Hi, I’m Andy and my wife is Janet.

We are enjoying a well earned retirement after 50 years of graphic design for me and some high profile computing for Janet.

Our current SLK is our second. I bought our first r170 200 as an anniversary present for my wife, and with the help of a friend, kept it a complete secret until the reveal. It’s the only time I’ve seen her speechless! 

At the time she worked at Ford head office in Brentwood and parked the SLK in the staff car park. It didn’t go unnoticed…

Unfortunately it succumbed, like so many, to rust and we took the decision to update to a 171 rather than spend a lot of money trying to save it.

I had been looking around for a while when I found what looked like a good one with most of the features we wanted. It was low mileage at 27000 and clearly a garage queen as it had only done 150 miles between the last two MOTs. So I was expecting some issues that follow a lack of use, as long as it looked sound underneath. 

It was at a dealer near Coventry, so we made an appointment and headed out on what looked like a bright sunny day. I generally stick to a rule not to buy a car in the rain, so it was disappointing that it started raining just as we arrived at the dealer. However, we had travelled from Essex, so pressed on against my better judgement, which came back to bite me later. It looked like a great car; clean underneath, good paintwork and ran faultlessly. Everything (including the roof) seemed to work OK, and no messages on the dash. So we did the deal and drove it home.

So far it has proved to be as we hoped. Nothing major wrong with it and it has settled in to be a daily driver for us and clearly appreciates being used. You could tell it hadn’t been used much previously as everything seems to have become smoother in operation. We have had the usual service items to do, brakes, springs, control arms and a new battery, but nothing unexpected for a 17 year old car.

The thing that came back to bite was the front wings. It wasn’t long after we bought it that I spotted the tell tale bubbles above the connection to the front bumper. They were probably there when we bought it, but I missed it due to the rain (lesson learned). As we have decided that the car is a keeper, we took the radical option of complete replacement with new brackets, rather than opt for a bit of rust repair. We have a very good, local, body shop and they did a great job. I bought the parts from our local main dealer and had them painted and fitted. My opinion of the brackets is well documented in my posts in the group.

The only other thing I have had to do is replace the headlights. As usual, they were awful. We live down narrow country lanes with no street lights, and it was impossible to see clearly at night. I discovered that both had a broken mounting, so replacement was the only option. Our dealer came good again with a pair of new lights with the Sport Pack grey interior at a very reasonable price. (I have been suitably impressed with Mercedes prices. They do seem to be comparable with any of the good branded aftermarket parts.) We are slowly working our we round the car to really bring it back to as near new condition as we can. We have had the wheels refurbished with a change of colour to AMG Graphite to match the grey Sport Pack accents and I’m going to polish up the panels either side of the rear screen. We have also had the drivers seat bolster refurbished as that was showing the usual wear.

The only thing the car didn’t have that we wanted, was parking sensors. However, I have since fitted an aftermarket head unit with car play and a reversing camera. I also drive a VW Tiguan and always leave way too much space behind the SLK when parking as a result. So the camera has helped a lot.

So that’s the story of our SLK journey so far. When we aren’t working in our garden or doing DIY maintenance on our old cottage, we can be found out and about enjoying the SLK (when I’m not riding my Aprilia…).

Kind Regards
 Andy Thomson