1995 Mercedes Benz Sl 500 Convertible Soft/hardtop on 2040-cars
Secaucus, New Jersey, United States
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ENGINE V-8, 5.0L, 304 CID, DOHC, 32 valves, four cams, Variable Valve Timing (VVT) 347 ft-lbs torque @ 3,900 RPM, 315 Horsepower @ 5,600 RPM, more than a huge SUV, Escalade or Hummer. That's right, the SL500 has over twice the horsepower of a full military HMMWV Hummer H1. 347 foot-pounds of torque is what shoots the SL500 forward smoothly as if moved by the very Hand of God or a hydraulic carrier jet launcher. Many people exclaim "Jesus Christ!" the first few times they undergo this acceleration to confirm the Hand of the Almighty's involvement. The SL500 weighs over two tons and accelerates to over 100 MPH in under 15 seconds. DRIVELINE 5 speed automatic electronic overdrive lockup transmission 1st: 3.59:1 or 45 MPH max @ 6,000 RPM. (3,650 RPM at 45 MPH after upshift) Reverse: 3.16:1 in normal mode, 1.95:1 in winter mode. That's right: the SL500 has TWO reverse gears! Select the "W" winter mode for high-speed reverse driving. At redline you can hit 50 MPH in the usual reverse gear, or 84 MPH in the winter-mode reverse gear! I hope Mercedes' firmware stops you from doing this. Let me know if you try. Changing a few lines of code in the engine management firmware ought to delay the upshift from fourth to fifth to 6,000 RPM at 165 MPH and hit 185 MPH at 5,600 RPM in fifth on level ground. Don't do this. I calculate if you found a long enough downhill with a strong tail wind you'd get to 198 MPH at 6,000 RPM in fifth! The power never stops while shifting since each upshift puts you back on the top of the torque curve. There's no letdown of power at each shift giving the SL a seamless flow of power at any speed. There's no jerking forward and back like other cars searching for a powerband while shifting. You get thrown into your seat and aren't released till you cry "uncle!" 1,800 RPM @ 60 MPH in 5th 2.65 rear axle ratio Standard tires: Michelin Pilot 225/55ZR16, 806 revs/mile. W and S settings on transmission. Normal is S, which stands for Standard or Sport or Summer. W stands for Winter or Wet and gives 2nd gear start and a taller reverse gear to keep you from spinning your tires in crummy conditions. The Winter position is quite clever: it gives smooth second gear starts in casual driving, and has no qualms about downshifting instantly back into first if you punch it. This needs more research since the Winter position might save fuel, give a comfier ride and not lose any performance. SUSPENSION Four-wheel fully independent suspension, just like the military HMMWV Hummer H1 and every Mercedes, BMW and other decent car made in the past several decades. Compare this to economy vehicles like the Hummer H2 and H3 and most Jeeps and Explorers and SUVs which lack independent suspension. Independent suspension means each of the four wheels can move freely without affecting the motion of any other wheel. Each driven axle requires an additional four universal or CV joints to add this feature. Lesser vehicles economize with a single solid axle for the front and/or rear wheels, which means that the motion of one wheel affects the motion of the wheel on the opposite side. Independent suspension improves traction, road and trail holding and ride quality all at the same time, and it's expensive to add. That's why few American vehicles go to the trouble. FUEL ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY EPA rated at 15 MPG City, 23 MPG Highway on premium unleaded. I get much better: 24 MPG on the highway with the top up and 17 MPG blasting around town like an idiot and coming to full stops at stop signs with the top down. Most cars and people get less than the EPA ratings. (This is why the EPA updated the rating procedure for the first time since 1972 for the 2008 model year.) This is incredible for a 300+ horsepower, 2 ton+ behemoth. This is a benefit of the 5 speed overdrive added with the 1996 model year and Variable Valve Timing. I'm unsure why the 1997 model is unique with only 15 MPG EPA city, since the other models are rated at 17 MPG city and that's what I get driving hard, and people usually get much worse than the EPA ratings. I suspect something was different in the test procedure that year, not the car. EPA ratings are with professional drivers, top up and the air conditioning turned off. I'm an amateur and leave the top down and the A/C on. Earlier models with the inferior mechanical 4 speed automatic transmission which lacked overdrive and took forever to downshift when you stepped on the gas only got EPA ratings of 14 MPG city / 18 MPG highway (1990 - 1993) or 16 MPG city / 20 MPG highway (1994 and 1995). It had just about the same ratios for the first four gears and lacked overdrive. It may also have lacked lock-up. The drag coefficient (Cd) is 0.32 for the cloth top, 0.31 for the hard top, and unspecified for the top down. Most convertibles are about a Cd of 0.7 with the top down, which is why Mercedes chooses not to publish it. It is laudable to have a cloth top with such a low Cd, this took a lot of work on their part. As the charts below show, the 1996 - 1998 models have the best Cds of any of the SLs, from 1954 through 2002. By comparison the 2006 Corvette Z06 that's been optimized for low Cd to run at 187 MPH (300 km/h) has the same Cd: 0.31 (AutoWeek, 10 January 2005, p. 28.) SAFETY The SL is the world's safest convertible. Two airbags per person; four total. Explosive charges in each seat called "Emergency Tensioning Retractors," or ETR, snug down the seatbelts in case of crash. Sensor in passenger seat prevents passenger airbags from going off if there's no passenger, saving us the costs of two airbags if not needed. Sound System All the SLs, at least since about 1993 though at least 2002, have wonderful Bose sound systems. They were standard, never an option. Only the CD changer was optional. This is the first sound system in the history of the world to have been custom designed and voiced to fit a specific vehicle. The SL sound system uses multi-amplified subwoofers and sounds great at any level. Compared to a $25,000 home system the bass is a little boomy, but better than any other automotive system I've heard. The voicing is a little crisp around 8kHz, and this helps add clarity over the road noise. I think I'd prefer it a little flatter, but I suspect if it was I'd be less happy. This system is designed to be loud enough to be heard at 155 MPH with the top down, which means it also can make you deaf. Playing a typical dynamically compressed FM radio station I measure 106 - 108 dBC continuous with slow weighting in the driver's seat, top down. This means it's loud enough to hear your music echoing back from under freeway underpasses, or as I said before, make you deaf. The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety & Health Administration's laws (OSHA) permits workers exposed to this noise level only one hour of exposure per day, and at that level you can expect some hearing loss. Here's OSHA's table. I measured dBC, OSHA looks at dBA, and both are similar at this level. Of course if you turn it down this is not a problem; just beware that it sounds so good that it's very easy to turn it up and not realize how loud it's gotten. I don't know it it's stupid-proof enough to prevent clipping if you turn it up too far. Radio AM, FM, Cassette and Weather band radio standard gets weather reports direct from NOAA in the USA. These radios are made by Becker in Germany. FM and cassette are stereo, AM and weather are mono. Earlier model year radios also provided AM stereo, as if anyone outside of broadcasting cares. Dolby B and C noise reduction for tape, none for FM. Radio and HVAC controls on 1997 SL500, same on SL320 and SL600. HVAC controls are the same from 1996 - 2002, radio is the same from ?1992 - 1998. The volume automatically varies slightly with speed. With the top down you'll still want to duck the levels when stopped to avoid sharing with the neighbors. It's effect is subtle. I hear it ramp up about 4 dB as I accelerate through 79 MPH. It ramps down a little at a slower speed to keep it from pumpiikng up and down. (Engineers call this hysteresis.) . This is great, it eggs you on to keep going faster! The faster you go, the louder it gets. Hard Top The removable aluminum hard top is included standard with all SLs. Any SL missing the hard top is incomplete and may as well be missing a wheel. Seriously, avoid any SL that is missing the top since it shows obvious owner neglect. A replacement top is $10,000 from Mercedes, so missing the top is even worse than missing all four wheels and tires! If you are shopping the secondary market beware any SL500 missing its roof. Some owners and dealers lose, damage or otherwise get rid of these tops and then try to claim that they were "just an option" when pawning off incomplete cars on less savvy buyers. Salespeople and private parties will feign all sorts of assurances of why their incomplete car is perfectly normal. If you're a first time SL500 buyer you might fall for it, unlike all the other familiar used car excuses you're expecting. Rest assured when you look at book values for cars they are for complete cars, not cars missing major body parts like roofs, wheels, doors or hoods. Even if you don't want the hard top you'll take a big price hit when selling an SL500 so don't get conned into buying a partial car for full price. Use the lack of a hard top to get a big discount, since whoever buys your SL500 from you sure will! My local dealer tells me you can order replacement tops just like anything else for the SL500, however the hard tops cost $10,000. Be sure to factor that in if considering the purchase of an incomplete SL500. The hard tops are a bit of folk lore here in sunny California where none of us, myself included, really want it. Many people get rid of them, thus I've heard all the stories. We never use them since we run the SL500 top down and put up the soft top if needed. We find ways to get friends to store them for us, hide them in friend's garages without them knowing and rent storage lockers for the tops until we sell our SL500s. Many better dealers, like Fletcher-Jones and MB of Laguna Niguel, offer to store these tops as part of their premium programs. Personally I use a block-and-tackle to hang it from the roof of my garage. I got it here. Others use little rolling carts to get them out of the way. The top only weighs 73 pounds since it's aluminum. The rear window has very special invisible heating elements for the defroster. The SL doesn't have the ugly horizontal lines painted on the inside of the glass as under-$100,000 cars do. The SL instead has about a hundred smaller invisible wires embedded inside the glass.
1997 Mercedes SL500 with standard removable hardtop The Three Tops The SL500 is a bargain when you consider it's three cars in one: a coup? with the hard top attached, a roadster with the top down, and a ragtop with the cloth top up. The cloth top is always with the car while the hard top is removable. If you get an SL with the hard top rest assured the soft top is snuggled away underneath.
With the standard removable hard top the SL500 is one of the world's most accomplished and beautiful 2-door coup?s. The Soft Top My power soft top lowers in 18 seconds and raises in 24 seconds. This is important; longer times with budget cars like the 2005 Cadillac XLR mean you can't do this while stopped at a red light. The SL500 is smart enough not to let you move the top while it's moving. The entire raising or lowering requires no more than a single touch of one button, a world's first. My 1970s American power-top convertibles were the same as today's domestics: you always had to grab and release one or two front latches and then manually attach or remove the tonneau cover. The tonneau cover covers the lowered top. Most users forgo using the tonneau since it requires more effort. The SL does all that for you electrohydraulically, including the tonneau cover! The SL is a $100,000 car, not a $20,000 Dodge Chrysler Sebring or similar. At speed the soft top of the SL is quiet and makes no wind noise. I never appreciated this until we got stuck with a Chrysler Sebring rental. Drive the Chrysler with the top up and you hear a ruckus coming from where the soft top and windshield meet, and whistling from above the side windows. Mercedes designs the tops and interfaces for perfect aerodynamics, airflow and quiet. It costs more to do it correctly. My American convertibles had big seams at the top of the windshield; the SL500 is completely smooth. The soft top of the SL even includes rain gutters to keep rain and windshield washer fluid off your side windows, just like Mercedes hard tops. These gutters are the slight indentations towards the front that channel water to the rear instead of letting it slip off to the side. For more complete history refer to http://www.kenrockwell. com/sl/ On Apr-15-14 at 11:05:08 PDT, seller added the following information: Car is running beautifully! Recently changed soft top ( please note that in the picture where it looks like it is lifted in the back is adjusted and no longer uneven). Also car does not come with original rims. Only the ones in the main picture, which are brand new with new tires bought in the summer of 2013. All work done on my end has been at Mercedes. No check engine lights and recent oil change. I also detailed car beginning of April .Feel free to contact me with any questions. |
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