This is the time of year that I dislike riding a motorcycle the most. I can ride in the rain & heat no problem but riding in the fog sucks. You never know what will come from behind and nail you.

I may just keep the SLK230, I’ve looked at other trade possibilities but back off when it gets close to deciding. My Benz is so clean despite the clear coat and high mileage parameters.  

It may a keeper for a year or so. 

I’ve been checking out cars on Craigslist again.  I’m looking at Mustangs with V8 motors and manual shifting. Most of the mustangs i have seen are fairly beat up and appeared to have been raced. Most have dents and scratches or the paint and roof are losimg the clear coat. 

Since I picked up the Mercedes Benz convertible I’ve been riding it daily. I haven’t  hopped on the Goldwing at all. The gas mileage seems to be decent. 

There are only a couple areas of traffic congestion where I miss riding the motorcycle but the benefits of being inside of a warm car during these winter months are greater

One thing I need to look into is the lack of having an auxiliary input. I like to listen to prerecorded podcast media and there is no way to plug in my media devices.  

I’ve made a few music CD’S to populate the multi CD carrier located in the back trunk but even that gets old with the limited amount of music you can store on six audio CD’s.  

I’ve had the Mercedes Benz SLKw30 for almost a month now and I’ve fixed or taken care of things that were needed to to make it a daily driver. one of the first task was to have the rear tires replaced as the ones that came with the car were in very bad shape. especially the right rear tire, I could already see the tread coming through 2″ from the inner wall. I rode the car back home from Redwood City in this state. 

The next task at hand was to figure out why the CEL was illuminated and what OBD2 code was pending. The code that I read back from my scanner was the P1235 code, in the SK230 this was a common occurance and a lot of information was available on the forum help sections.The code had to do with the MAF sensor and it may have also played a part in the troublesome supercharger not kicking on. 

I’ve ridden the SLK for approximately 700 plus miles and no CEL. The car is running strong. I’m actually thinking about keeping it throughout the winter months. 

Replaced the serpentine belts on my SLK230.

I’ve been working on the Mercedes Benz SLK230 since I got it a week or so ago. I had an error code P1235 that was related to the supercharger. After reading the Internet forums it seemed that this was a common issue with this year model car.

I was able to locate a newer than mine K40 relay module and did the install. Only time will tell if it has made a difference I also went ahead and cleaned the Mass Air Flow sensor module MAF. Hopefully with these two fixes and tightening down all the air intake areas and vacuum hose probabilities the error code will not return.

Since I was working on the motor I decided to paint the front cover red. I bought one off a seller that wrecked their 1999 SLK 230. I also bought the K40 module, rear view mirror and pulley shock.

After the unsuccessful attempt in repairing the K40 module assembly I decided to replace the complete assembly. Even though the solder connections were solid the actual relays may be defective when in use. I located a used module from a donor 1999 SLK230 that had gotten into a front end wreck. I removed the original and installed the replacement module. I also went ahead and soldered the known area of solder connection problems.

The car has been running strong for approximately 700 miles with no CEL activation. I can conclude the 2nd K40 module is working properly.

The auto dim mirror has always been stuck at the 3/4 mark of the mirror. I checked out the new and used prices and they were way out there! The new mirrors were close to $400 and the used mirrors from dismantlers were around ranging in the $200-250 range. I don’t need the “auto” dim feature”, I can manually flip the mode with no problem. I actually prefer to get the manual version so I won’t have possibility of this happening again in the future. Especially with a used replacement.

I picked a manual version up and replaced mine with no problems at all. The mirror I was able to get did have a few cracks on the plastic housing but fixable with the use of 2-part epoxy.

The SLK 230 rear wheels were in super bad shape. It was at the point of being unsafe to drive.