I bought a 1996 SL500 for $8,000 back in 2010, expecting to flip it. At the time it was the lowest priced ‘96 on cars.com and only had 101,000 miles. The main reason for the low price was the recession and the fact that it was being sold at a rural dealership, which mostly sold pickup trucks...they didn’t even clean…

I have been like a broken record here saying it is pretty crazy to buy a rapidly depreciating asset that is likely to need expensive repairs, but this baby should be pretty much depreciated out. If you keep it going it may cost you a bit, bit if you keep it going and looking good it won’t depreciate anymore. Pretty…

Typical overreaction. I know this concept is foreign to you, but this is a more than fair price for a car that can’t be built from the ground up from a J.C. Whitney catalog.

These old SL’s really aren’t that bad. Especially if you can wrench on it yourself. I plan on getting one of these in a few years, and that’s exactly what I’m gonna do. A nice project car to cruise around in on the weekends with my wife. Though she’s trying to convince me to get the S Class from the same era so we can…

For $5k? Yeah, I’m in. Easy NP. I’d kinda love to have an old SL...but they are super rare sights on Canadian roads now. I kinda have to live vicariously though more southerly climates.

Probably not, since it can’t be lowered manually on any other car I’m aware of with a power top. In the case of this one, I’d just leave the top down as it is and put the hardtop on/off depending on the weather. It’s so cheap that I wouldn’t even care. You could build some kind of wire/pulley rig in your garage to…

$5k for what looks to be a solid summer weekend car?  NP. 

Not quite fuggit money but it’s a good deal for something that’ll be a wonderous cruising summer set of wheels. Much better looking than the Bucktooth Betty version of later years.

Literally the only reason I still come here as well. This site is a small shadow of itself with almost all of the old writers either elsewhere or at the site that Jalopnik should have turned into- The Autopian.

Thank you sir for coming back! You are 90% of why I even still come here, and a reminder of the good old Jalop days. Hope you enjoyed a well deserved vacation

LOL. That, with a Citroen weighing 2,800lbs, and a whopping 110hp, I was changing, Michelin tires nonetheless, every 20,000km or 12,000miles. Ok I was living in the Alps and my, at the time, girlfriend was less than enthusiast about my driving. 2kids later and now married to this girlfriend, with my previous Golf…

yeah, talked to some tesla owners today after reading this ( i live in the SF bay area so they’re EVERYWHERE) and the consensus is these people must be driving like absolute hooligans. couldn’t find a single tesla owner that changed their tires at less than 20k miles

Back in my 20s, I never got over 8k miles out of a set of tires. For some reason, the tires always had a sort of gooey layer of rubber on the tread that looked like it was melted. Must have been something wrong with the car and tires I had back then.

That’s true, but you could say the same about any large luxury barge made in the past 10-20 years and those don’t share this issue. Most likely the owner was driving aggressively and wore them down quickly. In terms of weight and power that car is basically a hellcat, so it’s no surprise he was able to wear the tires…

Yeah, I think a lot of people are conflating this with the standard XKR, and between the brakes, the supercharger, etc., this is much more distinctive. I love the fact that it’s triple black (I have a 96 triple black Mustang GT convertible with 38k), so the usual gripes about “omg, black leather seats in a convertible/…

I just checked the wear bars on my Model 3 yesterday. I am about due... after 51000 miles.

Have shopped these quite a bit. The non-R versions seem to go for about tenish for decent drivers (though not as nice as this). Though not a screaming deal, given that is is an “R” and the miles and condition look very good I can give it a nice price.

Plus - Merc tranny 5-speed! But really, I can’t afford the GAS.

I like to think these Ford era Jags are a bit more reliable, especially with electrical systems. Hell, one could probably cross reference Jag parts with identical and far cheaper Ford parts.

As far as the Jag? VERY nice kitty but these exotics have high vet bills and I don’t have the patience or the pet insurance. ND.