slk auto or manual. advise please

[nw@home]

Hi all.
What i need is some good first hand advise on which option to go for.
I am ordering a new SLK350 ready for the summer, and have all options sorted but for the gear box.
I much prefer to drive a manual car (personal opinion) but getting one to test drive is near on impossible. So far i have test driven only the 7G automatic. So the real question is this.
Is the merc manual gearbox as bad as hype would suggest, or is it just merc snobbery that says executive cars have to be autos.

Please keep this thread on useful advise and not a bitching match as so many seem to turn into.

Many thanks, Neil

(current car Astra turbo conv. good car hideous depreciation. ouch!!)

 

[nw@home]

anyone out there with an opinion!!!!

 

[stu99]

From what I've been told by dealers, auto transmission increases your resale market.

 

[SLinKyjoe]

the latest manual is not a problem. its as good as any other on the market. the 2 issues you will have to look at besides depreciation is, the seat back on the SLK makes manual changing gear a problem depending on your arm length. if sit close the steering wheel, you will find your arms knocks the mid point of the seat while you change.

and the other one is the torque. the engines in the range are designed to give low end pulling power, which suits an auto for real world driving. so you can leave it in gear longer than most cars. which then means the use of the manual becomes a personal preference as you really dont need to stir it often.

in traffic, on the motorway, general normal driving, the AUTO is the way forward. unless you intend of taking it racing, or you just really like a manual change, it is pointless.

it is £1700cheaper tho..

get your mercedes dealer to source one or you wont buy one! they can find one knocking about somewhere, altho the fact that by far the majority are AUTO does say something dont you think?

and its the 7 GTronic job so dont forget the "Rule of Being a Bloke!"

"More buttons equals Better"

 

[jberks]

I accept the slk is a sporty number but autos make more sense in every way these days. You tend to find that those people who knock auto's have either never driven one or at least never driven a good one. The 7g with its manual mode pretty much covers the manual effect but I suspect you'll find that after the initial novelty has worn off, you'll just leave it in auto. Lots of people come along saying I'll never have an auto, buy a Merc, and never buy a manual again.

 

[television]

What a waste of time pushing your left leg up and down all day.
Unless you are a racing driver the auto will beat any manual away from rest.

Malcolm

 

[marnix]

Don't let these old foggies try to put you off buying a manual.
The 6 speed box will always be more responsive than any auto box in the world. You change gear when you want , not when the car decides what gear you should be in
My wife has a SLK230 Auto (Tiptronic) and I have a TVR Cerbera (Manual).
Guess which one I take out on every occasion? The Merc? Try again.
If you buy the SLK350 for the looks, buy the Auto.
If you want a Sports-car, buy the manual.

 

[nw@home]

These opinions are really useful. I will take all advice onboard especially the one about the reach of the gear change.
Love the cerbera, looked at a second hand one before the slk, but everyday reliability ruled it out.
My brother has a chimera, and it gets all the looks when out and about. What a sound track!!!!!!

Please keep it coming.

Cheers, Neil.

 

[Brett]

If you're buying a "previously enjoyed" example, there are quite a few out there. They do appear to stick at both dealers and private owners for longer than the autos. This one, for example, has been on Pistonheads for a good few months, and been through a few re-adjustments on the asking price...

http://www.pistonheads.com/sales/54115.htm

 

[nw@home]

Looked at the pistonheads site and at £32995 for an 04 SLK350 i'm not surprised its not picked up much interest.
Thats about 9% depreciation over 18 months, and as we all know a car loses 17.5% (vat) as soon as its on the road.

However i'm going away from the point, Is the manual gearbox a bit notchy from 1st to second. Read it somewhere, is it true.

Neil.

 

[nw@home]

anyone out there with a new shape slk manual?

 

[SLinKyjoe]

Looked at the pistonheads site and at £32995 for an 04 SLK350 i'm not surprised its not picked up much interest.
Thats about 9% depreciation over 18 months, and as we all know a car loses 17.5% (vat) as soon as its on the road.

not with cars that have 6 or more months waiting list it doesn't.

you often find 1 - 3 month examples of SLK's and Boxsters going at above list price!

SLK's sell better come the spring!

 

[Brett]

Looked at the pistonheads site and at £32995 for an 04 SLK350 i'm not surprised its not picked up much interest.
Thats about 9% depreciation over 18 months, and as we all know a car loses 17.5% (vat) as soon as its on the road.

However i'm going away from the point, Is the manual gearbox a bit notchy from 1st to second. Read it somewhere, is it true.

Neil.

Neil,

I had a manual gearbox on my first CLK and found it fine. Yes it was a little notchy and the clutch was a little heavy, but it was fun to drive. From what I've heard, the newer manuals are a lot better so you shouldn't have too much of a problem with it. Despite my previous comments, if the price is right, you'll always get a buyer for a manual.

 

[Tony]

You could look at benzworld.org under the R171 forum. Strangely the manual option is more popular over there than it is here. The general opinion is that the gear change is good. They've made it a rod linked remote rather than the old cables so that makes it more precise.

As you say it's very hard to find a manual demonstrator over here. I was at the dealer the other day getting my car serviced and I had a look at an SLK350. It was an auto of course and I told the salesman I'd be more interested in a manual. He said they hardly sell any and he didn't know why. I asked him when was the last time they had had a manual demonstrator - I don't think he saw what I was getting at. The thing that did strike me was that the handbrake is now in the middle of the (high) transmission tunnel and I reckon that it's going to get in the way when you change gear.

 

[nw@home]

I guess by what has been said that there is nothing actually bad about the manual gearbox. Its all down to preference.
Time for a long drive up country to a dealer that has one to test drive.

Thanks all for the pointers on what to look out for.

Cheers. Neil.

 

[Ublio]

From a SLK 350 manual owner

Hi all.
What i need is some good first hand advise on which option to go for.
I am ordering a new SLK350 ready for the summer, and have all options sorted but for the gear box.
I much prefer to drive a manual car (personal opinion) but getting one to test drive is near on impossible. So far i have test driven only the 7G automatic. So the real question is this.
Is the merc manual gearbox as bad as hype would suggest, or is it just merc snobbery that says executive cars have to be autos.

Please keep this thread on useful advise and not a bitching match as so many seem to turn into.

Many thanks, Neil

(current car Astra turbo conv. good car hideous depreciation. ouch!!)

This is what I had to say about my 350 manual on Piston Heads. Car is in the classifieds there if you're interested!

----

I took delivery of my SLK-350 last April. I thought long and hard about the spec and opted for the manual 6 Speed, Iridium Silver, Black Leather, 6xCD, AirScarf, Heated Seats, Tracker, Sports Suspension with17 inch 5 Spoke Alloys, Remote Operated Roof.

The manual box is extremely good very positive feel and makes a lovely metallic slotting noise when engaging the different gear, sound like it has a metal gate underneath the leather gaitor. I test drove the auto and bought the manaul blind. The reason for this was that the sterring wheel shifting on the 7 speed was anti intuitive in it's operation and didn't seem to respect your decision when you did ask it to change! The manual always does what I tell it! The engine in this car is a dream. I've always been a fan of BMW engines but this is as good as an M3 engine in IMO. It has huge amounts of torque which means that slowly engaging speed humps in 3rd gear is realistic and 4th gear can be engaged safely at 30mph and will take you to 110.

On a long run in 6th I get 30 to 32mpg and the other morning on a fast 1.5 hour blitz to Brum OBC registered AVERAGE speed of 70mph and 28.3 mpg. So it's powerful and quite fuel efficient.

It'll do at least 135 (done it) with the roof down and I got mine up to 145 in Italy before remembering that a pinch would result in some jail time!

Airscarf is great kit. I wouldn't worry about the heated steering wheel because the dash vents can do this for you.

You have to be within about 3ft to use the roof remote. Can be useful on a hot day though giving the car and airing before you get in.

Now to the crux of the matter, CASH!

I've now done 13,200 in mine, it still hasn't had it's first service and the OBC says it won't need one for another 1700 miles. Rear tyres will need replacing soon enough though. So I'd say servicing costs will not be terrible.

I'm also now selling the car due to potential family growth. Having spoke to a lot of dealers and traders it seems that the main disabilities on the used market are the manual box and not having command, each of these reduces the value of the car by 1000 pounds. Go figure, these would cost nigh on 4000 pounds new and now they are only worth 2000 so I'm not concerned at all!

My advice would be choose the spec you want because the extra you spend on options will not be seen again.

Read up on the manual when you get the car, there are lots of neat touches like the convienience seating function that automatically pushes the drivers seat back 3 inches or so when you take the key out of the ignition, this is useful even if you're young, believe me!

oh by the way, the paitwork is exceptionally good, I heard that MB are using a special paint system now and IMO it really pays dividends. So fat only hard core stone chips have got through, the rest of the paintwork is un-marked.

One downside, that matt dash and door plastic is very hard to clean even with the special cloth they give you with the car. The perspex wind deflector is well worth the extra money, there is one on ebay at the moment I see

Hope that helps. You can even make me an offer on my car of you like...

 

[blassberg]

anyone out there with a new shape slk manual?

she has a 200k manual. Box is fine. 6sp manual on my last ML270 was fine. Auto box on my previous E230 broke - that cost the leaseco an arm and a couple of legs. 7G on my W203 is great - I would pay the extra AND HAVE THE PADDLES - although on the C320CDI it is 7G only over here and more BHP/Nm than the manual as presumably the gearbox can take it.

 

[Bliznak]

I would suggest the manual

 

[thebog]

I've got an SLK350 with a manual, and i like it alot. I tried unsuccesfully with quite a few dealers to get a test drive in a manual before I purchased. I had two test drives in an SLK 350 both were with auto (one with 7G)....and personally I don't like automatics, I have always driven a manual car. I quite like the manual box on my SLK but it is very different from the box that was on my previous car - a Honda S2000, which has one of the very best manual gearboxes around (in my opinion at least)

On the SLK I find 1st a little short for my taste, but the other gears are fine, in fact 3rd is quite long, so much so I forget to change to 4th. I don't find 1st to 2nd change at all notchy. With all the adjustments available on the seat position I don't have any problem knocking my elbow into the center console as some have reported. Personally, I'd the the gear stick to be a little shorter.

As far as I was concerned it was manual all the way - dealer tried to talk to me about depreciation but that doesn't bother me as its a lease car and I'll probably just hand back the keys at the end of my 3 years.

S

 

[gary350]

Hi all.
What i need is some good first hand advise on which option to go for.
I am ordering a new SLK350 ready for the summer, and have all options sorted but for the gear box.
I much prefer to drive a manual car (personal opinion) but getting one to test drive is near on impossible. So far i have test driven only the 7G automatic. So the real question is this.
Is the merc manual gearbox as bad as hype would suggest, or is it just merc snobbery that says executive cars have to be autos.

Please keep this thread on useful advise and not a bitching match as so many seem to turn into.

Many thanks, Neil

Auto auto evertime makes life so much easier(no 1 option)

gary