SL55 AMG

It seems all AMG's take a hit and all are good buys pre-owned. I had an SL55 and an SL65. Both great cars. Negotiating on another SL65 right now. The 55 I only had for a little while before I upgraded but great engine and sound. Love the folding hardtop. Feels rock solid just know going in that turns are not its strong suit.

 

I owned a moded SL55, it was a great highway car, though not great at anything else, the tranny needed to be shifted using the lavers to get the car to use its power band even close to the right way, and without the traction control on (which is how I dlike to drive) it could not handle its own power. But they are a great buy for someone not concerned with those things.

 

Having owned several MB's. I wouldn't own another Mercedes unless its an AMG!! AMG makes all the differnce in these cars!

 

Huge power difference. Surprised to hear someone say they had to shift it to get in the powerband. I even have a E55 (same engine) right now and I find the engine has instant torque at any RPM.

To answer your question on the difference between the 65 and the 55. Yes the power is the main difference. Handling is slightly better but its the power that gets me. No black series for me. Can't justify the added $$. Although I do think it looks cool as hell.

 

All SL55s are AMG.

 

and it's my daily driver.
The car is fantastic. Makes huge power, and has all the buttons. I love the keyless and the pano roof. It makes a great daily driver, BUT BEWARE. DO NOT buy one of these without a warrantee- period. I've owned mine for 13 months, put 8000 miles on it, and it's been to the shop for repairs 8 times! Yikes! The car has also left me stranded once. The problems have been in multiple different systems as well. The car is fun, but it better not be your only car.

 

I don't know if 348's issues are typical, but maintenance costs are a very big reason why these cars depreciate so much.

 

Definitely not the norm. Again I had one with no problems and I now have the E55 with the same engine. 83,000 miles and no problems at all!

 

I love the power delivery characteristics of the supercharged 55 engine. There's just so much torque anywhere in the rev band.

I don't have any ownership experience with the SL55, but I did own an E55 with the same engine. I echo the recommendations to make sure you have warranty coverage. My E55 had problems with a bad intercooler pump, fuel smell in the cabin and various oil leaks. I found complaints about these same problems from other owners on mbworld.

mbworld is a pretty good resource:
http://www.mbworld.org/forums/sl55-amg-sl63-amg-sl65-amg-r230-49/

 

To answer the question...

AMGs are mostly sold as status symbols. After a couple years the owners want the latest and greatest so they dump them. Combine that with stupid high maintenance costs once out of warranty and viola... huge depreciation.

 

You can buy one without warranty and 50k miles for under $30k. Perhaps a change in mindset could be in order. Buy the car for $30k, and have $10k in the bank for repairs. Guaranteed to spend $30k, but possibly $40k.

Or, pay more for one with warranty, at least $40k for one which has a M-B CPO warranty. The cheapest one I see on mbusa is $45k. In this case guranteed to pay $45k.

You might get lucky and not have many problems with the first scenario and when you sell it in two years hardly lose any money.

 

I owned a 2007 SL55 for a while. It was hands down the best motor I have ever driven; that is, if you love torque and I do.

Trust me, 0-60, the SL55 will take a Maranello.

However, it is a lot softer car than a Shark, which is good if you like that sort of thing.

Tip: Never, ever, buy any AMG new. What you want to do instead is buy at 2 and sell at 5. These cars depreciate faster than keys falling out of a Lear Jet.

Why? Number 1, MB makes too many of them. Number 2, almost all of them are leased. This is why you can pick up a 2008 CLS63, that sold for $170K new, for $85k, with under 15,000 miles. Crazy, isn't it?

Frankly, though, it makes bottom feeders like me very, very happy.

Dale

 

True. Just don't buy those "SL550"s with the AMG badge tagged on. I'm seeing more of those nowadays unfortunately.

 

Or you could buy an aftermarket warranty. I spent ~$3k for 4 years of coverage for my E55. It paid for itself within the first 12 months, and when I sold my car I got a pro rata refund for the remaining warranty months.

 

I'm curious if it really covered all that much or if you were lucky the problems you had happened to be under the umbrella of the parts that your particular warranty covered. Most (all?) of the aftermarket warranties I have seen were far short of bumper-to-bumper, even the powertrain seemed to have so many disclaimers that they could often refuse coverage if it was a really big failure.

 

My warranty was an exclusionary warranty, meaning that it covered everything other than a specific list of parts. IIRC, these were wear-and-tear items, some interior parts and interior electronics. I had no problem getting the warranty repair work done at a local Mercedes dealership.

 

I had a very moded 04, I am sure they have changed the tranny since then, but on that year the tranny did not seem well suited (held gear too long), for the cars power. I will admit I am much more picky than 99.9% of drivers and have been known to take cars down to the chasis and put them back together the way I want them to be. All in all I think it was a nice car in fact the women I'm involved with now might be getting one in the spring.