| Hi Peter,
I use my SL 320 as a daily transport and I am quite happy about the mpg returned from the car.
Ok I only do something like 6.000 per year and I have a "Fast and Furious" driving style but I can make a couple of considerations: since your friend has childrens I guess he will be using the SL very little and for fun mainly so I understand he won't have a big per year mileage to cover with the car. If he has to watch every penny like you say he could consider something smaller than the 500 say a 320 (especially in the V6 form since it seems to have a batter fuel consumation) or even a 280.
About the LPG conversion I can tell the experience a friend of mine had with an Audi A8 4.2L V8: the conversion is very costly since what he used 8 injectors (one for each cylinder) using the liquid gas injection or something like that and actually he told me he was very happy with the whole thing and that, running on gas, the car was even faster that running on petrol either.
But we are talking about a 30.000+ miles per year person.
In the SL you could have the spare wheel tyre style gas tank and run on run flat tyres so you would avoid all problems but honestly for the considerations I made before about your friend mileage I don't think it's worth.
As for the resale value, I think that people byuing an R129 will use it as a "fun machine" so an LPG conversion will be on the bottom of priorities list when they hunt for one affecting the resale value since LPG is usually reserved for big mileages.
That's my point of view tho.
Cheers. |