New SL55 Member

[joe2612]

I've owned my SL55 for just over a year now and finally got round to signing up to the forum having been a 'spectator' all this time.

It's a 2003 model which came fully loaded including some rare extras including designo interior roof trim, pan roof, exclusive nappa leather, keyless go, distronic etc

Over the past year I've done the following:

Fitted some Forged E63S 19" alloys with PS4s tyres
Fitted an android headunit + JL audio Amp
Fitted a W205 AMG steering wheel ( buttons + paddles+ airbag all fully functional) and retrimmed in leather / Alcantara.
Trimmed the gear gaiter to match steering wheel stitching
Upgraded bulbs
Full paint correction
Engine, ABC oil service
Facelift rear AMG lights
Single Fin grill
Facelift AMG brake light
Sold aluminium crinkle trim parts and replaced with wood that I painted with 2K gloss black.

Based In Bristol but from Surrey originally, apart from the SL I have a Triumph Thruxton R and a 1974 Alfa GTV coupe (105).

Look forward to contributing to this forum more.

 

[V6Matty]

Welcome

 

[Blobcat]

Hello and welcome

Pendine Sands I see

 

[John Laidlaw]

Welcome, where have you been?
I like the mods you've made to the car, really updated the car nicely, especially wheels and steering wheel....what colour is that Designo leather? Hard to tell from the pic

 

[Steve@Avantgarde]

I remember you Joe, you kindly gave us custody of your vehicle for the service back in the summer.

That steering wheel does look very smart as does the piano black trim. I was thinking of getting some carbon fibre moulds done for mine but now im wondering whether to do what you have done!

 

[-raj-]

Hello and welcome,

Love the mods. Is the W205 steering wheel pug in and play, do all the buttons still work?

Also do you have any details on the android head unit please? Wouldn't mind one in mine

 

[peterws1957]

Great looking car. Interior colour really suits it, a nice change from shades of grey!

 

[Wearsafoxhat]

Hi and welcome,

Very nice mods,


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[A.J.]

Hi Joe, welcome to the forum. Great looking car !

 

[joe2612]

Thank you all.

@Steve@Avantgarde Indeed! The piano black looks great but you can almost guarantee scratches just by looking at it! I've just repainted them with 2K acrylic and a coat of C Quartz ceramic to see if that helps prevent them. Other than that it's just a case of being careful with it.

@-raj- , It's not plug and play sadly. I used a company in Russia who produce a custom PCB which replaces the one found in the steering wheel backing plate on the W205. The W205 buttons and paddles plug into this, and the output from the PCB goes into the connectors on the R230 steering column.

Basically you send them the backing plate from the W205 wheel and the W205 buttons, and what they send back is plug and play.

https://dolcar-msk.ru/

To make matters more difficult, sending packages to Russia can be a bit of a nightmare with customs. My suggestion would be to send them a backing plate and the buttons via regular airmail to try and get around this, or take a trip to Moscow ( which is what I did).

That being said, I've been tinkering with Canbus networking this year and would like to put together a similar prototype myself.

For the head unit, I wrote a larger write up here which has the link to the unit I purchased:

https://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/index.php?threads/5ch-amplifier-setup-for-r230-sl.185119/

 

[JohnOS]

Welcome from Worcs Joe! A Merc, a Triumph and an Alfa you say? Impeccable taste!

Which Android headunit did you go for? I use Android Auto heavily in my Golf, and really miss it in my 2012 E500...

 

[Srdl]

Welcome, lovely looking car you’ve got there.

 

[joe2612]

Thanks @JohnOS , the link above has more info on the android unit I went for. A lot of these android units very similar, just with different UX and variations on the CPU / RAM specs.

I opted for a more conservative spec of 2GB ram, but I mainly use Apple Car Play so my iPhone would be doing most of the heavy lifting anyway.

The Alfa sadly hasn't been used much this year, had far too much fun top-down driving in the SL!

 

[00slk]

Hello and welcome from another SL55 owner ........and Triumph owner though 4 wheel version and ex owner of the Alfa's