Vlad, not surprising I found you hare. You know my about Red/Blk SL55 AMG P30 fro BaT comments. It now has 14K miles and was just in a car show here in Lake Forest, IL.

 

Vlad, not surprised to find you here. As you know from my BaT comments I have a red.blk 07 SL55 AMG P30 which now has 14K miles It was just in our local car show here in Lake Forest, IL. One of my friends has a blk/blk 07 P30 that he bought at about the same time I got mine in 2010 with 6K mile and it now has 34K miles.

 

@cottrd Great to hear from you Richard. Hope you're doing well. I am still working on my cataloging project whenever I can. I have all the SL55 P30s accounted for, as well as the SL63s (except for 1) and SL65s. I am working my way backwards and am currently midway through MY 05. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them. I have just hit the 50% done milestone (of all 169,434 R230 cars), so fully 50% of them were produced from MY 03 to MY 05.

 

Yes, earlier there were a ton built as the car was somewhat of a relative bargain everything considered. But the 07/08 P30 SAL55s were the ones to wait for.........(G)

 

Hi folks! This is my new to me SL55 P30. I've been looking for a P30 in silver for 2 years and was just about to give up the search when this one popped on BaT. I was shocked to win it for $26k and it was only 2 hours from my house. Honestly I thought it was a throw away bid and wouldn't meet the reserve but it is on the higher mileage side. That being said it was a 1 owner car for almost all of it's life and serviced at MB. Clearly it was garaged and in a warm climate (Arizona) because it's absolutely flawless. I've corrected a few things such as fog lights and the trunk not closing properly and have done the ABC fluid flush and filter. I have a construction company so hydraulics don't really scare me and I think these cars are undeservedly bashed. Vin is WDBSK74F86F111992. Still in awe when I see it in the garage. When these came out, I found every magazine that did a test on the P30. Very grateful for the chance to meet other P30 owners. Hoping to be a resource that people can use for help too, in the buying process I've basically taken an account of every fix possible for these!

 

@ttremblay92 Welcome! Yes, I watched the BaT auction and was quite surprised (and as an owner, somewhat disappointed), at the low price. But as a buyer, you did really well for yourself. Enjoy!

 

ttremblay92 a hearty congrats on your find and purchase! Always good to take advantage of the ‘high mileage’ mark down, especially on something with the bulletproof M113K. Future plans for the car? If ever you want to sell those wheels PLEASE pm me first! I might be a tad biased but would choose one of the beautiful shades of blue or just boring ‘resale red’ over the oh so common silver or black. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that rot…
Vlad hi, and thanks yet again for everything R230 SL55 P30 you do! The @ before a name only is needed on B@T.

 

Beta Steve Thanks and good to know about the '@'. FYI- I sold my 2011 Turbo S about a month ago, so old faithful (SL55) is my primary 'go to' fun machine once again. Things could be worse...

 

hey Vlad I have a 2008 p030 located in Vancouver BC with Vin#WDBSK72F58F139366. Have you located my car already? And I always wanted to know how many p030 were produced in 07/08 and how many all the years before worldwide I heard from Steve that you may have these numbers. Thanks

This car has 25,000 km

 

Boris, I do have your car on the list. It shows up as a Canadian delivery, but it is great to be able to geolocate cars 15 years later and see that they are still alive and kicking (and hopefully keep track of them when they’re sold on). Your car looks really sharp and has very low mileage (kilometrage?)

MY08 had the lowest number of P30s of the SL55 era. 62 US, 11 Canada and 41 ROW. MY07 was 138/28/190 and MY06 was 170/0/73. They were available in ROW countries starting in MY04. 250 were sold in MY05 (all outside of North America). So far I have located 52 for MY04, but I am only half-way through that year, so the number will probably double. When it comes to the SL63 years, MY09 stats were US 348/ CAN 48/ ROW 522, MY10 47/7/79, MY 11 33/13/53 and MY12 41/9/13.

Couple of interesting things to note-

• The SL63 Launch Edition in the US consisted of 100 cars, all painted in (777) Silver Arrows/ (217) Red Leather and all were equipped with the P30 option, making them probably some of the most expensive V8 SLs of the R230 era. That also helped account for the most P30s sold in any model year in the US.
• There were no cars sold as MY10 in the US. They were all marked as MY11 (MBZ was selling MY11 cars as early as 2009), the VIN number had a B in the 10th position (MY11), but the MBZ production code was 800, which is MY10. Canadian cars did not have this wrinkle and cars were sold respectively as MY10 and MY11s.

Incidentally, at MBZ the new model year seemed to start around May of the previous year and virtually all MY08s were produced in 2007. In fact only 9 MY 08 SL55s actually left the line in 2008. The production line shut down in early January 2008 for the changeover to the SL63. At the other end of the dial, earliest pre-production cars often came down the line 1-2 years ahead of the model year. The earliest MY08 SL55 came into existence on 11/25/2005.

 

Ha ha…Absolutely! There are some lovely drives on Vancouver Island.

 

Well I recently bought a 2008 SL55 AMG, it was a good deal at 16k USD so I bought it I've been fixing it up normal issues and what not plus lack of any experience with a mercedes but a hobbies mechanic and while buying or rather searching for parts I came across parts listed "w/performance package" and were noticeable more expensive. Well seeing as how the brake rotors I was looking at matched the 2 piece rotors I had I needed to confirm whether or not this sl55 was one with said option. After looking into it I discovered the said option was the P30, I'm used to GM vehicles and their little options stickers the have in multiple places in their vehicles so I figured maybe mercedes had something like that. I was wrong. After more research I found this thread that describes what the p30 is and what other identifiers their may be with the p30 mainly being the Alcantara interior the carbon fiber interior trim, and the sl65 front bumper which I have all of in this sl55 that I just bought on a whim from some kid I work with. After more research I confirmed that the 2 piece brakes are synonymous with the p30, what does this mean, do I have a p30? Well after more reading here and else where I found the only way to figure it out for sure is to look up the Vin and get the data sheet, so I did.

I have a 2008 SL55 amg vin: WDBSK72FX8F138617

Attached is my data sheet


So if anyone here can confirm for me just in case that I do in fact have a p30 i would appreciate it.

A little background the person I bought the car from bought it from another 20s something guy who apparently spent a fortune in after market wheels, and infotainment system before the hard top hydraulic pump when out and cylinders started leaking so he sold it to my guy which fixed the cylinder but ultimately gave up. I bought it finished the cylinder repair found out he tried to fix the pump by putting JB weld on the fill screw for the pump which I guess was leaking so I have to replace that unit to finally make the hard top work. Second major issue was an oil leak from the front timing cover crank pulley seal, that was a pain to repair turns out someone at something tried to repair it failed and used RTV to "seal it" so after fixing all that all that's left is a pump and a button piece for the door handle ... well if anyone has any questions let me know and if anyone can again thank you I appreciate it .

 

SaltLick01 Yes, you definitely have a P30- congratulations! The LastVIN.com build sheet confirms it (up to 2006, MBZ listed it as ‘030’ and then changed to ‘P30’). 2008 was the lowest production year of the SL55, with just 114 sold world-wide and 62 going to the US. Your 040 Black/ 211 Anthracite is one of 27 in the US (I have the same year and color combo).

Depending on the year, the P30 option added between $14-15k to the price of a new SL55. It increased the top speed from a governed 155 to 186 mph, which sadly, is not much more than bragging rights, given our speed limits. Apart from the different front bumper, the main differences were the twin-spoke wheels (same as SL65 but different color), compound front brakes, an LSD, additional oil cooler, Alcantara details and stiffer suspension tuning.

The brakes are visually (and mechanically) quite different from a standard SL55. Easiest way to illustrate is to go to Bring a Trailer and look up listings of an SL55 and a P30 SL55 for detailed comparison photos. Good luck with your car. Sounds like you got a real bargain, even given the various fixes. They are definitely overlooked/undervalued.

 

mine had some aftermarket wheels I believe some 20in gloss black wheels and has just over 98k miles but it's kind of exciting that I stumbled across it, oh also there was a post earlier about a couple of unaccounted for vins? What was that about?