2009 Mercedes-Benz SL550 R230 facelift, US specification import
A dealer stock unit, imported from Florida, with one document withheld
Overview
Compiled by Kept from the seller's intake answers, the documents supplied and published records for the model. The seller does not write or edit this section, and nobody from Kept has inspected the car.
This 2009 Mercedes-Benz SL550 is finished in Iridium Silver over black leather and is offered from Ballito by , an independent dealer, as a stock unit. It is a facelift R230 with the 5.5 litre M273 V8 and the seven speed automatic, and it was imported from Florida in January 2025. The odometer reads in miles at 59,900 and the 96,400km figure published here is the conversion. SL550 is the United States badge for the car sold in this market as the SL500.
The local file starts at import. Two United States service invoices came with the car, from 2019 at 74,800km and 2023 at 89,300km, and the dealer prepared the car in August 2025 with an oil and filter service, plugs, front brake pads and a roadworthy. There is no local dealer history because there is no local history, and there is nothing in the file covering the first ten years and 74,800km beyond those two invoices.
The seller obtained a United States vehicle history report before buying the car. He was asked at intake to publish it and declined. That decline is the most important thing on this page. A United States car is one of the few vehicles in this market whose past can be looked up, the report exists, the seller has read it, and it is not in the documents. Kept publishes the decline rather than the reason, and every bidder here is pricing the absence.
The other flaws stated are an Active Body Control system that has never been pressure tested with no ABC invoices in the file, a light hydraulic residue film on the boot floor with the Vario-roof otherwise cycling correctly, United States specification headlamps and side markers that were not converted at import, and mismatched front and rear tyre brands. The seller answered every other question put to him, including the ones about the import route and the odometer conversion.
Model background
The R230 replaced the R129 in 2001 and brought the folding metal Vario-roof, which turned the SL from a roadster with a separate hardtop into a car that was a coupe or a convertible in sixteen seconds. It also brought Active Body Control, the hydraulic suspension that reads the road and pushes each corner against roll in real time. Both systems work extremely well and both are the reason a cheap R230 is rarely cheap.
The 2009 facelift is the one to have. The nose was redrawn, the interior was lifted, the M273 5.5 litre V8 and the seven speed automatic carried over in settled form, and Sensotronic braking, which caused the early cars so much trouble, was long gone by then. Mercedes badged it SL500 in this market and SL550 in the United States. Same car, different word on the boot lid.
Which is how a number of them arrive here. A United States car is a genuine oddity in the South African market because it comes from somewhere with a national vehicle history record, and this market has none. NATIS, service stamps and registers are what provenance rests on locally. An imported American car carries the option of a lookup that no local car can offer, which makes the choice of whether to publish it a decision rather than an accident.
Essentials
- Lot
- KPT-061
- Year
- 2009
- Model
- SL550 R230 facelift, US specification import
- Mileage
- 96,400 km
- Transmission
- 7-speed automatic
- VIN
- WDBSK71F49F157204
- Location
- Ballito, KwaZulu-Natal
- Seller
- coastal_prestige
- Seller is
- Dealer, independent, stock unit
- Watchers
- 388
Seller interview
Before the car went live, the seller answered a standard set of questions plus a set our tools generated for this model from its documented failure modes. The full transcript is public, including anything they declined.
10 of 11 answered, 1 declined. A high score means the seller told you more, not that the car is better.
Inferred from the seller's answers and this model's known failure points. Nobody from Kept has inspected this car.
1 question the seller declined
You obtained a United States vehicle history report on this VIN before purchase. Will you publish it with the lot?
United States cars carry a national history record that no South African car has. Where the report exists and the seller holds it, Kept asks for it.
Known flaws
The seller's own list of what this car needs money spent on.
- 01United States vehicle history report obtained by the seller and not published, declined at intake
- 02Active Body Control has not been pressure tested and no ABC invoices exist in the file
- 03Odometer reads in miles, 59,900 at the last reading, and 96,400km is the conversion
- 04Headlamps and side markers are United States specification and were not converted at import
- 05Vario-roof cycles correctly but the boot floor shows a light hydraulic residue film
- 06Front tyres are a different brand to the rears
Service record
Documents & what's included
What physically comes with the car.
- 01NATIS registration certificate, in coastal_prestige's name
- 02Import file: bill of lading, SARS release, letter of authority, police clearance
- 03Two United States service invoices, 2019 and 2023
- 04Dealer pre-sale preparation invoice, August 2025
- 05Two keys
- 06Roadworthy certificate issued within the last six months
Note from the seller
The seller's own words, published as written. The only copy on this page they control.
We buy stock at United States auction, ship into Durban and retail it here. This one came out of Florida in January, cleared, was registered and has been standing on our floor since. It is a straight car and it drives the way a facelift R230 should.
What I will say about it: the roof works, the car sits level, the air conditioning is cold and the interior is the best part of it. There is a film of hydraulic residue on the boot floor which we have cleaned twice and which comes back slowly, so somebody should look at the roof pump properly. ABC has not been tested and I am not going to say it is healthy because I have not measured it. The lights are American and we did not convert them.
I was asked to put the American history report in the documents and I said no. It is my report, I paid for it, and how I use it is my business as the trader. Anyone who wants to run their own on the VIN can do it in ten minutes for about six hundred rand, and the VIN is published at the top of this page. That is the answer I gave at intake and it is the answer I am giving here.
Comments & offers
7 comments · 2 offers
Nobody here thinks the car is bad. The car is probably fine. He is being charged two hundred thousand rand for a piece of paper in his own drawer, and he has decided that is the cheaper option. It is not, and the reserve not being met is the room telling him so.
Comparable facelift R230s on this site have made 548 and 612. This is sitting at 405 with the reserve unmet, which is roughly what the withheld document is costing him. The mechanism is working exactly as advertised.
ABC untested at 96,000km on a car with no maintenance history for the first ten years is its own number, separate from whatever is in the report. Struts are not a weekend job and there are four corners of them.
That is a fair way to handle it and I have no complaint about it. The car is what it is in front of you: it drives correctly, the roof works, the interior is excellent, and the flaws we know about are on the list. Bidders should do their own work and price it accordingly.
I ran it this morning. I am not going to post someone else's paid document on a public thread, so I will say only this: I have withdrawn from the bidding and I would encourage anybody serious to spend the six hundred rand before they bid rather than after.
To be fair to the seller he has published the VIN, and anyone can run their own report for six hundred rand. Has anybody in this thread actually done it rather than posting about it?
The report exists. He has read it. He will not show it. In a market where we normally cannot look a car up at all, watching someone decline to publish the one lookup that was available is remarkable, and I mean that as a description and not an insult.
Comments & bids
7 comments · 2 offersThe crowd checks the report. Offers post inline, and the seller answers directly. Most recent first.
Nobody here thinks the car is bad. The car is probably fine. He is being charged two hundred thousand rand for a piece of paper in his own drawer, and he has decided that is the cheaper option. It is not, and the reserve not being met is the room telling him so.
Comparable facelift R230s on this site have made 548 and 612. This is sitting at 405 with the reserve unmet, which is roughly what the withheld document is costing him. The mechanism is working exactly as advertised.
ABC untested at 96,000km on a car with no maintenance history for the first ten years is its own number, separate from whatever is in the report. Struts are not a weekend job and there are four corners of them.
That is a fair way to handle it and I have no complaint about it. The car is what it is in front of you: it drives correctly, the roof works, the interior is excellent, and the flaws we know about are on the list. Bidders should do their own work and price it accordingly.
I ran it this morning. I am not going to post someone else's paid document on a public thread, so I will say only this: I have withdrawn from the bidding and I would encourage anybody serious to spend the six hundred rand before they bid rather than after.
To be fair to the seller he has published the VIN, and anyone can run their own report for six hundred rand. Has anybody in this thread actually done it rather than posting about it?
The report exists. He has read it. He will not show it. In a market where we normally cannot look a car up at all, watching someone decline to publish the one lookup that was available is remarkable, and I mean that as a description and not an insult.