BananaSL

Owning an SL55 AMG

Driver's Door Repair

2025-07-29 Repairs Tarus

It took an extra week, but I did get the Banana back on Friday.

description of transmission issue due to bad shifter

As mentioned in my previous post, I went to pick up the car last week and couldn’t get in it due to the driver’s side door not opening. I had been having problems with the door, but the shop couldn’t recreate it until I showed up.

I left the car another week and they replaced the door latch mechanism. So far it has been working fine.

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Driver's Door Issue

2025-07-19 Repairs Tarus

I was very excited to get the car back on Friday. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.

description of transmission issue due to bad shifter

They were able to determine that my transmission woes were due to a bad shifter, which meant the transmission had no idea which gear was selected. Replacing the part (which runs ~$1600) cleared the codes and supposedly fixed the issue.

Why “supposedly”? Because I couldn’t get into the car to drive it. (sigh)

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Transmission Woes

2025-07-11 Repairs Tarus

It’s been a long time since I updated this blog, but I hope to correct that going forward.

I’m still enjoying the Banana but I haven’t been driving it much lately. My father moved in with us and since he is getting older we decided he didn’t need to drive anymore, so I became the proud owner of his 2007 Camry. I figure it is much less stressful to park that car at the airport than the Mercedes, and since I spent the first part of the year in airports I didn’t drive the SL55 much.

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Wonkiness

2023-08-18 Repairs Tarus

I got in the Banana this morning to run an errand and meet a friend for lunch. I started it up and immediately pulled out of the garage, as my mother-in-law is staying in the apartment above it and she complains that the engine makes it shake.

I went to drop the top (as it wasn’t raining) and the screen popped up the with the “close the trunk partition” error.

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Ladder!

2023-01-19 Close Calls Tarus

I was driving home from a business meeting this evening when I nearly collided with a ladder that apparently had fallen off of a truck and on to the road.

I was impressed at how well the car handled and very thankful that I didn’t hit the darn thing.

Banana Update

2022-12-16 Commentary Tarus

It’s been awhile since I posted, but I’ve really been enjoying driving the Banana, and it even got featured on Bring A Trailer.

The only maintenance things I’ve done since getting it back at the end of September was to replace the rear accessory battery. Even keeping it on the CTek charger it would complain that convenience features were not available, but since replacing the battery (which had a 2015 date code) the car has been running great.

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