Sl 500 R129

[SLIGOGOLFER]

Can anyone advise where is the best/cheapest place, to purchase a complete
exhaust for my car?(excluding the cat) Also has anyone had any experience with stainless steel ones?

 

[peterchurch]

Can anyone advise where is the best/cheapest place, to purchase a complete
exhaust for my car?(excluding the cat) Also has anyone had any experience with stainless steel ones?

This is a bit of a tricky one. One of my cats blew last month, and faced with a bill for £900 for one MB cat set or £900 for a full set of After market (O.E) parts I picked the later. The Timax set looked good on paper and they were made by Arvin Meritor (same guys that build the MB ones anyway)
They were Stainless Steel and of a high build quality. However. now they have bedded in they have most definately changed the sound quality of the exhaust. I am currently in the process of figuring out if they are faulty or they are tuned to a different note... If you are going to move away from the standard MB equipment I suggest you look at a company called Hayward and Scott. They will build the exhaust to order but I would suggest if you want to keep the original sound you stay with MB...

 

[R129]

You have quite a few options for replacements if you consider that the genuine article will set you back about a grand. The original system should be good for 10 years or so if you are keeping the car.

Cheapest option is to find a good welder if it is rusted around the flange or pipe area. Probably best not to try and weld a patch in a silencer! Don't think that insurance companies like to pay out when you've incinerated the car yourself.

With the longevity of the system a used exhaust from a breaker is always a possibility, a search on this forum should bring up a few.

German & Swedish should stock a replacement if you want to try that route.

You could even get a hand built stainless system for less than the price of the original equipment. The thing to remember here is that Mercedes spent hundreds of millions in developing the car and probably a great many millions on getting the exhaust system right, a custom system may look nice but you can never be sure what noise it will produce or its effect on the engine. Best left to full on race engines in my opinion.

Let us know if you get sorted as my back box is starting to show its age.
(Just realised how that last sentence sounds!)

 

[SLIGOGOLFER]

Thanks for all the advice. I shopped long and hard and having been given quotes between £600+ and £1000+. I finally got a stainless steel one for £320
including VAT and fitting, from TOP GEAR Performance in Doncaster. Looks and sounds great.Made very slight (unnoticable) mod to rear skirt to accomodate excellent chrome tailpipes. Could have had Quad pipes for a small extra charge, but this would have increased the sound level.
Also removed old heat shield (rusting and rattling) from front section of exhaust and found original exhaust still in first class condtion (10 year old).
This also has made no significant increase in sound level from the exhaust itself. Hope this helps you with any future decisions about your car.