What a piece of Junk. Believe it or not I have wanted a Benz all my life. My last name is Benz. Finally I had the opportunity to buy a 230 slk. I have had it since April. Starmarked warranty. In the shop 4 times for the Transmission. I have changed every lightbulb in the car once and some twice. Brakes, radius bushing in the rear, map sensor, air conditioner quit, and several other issues. Mercedes is terrible at taking care of your service issues after the dealership.
I would never buy one again. Period. I have owned many new cars. I too was decieved by the Mercedes lore. Not just a coincidence. I look at the dealership and watch and talk too many other owners very dis-appointed.
I have a 1989 300e and it runs like a champ I'm sorry you got a lemon, but mercedes benz are the only cars I will ever buy.
My wife and I have a 1998 slk and we are quite happy with it. I drive a old 300TD with over 300,000 miles on the odometer And I will never sell it. J.R. as I call my wife's auto has been quit good to us, I realy do not envision selling that automobile any time soon. Granted I do not feel the slk has the same quality built in to it as the 300TD. However, my next Benz will be a 1971 or earlier.
We looked at a BMW Z car and came with in five minutes of purchasing it when I said to my wife let's go to Crown and check what they have to offer. Thank god we did. BMW makes geat bikes and I have one. However, after owning a 530 back in the 80's I would never own another.
The slk has and still is a very good car for us. I believe you must have received a Lemon.
I recently bought a 1999 slk 230 and never had single problem with the car. It runs great and I really enjoy its handling capabilities. The design, wow it's an eye catcher. I dnt see any problem with the car at all. I use to own a 1989 300e, 1991 190e, 1987 C 280 and they were all great cars. Do you work for another competition car manufacturer? I'm just asking.
For the most part, I have been very happy with my 99 SLK. I've treated it like a baby... (Garage kept, regular maintenance, bi-annual polish and wax) except for driving it through 6 harsh Midwest winters. Still, it’s a “truck-like” car when it comes to harsh winters...Heck; it's got heated seats... But then the worst thing happened... I got slammed into the rear by an SUV. No one was hurt, but the damage came to about $8k and I am still having problems 3 months after the accident. The latest problem is the retractable roof. It decided to quit working this weekend. Now I am dealing with the Mercedes dealer who is blaming the auto body repair shop (who they recommended!!!) and the auto body repair shop who is saying it worked when it left his shop, and it has been working all the way up till now... so bring it to the Mercedes dealer for repair. So the consumer (me) is stuck in the middle with a retractable roof that is stuck in the semi up/semi down position. I can't even drive it unless I can figure out how to manually get the roof in the fully up or down position. Any advice on that would be appreciated. Please send your response to friedmn@comcast.net.
Thanks.
Bought a 98 slk with 6000 miles on it a little more than two years ago. Now has 8000 miles plus. Needed a new alternator a few months ago. Actually needed a new voltage regulator, but since it was strangely inside the alternator, had to replace the whole thing. Runs OK, but wish it drove as nicely as it looked. Real eye candy!Better looking over the long term than the new slk, which looks faddish (but the new drives better, a lot better). On the rear end damage of the other guy, yes I have heard that a rear end hit will always give you problems with the retractable top. But excluding that, it's a good car which doesn't drive as nice as it looks, but it sure doesn't show.
I own a 1999 SLK 230 that has been flawless for 80,000 miles. It is the most comfortable small roadster I have driven. My only complaint is not being able to get the golf clubs in the trunk with the top down!
A few years back I bought a used '98 230 SLK with about 18K miles on it. The 4-year factory warranty had expired, so I purchased with the car a 4-year / 60K miles extended warranty. Unfortunately, I have yet to have used the warranty for which I paid almost $4K. However, this speaks to the general good quality of the car. I have heard of some owners having very poor experiences with this Mercedes model, but I have had nothing, but positive experiences with both the car and the dealership. Most recently the manufacturer posted a recall on the rear tail light assemblies. This was a timely recall for me as my passenger-side brake light was just starting to malfunction (although I had figured out how to go around the problem and still get the lamp to work). When I took the car in to get the new tail light assemblies I was in and out of the dealership in 4 hours.
In terms of performance, when proceeding from a standstill using the automatic transmission, the car has pretty slow pick-up. But when you finally get to a high enough speed that the Kompressor can kick in you are in for a terrific surprise. At that point the car feels great and the acceleration is breathtaking. One way to increase your initial, off-the-line speed is to use the manual function of the transmission. When using the shifter manually, you can allow the car to reach higher levels of RMPs than the automatic transmission allows and your acceleration is greatly increased.
Right now (the car is about 9-years-old) the only troubles that I am experiencing have to do with the heating/cooling fan and the radio. The fan has recently begun to quietly squeal as it whirls on the lower speeds--not a big deal and the noise actually comes and goes. The radio, when switched to FM, has unfortunately been unable to pick up stations with weaker signals. When switched to AM, I cannot get a single station to come in at all. I am thinking that perhaps when the dealership switched out the tail light assemblies they might have pinched or cut the antenna wire which is right back in there where the driver's-side tail light assembly connects. In order to confirm this though, I will need to have a diagnosis made at the dealership and if it was not their fault, I'll end up paying the exorbitant dealership service fees. I think I'll just listen to the CD player!
One more slight concern that I am hoping someone else might have experienced is this. When going around corners (especially ones that are on a downward slope) at speeds upwards of 30 MPH (fun!), I hear a groaning sound coming from the front of the car. I assume that it has something to do with the ball joints or tie rods, but the dealership looked at it a number of times (and of course could never recreate the sound), but they have not been able to explain the noise. Has anyone else experienced this sound in their SLK? Anyone know what the cause might be?
I Have a 1996 silver slk 200 kompressor, the oldest one in the page, but also the prettyest one I'm shure. with the original black bottom and red&black inside.
I've never had any problems with my car!
With regular assistance and good treatment my car only needed 4 tires and suspensions for all this years.
I have only one complain, it's the inside paint color, which was made with poor materials, and after some years it started to fade, and desappear, becoming black instead of red.
After I fixed that my car became new again.
It is a power steering problem, I went for a 60K oil change and turns out the car needs 2K worth of servicing. I complained to the manager and reduced costs to 1.1K although that is a lot. Problems included power steering, transmission leaking, worn engine belts, front end alignment, etc... its ridiculous.
I bought a 98 slk 230 in the fall and drove it for 2 weeks with no problems then let it sit for 3 months. The next time I took it out at about 15 mph the idle would rev up and down until it stalled. Started up and idle was fine until I reached the same speed and the same thing happened again. Someone mentioned mass air flow sensor or altitude sensor. Any help would be great.
Just bought a 1999 SLK 230 and I'm digging it. Need to find some parts to complete the rebuild. Dealerships are way too expensive. Having a particularly hard time finding SRS components. I know you usually go through the dealership for Air bag things. However, I have found some junkyards that will sell you the Air bag and bracket/harness. I welcome any of your thoughts as to where to get aftermarket parts, forums, etc. Thanks.
Ask a technician at your mercedes dealership. When I worked for audi I knew all the good places to get parts. I'm sure your mercedes techs will know just where you need to look. They aren't out for your money the dealership is. Techs only see about 3 percent of the profit if that.
Just got a used 1999 SLK kompressor with 48,000 miles. I when
start the engine it seems to start rough and loud. I pump the
excelorator and then it quiet down. But I'am afraid that I will flood the engine and I will have future problems. Does anyone else have the same problem? And if so what did you
do about it?
I just bought a 1998 SLK 230 Kompressor, if you lay into the accellerator just right you'll hit the sweet spot and the supercharger kicks in like a rocket! Can't just punch it to the floor!
For the guy with the erratic reving problem, might be the idle air control valve, don't know what mercedes calls it. It acts like the dashpot on a carb. It's basically an air bypass valve for fuel injection, you will not get an engine service light, it recieves a non-feedback signal from the engine control computer, they tend to wear out, get dirty and stick.
I just responded to the guy with the high revving motor. The guy with the rough starting; you might have a similar problem, and might want to check your plugs. If it's wet with antifreeze, you might have a head gasket issue -- only if it's hard to start also.