I own both SL600 2004 and SL550 2007. Both fabulous cars. With the V12 you have intercoolers with a cooling system, I had replaced all my intercooler hoses, not terribly cheap but they were 15 years old, now they are all new. Also you have ignition coilpacks which can break, if and when that happens get it rebuilt by Clark (Info all over on this site). Great job. The spark plugs replacement is a "job" on this engine since they are under the coil packs, and there are 24 of them, cost just for the plugs is about $250 so people tend to ignore them, Mistake: Old plugs gap can increase, and make it harder work for the coilpack to make the spark jump, so new plugs and the exact right ones, will make your coilpacks last longer, IMHO. At 50K miles or less I would replace all the plugs with the exact ones (NGK Iridium) that the owners book says to use, and No substitutes. Other than that, there's the ABC suspension to maintain, and that's about all, besides the top, that there is to worry about for the 600. The brakes on the SL600!!! Four piston calipers, never seen anything stop like these, Just remember they are special and the SBC makes it highly dangerous to replace brake parts without first disabling the SBC pump... For this reason I would just have a qualified shop do the brakes on these cars... Also never seen anything GO like the SL600. When I first test drove my SL550 I asked, "Where's the other 300 horsepowers?! My 600 has a Renntech ECU with total almost 700HP. In factory form, came with 493HP and something like 510 foot pounds torque?! Either car you get, you will love. The R230 SL600 V12 twin turbo, they made only 4,015 of them! Pretty rare cars. I never drive mine in the rain, or when streets are wet or icy. No snow either. CTEK battery tender a must for any time parked more than about 5-6 days. If you want one of these cars, look all over the country and educate yourself about them first! Then you'll be a smart buyer. There is Nothing else like an SL600 R230!!
My SL550 is still an awesome car, near 400HP and so much torque that the previous owner, an old lady, never went over the speed limit for over ten years. With these cars there is so much torque, if you're a slow and careful driver you might never see RPM over 2800!!! For Years!! That was the case with mine, and the engine was suffering because of it. It was highly carboned-up inside. A friend who is a Boeing engineer said "We gotta seafoam this car." You take two cans of seafoam, slowly spray it into the engine intake while holding the gas pedal to keep the engine from stalling, takes 15-20 minutes to get it all in, finally shut off the engine and let it soak 30 minutes. Then, drive it like you stole it! Literally. Talking, up hills at 5500-6000RPM pedal to the floor, all that carbon burns up and out the exhaust, Massive smoke clouds, for nearly half an hour...a whole engine full of carbon loosened up by the Seafoam and blown out the exhaust. After 30 minutes like this, no more smoke and the engine was running SOOOOOOOO much better, it was like you spent $700 on a tune-up at the Benz dealership. After that, THEN new spark plugs, oil and filters changes, and the car drives as new today. Any 32 valve V8 NEEDS to see higher RPM every once in a while to blow out the carbon, more than other engines even. Not everyone's engine needs this treatment, most do not. But mine sure did! Once I met the little old lady who owned the car for over ten years, I understood... seeing how she drives, Hahaha, I bet she never had to get any new brake pads, driving that slowly! Most SL owners drive a little bit sporty, I would assume.... but not all of them. I am sure that whichever R230 you choose, you will love the car, and with all the knowledge you can find on Benzworld, it's pretty easy to learn a lot about anything you have questions on.
![20201210_151659[1].jpg](/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.benzworld.org/attachments/20201210_151659-1-jpg.2665427/)
![20201210_151712[1].jpg](/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.benzworld.org/attachments/20201210_151712-1-jpg.2665428/)
![20201210_151723[1].jpg](/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.benzworld.org/attachments/20201210_151723-1-jpg.2665429/)
![20201210_151812[1].jpg](/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,onerror=redirect,width=1920,height=1920,fit=scale-down/https://www.benzworld.org/attachments/20201210_151812-1-jpg.2665430/)
