Free guide · 2001–2006 · M113 E50 · 306 PS
Mercedes SL 500 R230: what to check before you buy
What this car is, and the six questions that decide whether the one you are looking at is a good buy.
In this guide · 6 chapters
Who built it, and what they built
A two-seat roadster with a roof made of steel that folds itself into the boot, and hydraulic suspension that corrects the body as you drive. The M113 E50: 4,966 cc, a naturally aspirated V8, 306 PS, from 2001 to 2006. A five-speed automatic until August 2003, a seven-speed from September 2003. Rear-wheel drive.
The one thing you must settle before anything else
"SL 500" describes two different cars. Up to the 2006 facelift it is the M113: 5.0 litres, 306 PS. After it, the M273: 5.5 litres, 388 PS. Same badge, same shape, different engine and a different set of things that go wrong.
This guide is about the 2001–2006 car with the M113. If the advert says SL 500 and the car is registered in 2006 or later, check the engine before you read on.
What is unusual about it, specifically
Three things, and they were on the same car at the same time.
The Vario roof is a folding hard top: eleven hydraulic cylinders, sixteen seconds, and the whole structure disappears under the bootlid. Active Body Control keeps coil springs and dampers, but adds a hydraulic plunger cylinder to each strut that pushes back against lean. And Sensotronic Brake Control replaces the hydraulic link between your foot and the brakes with wires and a pump.
The R230 is the car that carries all three at once. That is why it drives the way it does, and it is also the whole of this guide.
One piece of genuinely good news, before the rest
The M113 itself is not the risk. It is the same V8 family that Mercedes put in the CL, the S-Class and the E-Class of the period, and it drives its camshafts by a double roller chain, not a belt. What makes an R230 expensive is everything around the engine.
And one warning that shapes this whole guide
Every one of the three headline systems is hydraulic. The roof leaks onto the electronics. ABC leaks onto the floor. SBC has a pump unit that wears out and counts its own operations.
How the figures in this guide work
There are no prices in here, and that is deliberate. A workshop rate differs by a factor of two or three between countries, so a figure we cannot verify for you is worse than no figure. What does not move is how much work a job is — that follows from what has to come off the car.
So every item says whether it is an hour or two, half a day, a day, two or three days, or a week or more in the workshop, and whether the money sits in the part or in reaching it. Ask any garage one question — what is your hourly rate? — and every item becomes your own number.
The six questions that decide whether this car is a good buy
If you read nothing else, read these. Every one of them can be asked on the telephone, before you spend a day travelling.
1 · What year is it, exactly?
Up to the 2006 facelift it is the 5.0 M113; after it, the 5.5 M273. Check the engine, not just the year. Everything below assumes the first.
2 · Does the roof open and close, ten times in a row, while you watch?
Not once. Ten times. A roof that sticks on the eleventh cycle is a roof you are buying.
3 · Is there any staining on the headlining or in the boot?
Hydraulic fluid from the roof leaves marks before it leaves you stranded, and water from blocked drains ends up where the electronics are.
4 · Does it stand level, and has it stood overnight?
ABC struts and lines leak, and standing still is where it shows.
5 · Has SBC ever been replaced, and is there paperwork?
The unit counts its own operations, and that reading, taken with Mercedes diagnosis, is the only honest answer. Ask too what the recalls involved on this car: a closed recall is not the same as a new unit.
6 · How much does it get driven?
This is the counter-intuitive one. On an R230, standing still is worse than mileage. Seals dry out, hydraulics seize, batteries die. A car that has done 120,000 km and is used weekly is usually a better buy than one that has done 40,000 and sits.
Which years, which specification
2001 to 2006 — the M113 car, and the subject of this guide. Presented in July 2001 and built until March 2006. 5.0 V8, 306 PS, a five-speed automatic until August 2003 and a seven-speed from September 2003. ABC and SBC standard.
2006 — the facelift. New grille, new engines. The SL 500 becomes the 5.5 M273 with 388 PS, sold in the United States as the SL 550. If you want the car in this guide, you want one built before that change, and you check the engine rather than the year, because an earlier car can be registered late.
The 2006 change also matters for an earlier car, and it is the single most useful fact in this guide. It concerns the ABC parts, and it means an early R230 that has had ABC work is not necessarily a bodged car — it can be a better one. So if there are invoices for ABC work, the question is which parts were used, by number if the seller has them. Which parts you want to see there is in the buying guide.
Specification to look for. The panoramic glass roof was an option; it is beautiful and it is one more thing that can leak. Standard alloys and standard ride height matter more than trim: an R230 that has been lowered has had its ABC set-up changed by somebody who did not understand it.
What it is worth
Not in money — see above — but in the only currency that matters when you are standing next to one.
An R230 is priced as a cheap luxury car and runs as an expensive one. That is the whole trap. The purchase price stopped being the only large number in this transaction some years ago: the roof, the suspension and the brake are each specialist work, and none of them gets cheaper because the car did.
So the value of a specific car is not what it is listed at. It is:
- what the roof does, ten times in a row, and
- what the paperwork shows for ABC and SBC, and
- whether it is used or stored.
A car with invoices for ABC work carried out with the right parts, an SBC unit replaced with the invoice to show it, and a roof that cycles without hesitation is worth substantially more than its advert suggests. A car with none of those, at half the price, is not half the car — it is the same car with the bills still in front of it.
What it is actually like to own one
Very good, and not relaxing in the way the shape suggests.
The V8 is quiet and enormous-feeling and asks nothing. The roof is genuinely theatrical and you will use it far more than you expect, because sixteen seconds is short enough to do at a set of lights. ABC, when it is healthy, does something no ordinary suspension does: the car simply stays flat, and you stop noticing until you get back into something else.
What you do not get is the ability to ignore it. This is a car that wants to be driven weekly, kept dry, and watched. Owners who do that report very few problems. Owners who park it for the winter and come back in April find out what dried seals cost.
The honest summary: the SL 500 is a wonderful car to use and a poor car to store.
The buying guide — €24
Everything above is what the car is. This is what you check.
Five faults that belong to this car, taken apart one by one, with how much work each repair is and how to tell which of them you are looking at. Eleven things that are simply twenty years old, every one with how much work it is, what tells you about it at a viewing, and whether it has to be done now, within a year or two, or not at all. What an R230 shell does with age, and where a leaking roof sends its bill. Why the build date, not the year on the registration, decides which engine you are buying, and why a stored car is worse than a used one. The viewing in seven steps, including the two moments that come only once. The sentences you say to the seller, and how to build an offer out of what you found.
And a card you print and take with you — eighteen lines, in the order you do them. That comes as a separate file, because nobody wants to print a whole guide to take a few pages to a car park.
This is what one of the eleven looks like
9 · Seat bladders and multicontour adjustment
Half a day · small pumps and bladders in the backrest Chapter 8. The seat still works when they fail; the shape does not.
Optional, honestly.
And this is how the card reads
- Standing, before you start it
- Running
- On the move
What €24 buys, put next to what it saves
The Vario roof runs on eleven hydraulic cylinders, and when the seals go it stops halfway and goes neither open nor shut — two or three days of specialist work. It is also the one item you can test for nothing: open and close it ten times while you stand there. The guide is €24. It will not stop any of that from being needed — but it does tell you which of them you are looking at before you agree a price, and that is the whole of the difference between paying for a car and paying for someone else's postponed maintenance.
Why there are no prices in it
Because a price we cannot verify is worse than no price, and because a price would be wrong for most of the people reading this anyway. Workshop rates across Europe differ widely, and so do parts prices. A quote from a specialist in one country tells you nothing in another.
What does not change is how much work a job is — that follows from what has to come off the car. So every point in the guide says whether it is an hour or two, half a day, a day, two or three days, or a week or more in the workshop, with a labour figure where a source gives one. And it says whether the money sits in the part or in getting to it, which is what lets you tell a fair quote from a bad one.
If you want a figure, ask any workshop one question — what is your hourly rate? — and every effort level in the guide becomes your own number, in your own currency. One question, and the answer is actually true for you.
How this guide was put together
Because you should know before you pay for it.
- Every fault and symptom comes from a source the guide names, the manufacturer's own documents first. The effort levels are our assessment, unless a source gives the hours.
- The guide says plainly that the M113 engine is the least of your worries on this car — and that everything around it is hydraulic: the roof and the suspension leak, and the brake unit counts its own operations until it has to be replaced.
- The effort of every job is counted item by item and checked against the list before every edition.
- It says as plainly what you can leave alone as what you have to do. Four of the eleven age points start from leave it.
Leave your email address at the checkout and both files arrive straight away: one guide and one card, as two pdfs. No subscription, no account.
The full guide · €24
16-page guide, A4 and phone · 2-page inspection card · instant PDF · VAT included
Have every car inspected before you buy by someone who knows this engine. This is general information about the model and not advice about a specific car.