1997 Mercedes-Benz SL500 (R129)

[tobinen]

As regular readers of the CL thread will know, I've fancied one of these. I mentioned it on the barge thread and someone PMed me saying he was moving his on for various reasons. He was only in Basingstoke so not far away at all, thus I thought it's worth a look. It was very clean and tidy and a folder of receipts to rival the CL.

We had a drive for about 20 mins and it seemed pretty solid to me. All good, I can mull it over the weekend. The sums all done, I made an we agreed a price.

I am making a list of things to do and queries as I will be picking the minds of the regular 129 chaps on here.

Here's the build from WIS:

189 GREEN/BLACK METALLIC
200A LEATHER
205 OWNERS MANUAL AND SERVICE RECORD - ENGLISH
214 ADAPTIVE DAMPING SYSTEM (ADS) WITH SKYHOOK
241 FRONT SEAT LH ELECTRIC ADJUSTABLE WITH MEMORY
242 FRONT SEAT RH ELECTRIC ADJUSTABLE WITH MEMORY
249 AUTOMATICALLY DIPPING INSIDE REAR VIEW MIRROR
268A LEATHER GREY
331 CASSETTE COMPARTMENT
340 ADDITIONAL 3RD STOP LAMP
415 GLASS ROOF (R129)
461 INSTRUMENT WITH MILES IND. AND ENGLISH LEGEND
472 ELECTRONIC STABILITY PROGRAM (ESP)
501 OUTSIDE REARVIEW MIRROR LEFT AND RIGHT WITH PROGR.
511 RADIO MB EXQUISIT WITH VK,RDS (PANASONIC)
551 ANTI-THEFT/ANTI-BREAK-IN WARNING SYSTEM
565 REAR SEATS USED ON SL MODELS
600 HEADLAMPS - CLEANING EQUIPMENT
617 LAMP UNIT: XENON HEADLAMPS ASSYMMETRICAL
630 ECE - WARNING TRIANGLE
652 8-HOLE LIGHT ALLOY RIMS
740 BLACK SOFT TOP FABRIC 9001
808 YOM 17/1
833 INVALID/GREAT BRITAIN,ADDITIONAL PARTS
873 SEAT HEATER FOR LEFT AND RIGHT FRONT SEATS
882 INTERIOR SAFEGUARD/TOWING PROTECTION
984 COC DOC., DELETION OF VEHICLE REGISTRATION DOC

Points of note:

The panoramic roof is no longer. Sometime before the previous owner it was swapped/replaced.
The ADS is no longer. As above, it's now on Sachs springs and dampers
The MB stereo is no longer. It has an HU of suitably matching appearance but I will probably swap for the Alpine in the CL.

I am making space in my flat for the hardtop and stand. I am contemplating a bood lid luggage rack. The original registration is a Scottish number and its early services were at John R. Weir. It has been imported at some point of which I was aware and the log book says so.

Here are some snaps:















It has the common issue of VDO Freitag afternoon tacho installation. How this passed QC and ended up in production is a mystery. I have fixed this on the CL.



First job is to correct it - clocks cluster out:



It's SORNed and I will tax it from Monday.

[SLK55AMG]

Always liked those, any plans for it ? Or just clean and maintain. I have an SLK55 myself

[SpeckledJim]

Lovely job, congratulations.

[tobinen]

Maintain, occasional clean and drive, that's it.

[EC2]

I had a 99 500 with ADS as the second owner. The two settings for the ADS felt exactly the same.

Imported from where?

Great colour BTW.

[anonymous-user]

Beautiful colour and has the proper headlights. Good luck with it!

[Inspire]

Amazing how many Mercs seem to have wonky rev counters! Car looks lovely by the way!

Thanks

Rob

[tobinen]

EC2 said:

I had a 99 500 with ADS as the second owner. The two settings for the ADS felt exactly the same.

Imported from where?

Great colour BTW.

WCZ is Belfast from 03/99 to 09/04 so I think it went from the mainland and it's re-registered. I'm not an expert on this matter though. It agrees with what the PO told me.

I'm tempted to go back to the R plate

[bolidemichael]

tobinen said:

VDO Freitag afternoon tacho installation.

Can you elaborate on this for the uninitiated?

[harrykul]

tobinen said:

WCZ is Belfast from 03/99 to 09/04 so I think it went from the mainland and it's re-registered. I'm not an expert on this matter though. It agrees with what the PO told me.

I'm tempted to go back to the R plate

Congratulations on the purchase Tobinen. The WCZ plate is definitely Belfast, and would be late 03/ early
04. Presumably when it crossed the water, a private reg was removed and then the plate of the time was assigned. That's what typically happens here anyway.

[Northbrook]

Nice!

[EC2]

tobinen said:

EC2 said:

I had a 99 500 with ADS as the second owner. The two settings for the ADS felt exactly the same.

Imported from where?

Great colour BTW.

WCZ is Belfast from 03/99 to 09/04 so I think it went from the mainland and it's re-registered. I'm not an expert on this matter though. It agrees with what the PO told me.

I'm tempted to go back to the R plate

Ah, makes sense.

Regarding the roof, my 99 had a glass roof and it was much louder than the normal hardtop I had on my 97 320 before it. It logically made no sense to me but was the case. Perhaps an owner may have had the same issue and sold/bought a swap out?

[Stegel]

Toby, congratulations for joining the r129 pack, hopefully it will serve you well and you’ll have it for a long time. Lovely colour too, but then again I’m biased.

That tacho was the squintiest I’ve seen! Shame it’s lost its panoramic roof, they are great, but it’s a way for a previous owner to extract £2k with little bother, especially if they find a matching colour hardtop.

[Stegel]

EC2 said:

Ah, makes sense.

Regarding the roof, my 99 had a glass roof and it was much louder than the normal hardtop I had on my 97 320 before it. It logically made no sense to me but was the case. Perhaps an owner may have had the same issue and sold/bought a swap out?

Hi, by louder, do you mean wind noise or internal acoustics? I have done only 100 miles with a non-pano roof and can’t say I noticed a difference to life with a panoramic roof.

[EC2]

Stegel said:

EC2 said:

Ah, makes sense.

Regarding the roof, my 99 had a glass roof and it was much louder than the normal hardtop I had on my 97 320 before it. It logically made no sense to me but was the case. Perhaps an owner may have had the same issue and sold/bought a swap out?

Hi, by louder, do you mean wind noise or internal acoustics? I have done only 100 miles with a non-pano roof and can’t say I noticed a difference to life with a panoramic roof.

I’m going back nearly two decades but from memory it was road noise from around the seals. Mine perhaps had a fault. It was mainly a summer car so not too relevant. If I had not had a better one before then it would not have been too annoying.

[Disco You]

Gorgeous car. I have a real soft spot for these.

tobinen said:

EC2 said:

I had a 99 500 with ADS as the second owner. The two settings for the ADS felt exactly the same.

Imported from where?

Great colour BTW.

WCZ is Belfast from 03/99 to 09/04 so I think it went from the mainland and it's re-registered. I'm not an expert on this matter though. It agrees with what the PO told me.

I'm tempted to go back to the R plate

If it were me id definitely be putting it back on a mainland plate - the NI prefixes always just make me think of car supermarkets getting NI cars on the cheap.

[tobinen]

I find it odd that NI triggers an 'imported' flag on the log book. We're all in the same country, aren't we?

[tobinen]

bolidemichael said:

Can you elaborate on this for the uninitiated?

Many 129s and 140s left the factory with tachos on the piss. They must have been that way when they left the VDO factory but still ended up being released. One has to remove the stuck-on scale and rotate it to the correct position.

R129sl has a guide on this in the C140 thread, early on.

[DamnKraut]

The dodgy tach is quite the oddity. The W140 and R129 had development budgets somewhere in the range of a space shuttle mission I'd reckon.

Yet when it came to installing these VDO tachs, workers on the assembly line seemed to have concluded "it'll be fine" and their colleagues in QA at the end of the assembly line apparently were somewhere between one-eyed and blind.

Anyways, good pick, OP. Huge fan of the R129.

[CharlesdeGaulle]

Nice buy Tobinen. I'd definitely change the plate. Do what 0a did and get a cheap private one on it.