BananaSL

Owning an SL55 AMG

Back from the Shop

2025-10-05 Repairs Tarus

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

Banana SL at the repair shop

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.

Continue reading

More Woes (Alternator)

2025-09-23 Repairs Tarus

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

Red warning: electrical problem stop car

(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)

Continue reading

Door Seal Repair

2025-08-11 Repairs Tarus

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.

Continue reading

Replacing the Hazard Switch

2025-08-05 Repairs Tarus

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.

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading

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)

Continue reading

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.

Continue reading
Older posts