Hi
My father-in-law gave me his 1991 560SEL to sell. It has about 186,000 miles on it. He bought the car from an elder gentleman (second owner of the car) who had lost all the paperwork due to his move to nursing home and lost some mental memory as well. It was sold by his son (who was the legal guardian).

I am thinking of keeping the car if our apartment complex allows it and if my finances allow as I hear rave reviews about this car and this model year.

Since I do not have any history on maintainence of this car, what would you guys recommend that I do at this point?
What would be the recommended oil for oil change?
Would you recommend tune-up and what should be changed in the tune-up (and not just inspect?)
Any other recommendations?

Thank you!
Raza

 

For some reason MB suggests using fairly heavyweight oil for the 560 compared to other models. I use 15-50 Mobil 1 exclusively in both my 560SL and my 300D. Actually i put so few miles on my 560 compared to my 300 (the 560 has 82K, the 300D has almost 300K) that i usually change the oil every 1000 miles on the SL, drain it into a clean container and screen it thru a paint filter and re-use it in the diesel. The reason i change it every 1000 miles is because i never put more than 2000 miles a year on the SL. The downside to using synthetic oil on a high mileage engine like the one U are talking about is that sometimes it will cause oil leaks.
You might want to think 2X about keeping that old SEL. even my sports car that probably weighs far less only gets 13 MPG. Also the 560 is very expensive to maintain; with that many miles on it it will probably need head work and/or timing chain work soon. You can buy a pretty nice car for what it costs to rebuild one of these. As far as a sedan goes you would be far better off with a high-mileage Lexus in terms of cost/mileage..Pete

 

Thank you Pete for your honest replies.

I have infact put this car on the sale as of a few weeks ago. I was thinking of keeping this car only after reading good things about the car. Maybe, I should re-think that decision. I still have not heard from apartment complex with regards to having three cars yet
Thanks for the oil information. I will make sure I get that done. Since I do not have any maintainence records, it is really difficult to figure out what needs to be done.
I do hope it gets sold as I really do not need it and have not even driven one mile since it was bought!
Thanks again for the head and timing chain info. as well.
Raza