I'm in the market for a '00 or '01 SL600 and I'd like to hear from current owners regarding their experience. Any dislikes, chronic problems?? Also, I cant find a single road test! I know it's fast, but what are the 0-60 and 1/4 mi. times?? Is the extra power felt vs. the SL500? I'm coming out of a 'Vette so I dont want to miss the acceleration!

 

I think the reason there aren't any road tests is because the 00 and 01 sl600 had been a very OLD model. It used the old DOHC V12 engine, unlike SL500, which had adopted the new SOHC V8 engine.

 

It's really fast. Trust me. I think around '02 or so they added twin-turbos (or "bi-turbos" in Euro-speak) for an additional 100 or so ponies.

You can feel the thrilling torque at any speed and more so than in a Corvette. Give it gas at 80mph on the Interstate and it'll press you back in the seat and take your breath away as the nose raises up and the speedo climbs amazingly fast, steady and smooth as you whiz past the traffic. You can be already past a car when the driver decides to cut you off. Trust me.

You can totally embarass any driver of a stock SL500 or 500SL no matter what the year. Most all other cars as well. It's easy to pick a race in one of these. It's a true sleeper. A supercar in sheep's clothing. Trust me.

You don't need no stinkin' 1/4-mile times. It's too expensive to race. It costs sixty-ninety-b'zillion dollars for any performance part. To put it in perspective, a stock spark plug wire will set you back nearly $70. I'm not talking a set of twelve either. Just one! It's an indignity to take this car in a straight line for that far anyway.

... and to your real question. Can the SL600 outpace a Corvette? I dunno. Depends on the specific cars and the drivers and yada yada yada. I can tell you for certain that you'll enjoy an SL600 even if you get a lemon. Okay, not if you get a lemon but for certain otherwise.

I like to tell people (and they don't believe me) that my SL600 does not have a cupholder. Doesn't that seem odd?

 

Thanx for the insight! Im not really trying to compare the SL to the Vette, I just want to make sure I dont lose the acceleration/torque that I'm accustomed to. I've been reading about the 600's and I had no idea the prices were in the 45k-55k range....pretty "affordable" for an original list of 100k plus. Plus, the engineering is first rate! However, I know no 600 owners firsthand.... have you had any problems other than expensive replacement parts?? Which aftermarket warranty company have you heard of??

 

I won't buy a warranty. I'd rather drive mine into a tree or roll it into a lake then get another one. When they're nine or ten years old like mine they're cheap, kinda, like you said.

The service manager at the MB dealership I go to said SLs like mine have a tranny issue. They tend to fail and require replacement. He didn't tell me when MB figured out the problem and fixed it during production and I didn't ask because it made no difference to me. The modulator pumps had to be adjusted on mine which is no big deal, but that's what brought up the tranny discussion.

When you find one to test drive make absolutely certain the tranny shifts okay. Drive it around first just to warm everything up. Check the shifting during normal driving. Accelerate slowly up a hill to load the tranny and let it shift. If there's the slightest slip during a shift you should seriously consider walking away unless a $4K-$5K tranny repair wouldn't kill your deal and put you upside-down dollarwise.

An SL600 is a fun car to just putt around in. There aren't thousands or hundreds of them (or even a few in my case) running around and filling parking lots. I never see one around here. I see many SLs, but I look for the "V12" emblem on the front qtr panels and never see one. My MB service manager said "We never see V12 SLs here" the first time I took my car there. I wish he hadn't said that, but hey.

 

Just looked up some info on the 00, 01 SL600
Mercedes estimated a 0-60mph run in 5.9sec
It is equipped with a 6.0 DOHC V12 engine, pumping out 389bhp and 420lb-ft of torque
Sales figure for the 600s had been around 500 a year....but came down to 346 in 2000.
The SL600 was missing in the Mercedes line up for model year 2003, with the intro of brand new SL 500 and the SL 55, the twin turbo charged 493bhp SL600 was introduced later as a 2004 model.

 

Hmmm, strange. My bench racing source also says 5.9 sec for 0-60 mph. That's bad data. I have no doubt.

My SL is as fast or faster than my '01 Corvette. My bench racer gives my Corvette a 0-60 mph time of 4.8 sec, which I consider conservative. There's no way in Hell the SL is over a full second behind up to 60 mph. No way in Hell. I've deposited melted tire rubber onto many LS-1 Corvette front ends and their LS-1 F-body little brothers with no problem.

Even the math racing doesn't add up. The SL is 1,000 lbs heavier than the Corvette but has over 100 more hp. That should theoretically even them up powerwise in a 1/4 mile race with a slight edge to the SL. The SL also has a better gear ratio for acceleration, especially against a Corvette with an auto trans.

 

Thanx for the performance info, Lugnut. I stumbled across the same figures yesterday, and they do seem conservative. Just the torque alone would seem to offset the extra weight. What size are the rear tires on your 600? Do they hook up well on launch? My '00 'Vette is a 6-speed with minor mods, and I love the performance but I'm ready to settle into an automatic. The 600 is the only car in the 40-50k price range with the power and torque I want. I'm also considering the C6 Vette though. All in all, the 600 is the most impressive car I've seen. The Jag XKR is powerful, but too tight for a guy my size.

I know the production numbers were limited to a few hundred, and I cant be too picky about colors. I'm going for a test drive this Saturday.... I'll keep you posted!

By the way Lugnut, whats the scoop on luggage space??

 

Mine had Michelin Pilots when I bought it. These are normally pretty decent high-performance tires. They were a little worn but not to the wear indicators yet. I could go 20 mph and dump the pedal. The car would slow down from the wheelspin. From launch, I'd have to feather the throttle or it would just sit and scream at me.

I went a little overboard, but I bought Goodyear Eagle F1 Supercar tires. They hardly spin at launch. I pushed a sport bike around some curves the other day. The bike was laid down and throwing sparks and the driver was working his *** off turning it, but I kept running up on him and letting off.

The tires I have aren't large by any means. 245-45-17. The F1 Supercars will only last about 20K miles. I can already see some wear at 5K miles so I don't recommend these unless you drive to the very extreme, and only on dry summer roads. They are the highest performance tire Goodyear sells OTC. Very soft and sticky.

The car came with 16" tires. I'm not sure about '00 and '01.

You won't miss the 6-speed. Playing with the torque is so fun you don't need a stick to enjoy the car. You can pass cars with ease without the tranny downshifting. You'll violate some important laws of physics though if you nail it at the apex and it downshifts. That's true of any car but you'll be in the national news if you do it in an SL600 because you'll likely go airborne.

The car runs soooo quiet and smooth I can't believe it. You can barely hear the pipes at full-throttle. It shoots down the highway like it's riding on a cloud. Just a fine, fine performing car. I want some rumbling side pipes on mine. Really. No, really. I'll never do it though. I'd have to get a cam because it would sound like a truck with just loud pipes. Then the slope gets slippery and ... you know ...

Luggage space? There's no cupholder. Does that give you any clue about luggage space?

I think if you cut it up into enough pieces you might could maybe get the body of a jogger to fit in the trunk. It's the kind of trunk that doesn't tolerate hard-sided luggage. You can get a lot of stuff in there if you use soft-sided luggage and then stuff the voids with garbage bags that are not too full of clean clothes on the way out and dirty clothes on the way back. Garbage bags have long been my luggage of choice for road trips.

There's a little space behind the seats and two small compartments. Mine has one filled with a subwoofer and an amp. Watch what you lay back there when the top is down. It's wide-open to the atmosphere unless you have a windscreen installed and the roll bar is down. If it's light enough it'll lift out of the car.

Overall, there's just a little less room as in your Corvette. A little different configuration though. Where the SL loses room is the partition between the cockpit and the trunk, and it doesn't have the sloping rear window. It's more like a FRC- or Z06-style trunk.

Mine has a small glove box on the dash. Right now it's completely filled with a useless telephone contraption base unit that I'm afraid to remove myself for fear that the car will explode from cutting the right wire with the wrong tool or something. It has a center console that's way over 1" deep (you MB folks need to own a Corvette to understand why I mention this). It has the telephone hand unit in it that I'm also afraid to remove. It has a compartment on the console that held cassette tapes in a plastic thingie which I tore out when I bought it. It's much bigger now but ugly when the door is open because it has no liner. I need to make a liner. There's another small compartment with a flip door on the console. There's a door pocket on each side.

The Corvette has none of these. Yeah, it has a glove box but every time I open mine everything inside gets dumped onto the floor. The console compartment is a joke. So give and take, the SL has more conveniences as far as storage of your smaller things but you can get larger luggage into a Corvette coupe.

 

I can relate to lugnut down to every detail (specially the phones... LOL).

The 600 is definately a SWEET Machine..... It gives you an awesome feeling when you're cruisin down the road knowing that you can eat almost anything in your path alive. With the car's handling abilities, you can basically put it anywhere you want to in the flow of traffic (specially here on the California Freeways.... well.. at least most Freeways).


Good luck on your search.


Here's a pic of mine






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