How To Put The Top Down On A Mercedes Sl500

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Mercedes SL500 Tops
© 2006 KenRockwell.com

Montaña de Oro, California, July, 2004

Torrey Pines, California, July, 2004

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Cambria, California, July, 2004

Projecting perfect proportions from every angle, the R129 SL500 is the crown jewel of the automotive designers' art. Designed with passion and vision, the R129 SL500 looks as astonishing today as when it was introduced.

More Than Only the World's First Fully Automatic Convertible Peak

The SL500 turned the automotive universe on information technology'southward border with the earth'southward first one touch automatic top. Even the 2006 Mercedes full-line product brochure yet brags about this, in addition to mentioning the automated rollbar - twice!

The SL500 is much more than a convertible, since every SL500 comes with a removable difficult elevation, standard. Every SL500 is three very different vehicles depending on which height you're sporting at the moment.

The Three Tops

The SL500 is a bargain when you consider information technology's iii cars in one: a coupé with the hard top fastened, a roadster with the top down, and a ragtop with the cloth top upwardly. The fabric top is always with the car while the difficult top is removable. If yous get an SL with the difficult top rest assured the soft top is snuggled away underneath.

La Jolla, California, September, 2004

W ith the standard removable hard top the SL500 is one of the globe'southward most accomplished and cute 2-door coupés.

Hard Superlative

The removable aluminum hard peak is included standard with all SLs. Whatever SL missing the hard tiptop is incomplete and may equally well exist missing a cycle. Seriously, avoid any SL that is missing the top since it shows obvious owner neglect. A replacement top is $10,000 from Mercedes, and so missing the top is even worse than missing all iv wheels and tires!

If you are shopping the secondary market beware any SL500 missing its roof. Some owners and dealers lose, impairment or otherwise get rid of these tops and and so try to claim that they were "simply an pick" when pawning off incomplete cars on less savvy buyers. Salespeople and private parties will feign all sorts of assurances of why their incomplete car is perfectly normal. If you're a start time SL500 buyer you might fall for it, unlike all the other familiar used car excuses y'all're expecting. Rest bodacious when you look at book values for cars they are for complete cars, not cars missing major body parts like roofs, wheels, doors or hoods. Even if you don't want the hard top you'll accept a big price hitting when selling an SL500 so don't become conned into buying a fractional automobile for total price. Employ the lack of a difficult top to get a big discount, since whoever buys your SL500 from you sure volition!

My local dealer tells me y'all can order replacement tops merely like annihilation else for the SL500, withal the hard tops price $10,000. Be sure to gene that in if considering the purchase of an incomplete SL500.

The difficult tops are a bit of folk lore hither in sunny California where none of us, myself included, really want information technology. Many people get rid of them, thus I've heard all the stories. We never use them since we run the SL500 top downward and put upwards the soft pinnacle if needed. Nosotros notice ways to get friends to store them for us, hide them in friend'due south garages without them knowing and rent storage lockers for the tops until nosotros sell our SL500s. Many meliorate dealers, like Fletcher-Jones and MB of Laguna Niguel, offer to store these tops as function of their premium programs. Personally I employ a block-and-tackle to hang it from the roof of my garage. I got information technology here. Others apply fiddling rolling carts to get them out of the way.

The tiptop only weighs 73 pounds since information technology's aluminum. The rear window has very special invisible heating elements for the defroster. The SL doesn't have the ugly horizontal lines painted on the within of the glass as under-$100,000 cars exercise. The SL instead has almost a hundred smaller invisible wires embedded inside the glass.

Olivenhain, California, September, 2004

1997 Mercedes SL500 with standard removable hardtop

Palm Desert, California, May, 2004

The just convertible that looks abrupt with the meridian up. Notation the perfect flowing line from the top of the door moving rearward.

The Soft Top

My ability soft summit lowers in eighteen seconds and raises in 24 seconds. This is of import; longer times with budget cars like the 2005 Cadillac XLR mean you can't do this while stopped at a red light.

The SL500 is smart plenty not to let you lot move the pinnacle while it'due south moving.

San Luis Obispo, California, July, 2004

1997 SL500 with about unheard of brown soft acme (click to enlarge)

The entire raising or lowering requires no more than than a single touch of one push, a world'south first. American power-elevation convertibles were the same in the 1960s they are today: you lot have to catch and release one or two front end latches and then manually adhere or remove the tonneau comprehend. You also usually have to reposition the center bail in mid-wheel for neater stowage. The tonneau cover covers the lowered top. Most users forgo using the tonneau and centre bail adjustment since they require more steps. The SL does this all for y'all electrohydraulically, including the tonneau cover! Mercedes' 2006 full line brochure still brags about this innovation.

The SL is a $100,000 car, non a $20,000 Dodge Chrysler Sebring or similar. At speed the soft top of the SL is serenity and makes no wind dissonance. I never appreciated this until nosotros got stuck with a Chrysler Sebring rental. Drive the Chrysler with the top upwards and you hear a ruckus coming from where the soft top and windshield meet, and whistling from above the side windows. Mercedes designs the tops and interfaces for perfect aerodynamics, airflow and placidity. It costs more than to practise information technology correctly. My American convertibles had big seams at the top of the windshield; the SL500 is completely smooth.

The soft top of the SL even includes rain gutters to keep pelting and windshield washer fluid off your side windows, merely like Mercedes difficult tops. These gutters are the slight indentations towards the front that channel water to the rear instead of letting information technology slip off to the side.

The Fourth Top: The Optional Panorama Roof

Mercedes offered an $viii,000 option of a clear panorama roof from 1995 - 2002. It's $14,000 replacement part. it lets you lot look out the top, even in pouring rain. it has a mesh scrim shade you pull beyond if y'all don't want the sun shining on you.

Mercedes offers this today on other cars, although no mercedes have removable tops anymore.

HISTORY and COMPARISON OF MODEL YEARS 1990 - 2005

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Source: https://kenrockwell.com/sl/sl500tops.htm

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