High Mileage SLK55's (or 7g Auto euqipped Mercs)

[MattyB_]

Looking for an SLK55 at the moment, and there are a number of 90-100k cars listed on PH.

I'm not concerned too much about the engine, as they seem bulletproof and are pretty unstressed. My main concern falls the 7g Auto, which can be costly to sort and (probably) to replace. Any ideas how well they handle the mileage? Anyone got any tales to tell, warning signs to look out for, or notes of interest?

Thanks.

[TheGroves]

Hey Matt,

I picked up an SLK55 last year and have a life long friend who is a fabulously well informed Merc indie. The thing to look for is a documented record of the gearbox having been serviced at the correct intervals, I think from memory every 40k. Even though mine had it in the history, a few gear change hiccups led me to having it redone. (Bought car at 60k, had extra gearbox service at 68k, 12k early).

If done properly it should be about a three hour job so look for the labour rates with the consumables etc. When done correctly, the gearbox should be left for enough time to be drained properly, turned, flushed, drained again, flushed then re-filled etc. Merc stealer/dealer had been responsible for the 40k gearbox service on mine. When I had it done recently, my man discovered that Merc had not replaced the magnet that sits inside the gearbox to collect swarf after having taken it out to clean it.

The signs that led me to having mine re-serviced was an occassional tendancy for the car to go into 'limp home' gearbox mode which gives you 2nd & Rev which reset if I re-started the car. Problem was being caused by loose swarf floating about and landing among the internal gearbox electric/valve pack. Hence the magnet....Bloody stealers!!

Am led to beleive its a £7k gearbox to replace, (so you'd hope also bomb proof) and I know that the electric pack if needing to be replaced is about £800 as there was a chance that if the service hadn't solved mine, that would be the next suspect.

Hans't missed a beat since serviced properly and instantly felt like brand new.

Hope it helps.

M

[MattyB_]

Thanks.

No stories of complete box failures, but it seems there is a common failure point which is £1000-1500 to fix. I made the mistake of searching for "7g faults" and got plenty of scare stories Although apparently not mileage dependant, many are around the 40-50k mile range.

I've never been a fan of main dealers, no matter what the marque you always hear stories of cut corners. I'd rather find a good indie who's got a reputation to uphold.

Problem at the moment is that SLK prices are all over the place, massive price variations seemingly independant of spec or mileage. I was going to put a wanted advert up, see if I could find someone who was planning to P/X that I could offer a better price too. Just need to be careful with these cars - some new brakes plus a service can easily see a £2-3k bill!