A Resource for SL55 Enthusiasts (Pinned Post)

I bought my first SL55, a silver 2003 model with 18K miles, in August of 2020. I fell instantly in love with the car, and figured I would never get rid of it. That was, until two years later, when this one of a kind yellow SL55 became available. After I won the auction my wife looked at it and said “it looks like a big banana” and the name stuck.

I am pretty particular about maintaining my vehicles in the best condition, especially this one, which I’m trying to maintain in a Hagarty’s “Fine” (2 to 2-) condition even though I do drive it. This will be reflected in the amount of money I am willing to spend to both maintain and correct defects with the car.

Replacing the Battery Control Module (BCM)

I’ve been doing a lot of work on the Banana recently, but haven’t really had time to write it up. Now that those projects are heading toward completion, I hope to post about what I did, why I did it, and how it went.

It had been nearly a year without any major issues when I ran into a big one. I recently bought a new tractor and it turns out the salesperson, who also delivered it to us, is a big Mercedes fan and is looking to by one of their sport coupes. I offered to let him drive mine, and right after we hopped in and started it up, I went to drop the top and ended up getting a shower of hydraulic fluid.

Refurbishing the COMAND Screen

I finally got around to working on a minor repair I’ve been wanting to attempt for awhile.

As The Banana is over 20 years old, the COMAND screen had started to look a little faded. This is due to the anti-glare coating on the screen aging, and it takes on a cloudy, blue tint.

It is possible to remove the coating and then add a replacement anti-glare screen, and I figured I’d give it a shot.

Back from the Shop

After running another large charge through the ol’ credit card, I got the car back on Monday.

As I suspected, the alternator needed to be replaced, but the surprise issue was that the noise I was hearing was from the supercharger pulley and not the alternator itself.

While they had the car I also had them look at the air conditioning, which wasn’t blowing very cold. Turns out that it only held 0.56 pounds of refrigerant versus the recommended 2+ pounds. There is obviously a slow leak somewhere so they injected some dye as well so we’ll have to wait and see if that shows where it is located.

More Woes (Alternator)

Just when I got the car back from the last repair, another issue popped up.

(sigh)

It’s getting a little frustrating. Yeah, I know that the Banana is 20 years old but I maintain the hell out of it and it still keeps letting me down. Much like those bad relationships from high school: let’s hope that once we get past this problem things will get better. (grin)

Door Seal Repair

My mild OCD means that whenever there is something a little wrong with my car it bothers me. Recently I noticed that the rocker panel door seal under the driver’s side door was missing.

I figured it would be an easy repair, but that was before I found out that the seal itself (part 230-690-01-98) was discontinued. (sigh)

The one for the passenger side is still available. I assume that is because the driver’s door is used more frequently and thus there is a higher chance for the seal to go missing.

Replacing the Hazard Switch

I have some mild OCD, and when it comes to cars this expresses itself in that I need to keep my vehicles in a particular state of repair. If they aren’t clean, etc., this causes anxiety.

This means I tend to do things no sane automobile owner would do, like replacing a perfectly functioning switch with a new one.

Cars as old as the Banana have a tendency to develop “sticky” switches. Apparently this has something to do with the non-slip coating used on them degrading with time. When I got my first SL55, the Shark, I went to work trying to clean that stickiness off of the controls.