A quick refresher is in order, as it’s been a few years since I COALed about this topic: I’ve always loved convertibles, and growing up my parents had a 1971 Buick LeSabre convertible that I racked up many miles (and smiles) in high school and college cruising with my friends. After going without a convertible for most of my adult life, I decided on a lark to purchase a well-worn 2002 Audi TT roadster for $6,000 back in the spring of 2015. It proved to be so popular with my wife and kids that later that same summer I traded it in on a black 2006 Mercedes Benz SLK 280 that I have owned up until this day (well, until very recently).
Before going further, a word or two on my infatuation with two-seaters is in order, since I never really adequately explained it in my previous COAL posts. It seems particularly relevant in light of the current (COVID) times we live in.
A two-seater is the perfect pandemic and post-pandemic car, being the ultimate in social distancing. With no back seat, there is no room for kids, colleagues, or anyone else – it is just you and your bubble-mate. During the lockdown of 2020, putting the top down and going for a drive was one of the few outdoor pleasures I could still indulge in safely without wearing a mask.
Two seaters are intimate. One good-sized bag is about all that will fit in the trunk with the top down, necessitating that you and your travel companion’s clothes and toiletries share a single bag (and all the negotiations and compromise that entails). There’s no wide console or gaping chasm between you and your passenger, as there is in a minivan or SUV. Just a narrow armrest that you both must share. There is no taking a “time out” from your passenger by retreating to different rows. If you get in an argument, you work it out.
Two-seaters are a parent’s dream. My oldest son Josh’s first car, an Audi TT, while technically a 2+2, effectively functioned as a two-seater, while my younger son drives my Crossfire, which is of course a true two-seater. The limited carrying capacity means that they were seldom asked chauffeur friends around when they were in high school. I didn’t have to worry about either one hauling a large number of kids (in violation of Ohio’s routinely violated graduated teenage drivers license laws) nor succumbing to group pressure to drive irresponsibly.
Out with the old…
Back to the car at hand: While we always thought we would keep the ’06 SLK 280 forever (I even referred to it as “The Keeper” in its COAL post) things, as they are wont to do, change. What started out as small annoyances a few years ago have become more pronounced as the years have worn on (for both me and the car).
For starters, the seats in my 2006 SLK are perhaps the most uncomfortable of any car I’ve ever owned (even if they are red leather, which my wife and I both love). The degree of discomfort seems to have only grown in the intervening years as both I and the car have gotten older. I’m sure that part of the blame can be ascribed to the 100,000+ miles of use this car has accumulated, but the design of the seats takes some blame as well. This is perhaps the only modern car I have ever owned without adjustable lumbar support, a surprising omission for a Mercedes-Benz. After perusing the online SLK forums, it seems that I wasn’t alone in my complaints about the seats in this generation of SLK. Several commenters have resorted to using pillows or rolled-up T-shirts for more padding and support. My advice if you are thinking of buying one – be sure to sit in it for more than a few minutes.
Furthermore, my second-generation (R171) SLK 280 was also a base model, sporting relatively few options – atypical of my automotive purchases. Specifically lacking were all-weather amenities like heated seats and air scarf (warm air vents in the seats that discharge onto your neck). According to the CarFAX, my SLK 280 was originally sold in Palm Springs, California, whose desert climate surely rendered these things as superfluous as snow tires. Unfortunately, I live far from Palm Springs in Cleveland, Ohio, and our convertible driving season is correspondingly short. For my next roadster, heated seats and air scarves were going to be a must, in an effort to eke out as much top-down driving time as possible.
Lastly, I’ve also had growing concerns about the reliability and longevity of the R171, which has a well-deserved reputation for being fragile. I’ve already had to address some of the weak spots, at considerable expense. But the most notorious weak spot, the balancer shaft sprocket gear, had yet to fail and was always handing over my head like a Sword of Damocles, waiting to fail. Rather than investing in more repairs in a car that I was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with, I decided to put out the feelers for a used third-generation (R172) SLK, which by now are starting to hit peak depreciation.
…In with the new.
My search parameters were fairly specific – a loaded R172 with a red interior, in any exterior color but white (neither of us cares for this color). After a quick search, I located a silver 2016 model with less than 30,000 miles that met all my needs (if a two-seat roadster can be described as a necessity) just a few hours away in Chicago. After a quick one-way flight, a personal check(!) and a handshake, the car was mine and I started off on a trouble-free 350-mile drive home.
After a few months, the SLK 300 has far exceeded my expectations. I knew the newer R172 would be an upgrade over my R171 SLK 280, but I was not prepared for how big of an upgrade it would be.
Easily the biggest improvement is in the interior. The interior of the R171 always struck me as a little rugged and spartan, with hard textured plastics everywhere. While this might be an appropriate interior for a roadster that is potentially getting exposed to sunshine and the elements, it wasn’t really an appropriate interior for a luxury car, especially a Mercedes-Benz.
Not so the R172: My SLK 300 sports soft plastics and rich-looking (albeit fake) dark wood trim. It is virtually the same interior as used by the six-figure SLS AMG GT. The “SOLAR” red ambient interior lighting (pictured above) looks suitably cool at night. And the seats are among the most comfortable I’ve sat in, and include (yes!) four-way power lumbar adjustment.
World’s shortest covered bridge, Ashtabula, Ohio
The old SLK 280 was wobbly and rattley (again, some of this could be due to the 90K miles it already had when I purchased it) with a firm ride that crashed over the slightest bump. My SLK 300 (with less than 30K miles) feels like an actual German car – solid, well-controlled, and rattle-free. While you never forget you are in a short wheelbase roadster, the ride is magic carpet smooth when compared to the older R171 SLK (or my R170-based Crossfire).
Under the hood, the SLK 300 sports the now ubiquitous turbocharged 2.0L four-cylinder engine that has become the 21st century equivalent of a 5.0 liter V8 – A configuration that most manufacturers have settled upon that provides a good mix of power, economy, and durability (Virtually every car I’ve purchased in the past decade has had a Two-Point-Oh-Tee engine of some sort). In this application, it puts out 242 hp and 273 lb-ft. of torque, good for a 0-60 time of 5.8 seconds, easily besting by old V6-equipped SLK 280. While I’ve certainly driven faster cars, this is easily the most capable car I’ve ever actually owned, and on more than one occasion I’ve worried about pulling a “Mustang at Cars and Coffee” when stomping on the gas while pulling out of a parking lot.
The nine-speed automatic, while being a traditional torque-converter unit, will bang our firm shifts reminiscent of a DSG transmission when in sport mode, and will even do rev-matching downshifts. In Eco mode, it will loaf along at 1,800 RPM at 70 mph in 9th gear while returning over 30 mpg. The only gripe here is the weird control panel: A spring-loaded rocker, where (counterintuitively) you push forward for Reverse and pull backwards for Drive. There is a separate button for Park: I forget to press it all the time, but luckily the vehicle will automatically put itself into park after turning off the engine and opening a door.
The only aspect that is not a clear upgrade is the styling, where the R172 is somewhat of a mixed bag. The R171 SLK is smooth and anodyne, almost to the point of being generic. I’ve gotten much more attention and thumbs up in the newer SLK than I ever got in the old one. Honestly, the original R170 SLK is still the best looking of the three generations.
What they were aiming for.
The R172 is muscular, sporting a multitude of curves, creases, and scoops, to mixed effect. The front is heavy and bulky, especially when equipped with the AMG packages as mine is. The grille with its protruding upper lip looks strange, even if the W113 “Pagoda” SL of the 1960s has the exact same bizarre grille shape.
The rear end of the R172 has grown rounded “hips” similar to a Z4 – This is easily the best angle of the SLK (see opening photo). The extra rear width allows for traditional trunk lid shut lines, as opposed to the weird shut lines that cut into the side of the body on the R171.
One optical illusion that you can’t unsee once you’ve seen it is that the front tires sometimes appear to be larger than the rears (take a look at one of the front three-quarter pictures above). In actuality, the reverse is true, with 245/35R18 Michelin Pilots fitted to the rear, and 225/40R18 on the front. I think the fact that the rear tires are lower profile, combined with the bulkier rear body, gives the impression of the rear wheels being smaller. I do wish that Mercedes had gone with a more aggressive stagger (perhaps using 19’s in the rear, like on my Crossfire) to better counter this optical illusion.
Will this SLK blossom into a long-term relationship? Only time will tell, but at least this time I won’t be feeling envy for a newer generation of roadsters: The R172 SLK/SLC was discontinued in 2020 as part of the convertible carpocalypse, and there will be no future generations of affordable compact roadsters from Mercedes to tempt me.
Very nice review, thanks to Tom. I have not followed the SLK closely over the years and not been able to keep up with the generational and styling changes. Great refresher course! I like the R172 a lot. After reading this, I realize I have confused them with the SL more than once.
I am with you on the 2.0 liter turbo 4. Who knew that was going to become something of a default engine in the USA. We have five 2.0 liter turbo fours in our family! Mother in law’s 2015 328i, daughter’s 2015 A3 (a turbodiesel), son’s 2015 328i, son’s 2018 430i, and my 2018 740e.
All have similar specs to your SLK, and all have more power than you need for daily driving, along with pretty good fuel economy.
Looking forward to hearing more updates! What did you do with the 2006?
I originally had this story in the article, but at 1700+ words it was getting long so I cut it out. It’s kind of an interesting story.
Basically, I put it on Craigslist for $9,000, a price that I thought was fair. I immediately had a highly motivated buyer call me up and buy the car sight unseen. He showed up the next day (Easter Sunday) with a stack of cash (pictured below) and a trailer and took away the car so quickly that I forget to remove a few personal items.
In retrospect, I probably should have asked more.
“In retrospect, I probably should have asked more.”
There are few feelings worse than putting your first number out there and having someone come along and say “OK”.
Honestly to me it’s great. It means that whatever I have decided to get out of my life that I haven’t thrown into the trash or given to a friend will be leaving my sphere of influence that much faster. I do realize I may have a different view of this whole thing though.
Congratulations on the new ride, upgrades are always pleasant.
You provide one more data point that Daimler Benz of the Schrempp era built Mercedes cars to be just as satisfying to M-B buyers as their Chryslers were to Mopar buyers. When the choice was between your satisfaction and their saving a few Euros, guess who lost.
I have no doubt that the retractable hard top is a really pleasant thing in day to day use, but I have yet to see one that makes a car look attractive when it is up. But that is just one more reason for it to be down all the time.
I’ve never understood the removal of intuitive feel from shifter position mechanisms. Chrysler made a similar mistake in the first couple of years of the ZF 8 speed automatic, requiring a software upgrade as part of a recall that would put the transmission in park when the owner forgot, and then went to a rotary knob that mimicked a mechanical PRNDL type design. I believe the Mercedes will only go into neutral when the vehicle is shut off and is thus capable of rolling until a door is opened. Is that the case with yours?
Yes, the shifter is spring-loaded to go to the center position (neutral). Like I said in the piece, it has an electric parking brake that will engage when you open the door with the engine off.
However, unless both of these conditions are met (e.g. if the engine is still running, or you stay in the car) and you forget to press the park button, the car can start to roll off, which has happened to me on more than one occasion.
Baffles me that the rotary knob as used by Chrysler wasn’t the initial solution. It takes up very little room, and although it doesn’t provide perfect no-look feedback as to what position you are in, park is all the way counterclockwise until you have reached the limit of its rotation, and a quick look at the display confirms your selection. I was driving a limo for a while and had 2014 300s with the lever setup which was horrendous, each movement up of the lever would only move the actual mechanism one position. To go from drive to reverse required 2 moves, up once for neutral, up again for reverse. To get to park from drive required 3 moves. When the rotary knob setup arrived in the then-new 2016 I was issued, it was a godsend.
Agree, the Chrysler knob works well, having driven it in over a dozen cars and trucks now it has detents so you can feel how far it needs to go (three clicks from P to D), better than most column mounts and more like a gated shifter such as Toyota uses (or used to use) for many cars. My 2014 300 still had a gated shifter I believe, perhaps it was due to the Hemi or the AWD vs the V6?
I think it was the transmission. The ZF 8 speed is completely electronic, with no manual lever involved at all. Same rotary knob with AWD or RWD on the V6. Up through 2014, all the V8s were still using the 5G-Tronic.
Eighteen months ago I fell into some unanticipated money. I decided to give myself a treat and so I bought a 2017 SLK just like this one, only white. It was a
“certified” used car from the local M-B dealer. I had always been fascinated by hardtop convertibles, so here was my chance. This was the AMG model, and ran like a bat out of hell. When I drove it home from the dealer it was snowing in Seattle, so I drove VERY VERY carefully – all that power made it easy to skid out.
A month after I bought it the front brakes started squealing like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. I took it in, the dealer said brakes were not covered under the existing warranty. I argued the car was “Certified” and so it was their responsibility to fix the brakes. We split the difference – I paid for pads, they paid for labor. Six months later the same thing happened. Back to the dealer, and they agreed to fix the squeaky brakes at their cost since their repair was less than a year old. Five months later the same thing: Loud, squealing brakes. Back to the dealer again. They refused to fix them, saying “This is the AMG model, of COURSE the brakes are loud!” I dragged the service manager out for a ride to prove the sound wasn’t normal.
Back at the dealership I full a full-on “Karen” rage, demanding to speak to the manager and the salesperson who sold me the car. I threatened to sue under Washington’s “Lemon Law”, and generally made a righteous jerk out of myself. They mollified me by taking the car back and crediting as trade in on a 2017 C-300 Cabriolet. Which, as it turns out, was probably a wise idea….. it meant I could take the spouse AND the dog with me in the car. No more family fights over who got left behind.
Afterthought: A few weeks later the dealer was offering my old car for $5,000 more than they gave me in trade in. I went to Yelp and gave them a scathing review, warning that the car in question was a LEMON. I got a call from the manager, but refused to take it. And we traded our other M-B we bought from them in on a Tesla.
BTW, the brakes on mine are squeaky as well. Not terribly so, but I mostly notice when pulling into the garage when the brakes are hot.
Having owned various high-performance cars over the years, I’ve accepted squeaky brakes (along with lots of brake dust and short brake life) as the price of admission into this class of vehicle.
There’s squeaky, and then there’s cats being puréed in a blender squeaky. This wasn’t ordinary; it was ear splitting.
“245/35R18 Michelin Pilots fitted to the rear, and 225/40R18 on the front”
If those tire sizes are correct then the fronts ARE in fact slightly larger. Most people make the mistake of thinking the 35 or 40 number is a definitive measurement with larger being a larger measurement and a lower number automatically having a shorter sidewall, ie. any 35 aspect tire having a lower profile (sidewall) than any 40 aspect tire etc. Not so as that number merely defines the ASPECT RATIO meaning your sidewall is that numerical percentage of the tire section width in mm (the first number).
So your fronts in this case with an aspect ratio of 40 (%) of the section width (225mm) have a sidewall height of 90mm and your rears at 35% of 245mm are 85.75mm i.e 4.25mm lower which when placed side by side will mean that the fronts are taller by about 8.5mm (twice the sidewall height difference or about 1/3″ in total) which while barely noticeable is there and if anything increases as the rears generally wear faster on this type of car.
There’s no reason for a non-tracked car to have consistently squealing brakes beyond the few that are basically race cars for the street, which few MBs are. Neither my 911 nor the Audi S4 with 993 Turbo brakes constantly squealed unless I was running a track compound pad which would only make noise when cold. Neither did any of the AMG Mercedes models that I drove over the last couple of years. The stock pads should be fine, but if not then maybe try a different manufacturer. My own Mercedes’ usually ran Pagids (which I believe is MB’s OEM supplier) while the Porsches usually ran Textar (their usual OEM supplier in those days) on the street, the test cars would still be on factory-installed stuff. Track days are a different beast altogether. You won’t feel a difference in street driving and on top of all that there are (supposed to be) shims and anti-squeal paste behind the pads – if you’re not changing them yourself you really don’t know exactly what the “tech” is doing or installing.
Thanks Jim, so I’m not going crazy! The rear tires actually ARE smaller, it is not just an illusion.
I just double-checked the sidewalls, and the sizes you quoted from the piece are correct. I even checked with TireRack to make sure that the fitted tires are the correct size (they are).
All the tires have date codes of mid-2017, so they are not the original tires. As you pointed out, the rear tires on cars like this do wear down faster than the fronts (further increasing the difference in diameters), and since they are staggered you can’t rotate them.
As far as the brakes go, well this is part of the joy in buying a used car. I’m fairly certain that the brakes are not original, but unless the work was done at the dealer or a national chain it likely will not show up on the CarFAX (as it the case on mine). I have no way of knowing what kind and quality of pads were used, nor the quality of the installation.
I rented a 2017 SLC300 (which as I understand is virtually the same car save for an exterior facelift that I do think improves the looks slightly) last year and came away very impressed. The powertrain was fantastic, as you said: there’s torque for days everywhere in the power band, and the transmission bangs out very quick shifts (especially in Sport and Sport+ modes). The handling likewise was surprisingly excellent, with well-controlled body roll and very nicely weighted (if also a bit numb) steering.
The most impressive part for me (respective to other two-seat convertibles I’ve driven) was how relaxed it got when you put the car into Comfort mode and just cruised around with the top down and windows up. As you also mention, while the ride wasn’t luxury-car smooth, it was leagues better than, say, a Miata or the last Boxster I drove, and it was almost whisper-quiet even at close to freeway speeds. And with the top up, it felt like a normal car even on the freeway.
I had two main gripes, the first being with the infotainment system: for example, it was so convoluted I had to open up the owners’ manual to figure out how to reset the trip computer, which took about six unintuitive button presses. But of course, I concede this would mostly be a new-user issue. The second (and likely dealbreaking) issue for me was that it was just a bit too small for my 6′ 4″ frame: it wasn’t unworkable by any means, but there was just not quite enough legroom to be 100% comfortable on longer drives.
But absent the space constraints and the technological quibbles, it’s a fantastic car and an excellent choice for a capable yet comfortable two-seat convertible.
Speaking as a serial buyer of (red) convertibles that I don’t technically need but which ain’t goin’ anywhere, a lot of this tale rings very true. Yes, you do appreciate the move upscale/upmarket but if you pick carefully you can keep he roadster appeal that got you there in the first place.
In different ways, I think both Tom and I have done that, both seemingly successfully.
Happy motoring – it looks great , and that interior shot in the dark – well….
Beautiful car. I enjoyed (and agreed with) your logic around the plusses of a two-seater. For anyone who isn’t claustrophobic, I could see the appeal of just enough room for driver, passenger and just a few things in the trunk.
I hadn’t though of it before reading this that “2.0L T” is pretty ubiquitous. I’m now going to be looking out for this when I get to the specs section when I buy the occasional car magazine.
Here’s to many miles of enjoyment.
Very nice! I find a two seat convertible gives a sense of occasion to even the most modest drive.
I’m not a “car guy”. I’m 68 and the 2016 SLK 300 is my first convertable. My wife of 42 years after the first ride as a passenger wanted nothing to do with it. She like riding high in a SUV. She also doesn’t like anyone other than herself to drive so subsequently when we were in the car together, she drove. Now, she loves it.