is in err in your particular case.

I'll search for the "consider this before buying SL's" thread before going much further. There was a good article in the The Star a few months back called "How not to buy an SL" which basically boiled down to: "don't fall in love", "let your mechanic see it first", and "don't let your wife/girlfriend/SO fall in love with it".

Based on your comments, it looks like the 107 was a solid model - I'll go down that path...


Thanks again!

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73 2002tii
95 E320

To add to PHAEDRUS242's well-defined comments, you might consider looking at the R129-series as well. These cars haven't aged enough to achieve "classic car" status, and the growing inventory (trade-ups to the R230) combined with the steady depreciation has made the pre-96 models go for Camry prices!

I know you are looking at $10K or so to spend, but consider the $$$ you would have to invest to keep an R107 in top condition? Btw, nice R107 examples are still commanding $14K-$16K, so you aren't too far away from getting a nice R129.

I mention this because the R129s also have a very good reputation of solid engineering and reliability. And because they aren't as old as the R107s, you can get more years of trouble-free driving before you have to stare down some mortgage-draining repair...

...and with mine, I've had very little go wrong...and what has, I have been able to rectify in my own garage. The wierd thing is that some R129 parts are unusually cheap while others, just as unusually expensive!

Example: Replaced a hydraulic top locking cylinder...$106
Also replaced the plastic lens off the gauge cluster I accidentally broke: $372!

Go figure...

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2009 ML350 (106K) - Family vehicle
2001 CLK430 Cabriolet (80K) - Wife's car
2005 BMW 645CI (138K) - My daily driver
2016 Mustang (32K) - Daughter's car