I BOUGHT A CHEAP MERCEDES ML500 FOR £1,000!

Alright guys, how's it going? Welcome back. Well, I'm currently in, well, just leaving, Maidstone Services. I'm on my way to pick up something quite interesting. Well, I think it's quite interesting. You might not. What I've agreed to buy today is an old Mercedes ML, but this is no ordinary ML. This is an ML500 with a 5.0-litre, 300-horsepower V8. If you've been watching this channel for a while, you'll know that I love the original ML. Not many people do, so it does make me a little bit odd. But I can't help it, I just always have. And this 500 is the biggest engine they offered, outside of the AMG models. A couple of weeks ago I got an email from a viewer asking if I wanted to buy this. It belonged to his late brother-in-law. His brother-in-law had owned it since new and it's only done 45,000 miles. But, that's where the good news ends, it does need quite a few jobs doing. I've been told it's quite grubby and needs some TLC, but still I thought 45,000 miles on a 22-year-old car, this is definitely worth the trip. He also told me that it's got a flat battery, so in the boot I've got my booster pack and I also bought a brand new battery for the ML. I'm hoping once I hook up the jump pack it'll fire into life, but if it doesn't I'm going to have to get my spanners out and replace the battery. When I asked the guy what he wanted for it, he said, I just want it out of the way, I'm not using it, it's just parked up, not doing anything, so £1,000 and you can take it. So I thought, right, well that sounds quite reasonable. I've already done a vehicle history check using CarVertical and it all checked out fine. It's never been stolen, never had mileage issues, it's never been involved in a recorded accident and there's no outstanding finance. It's really important that you do one of these checks before you hand over any cash for a used car or motorbike, you just never know what's hiding. Before you do one of these checks, make sure you use my promo code HYPEAK and you'll get 10% off each and every vehicle check that you do. And look at that, it's not something you see every day, is it? Old Rolls Royce. It's a really thorough check and it checks millions of cars across dozens of countries' databases, so if it's had an accident in Asturias or a crash in Catalonia, it'll tell you. Anyway, with this one, the low mileage appears to be genuine. It's only done a couple of thousand miles a year, so I'll do my own checks when I get there, but so far so good. These roads are tight round here, you know. Right, anyway, we're nearly there, so I'll leave the link below in the video description if you want to do a CarVertical check and I'll catch up with you shortly. Well, here it is, my new-to-me 2001 Mercedes ML500, and I'm really quite smitten with it. I don't know why. I'm a sad, sad man, really. I'm a little bit, well, I say disappointed. I paid £1,000 for this car, so I can't be too too disappointed, but it's a shame that the paintwork's so poor. Obviously, the front bumper needs painting, headlamps need buffing, I need a new set of plates for it. That private plate isn't with it, unfortunately. But the rest of the paintwork, I'm hoping some of this will clean up. I think it's just been parked under a tree for many years. But the front wings, can you see there where the paint's kind of grazed? It has had a little bit of paint. The tyres are all right, though. The wheels are fine. And it drives really well. It just needs a very, very good clean. I'm hoping that the doors look okay, but again, this rear quarter here has been painted, because you can see it's kind of grazed. So it's a bit of a pity. Yeah, rear tyres are good as well. They're hand-cooked on about seven or eight mil of tread. They're quite recent, I think. And how cool does it look with a spare wheel carrier on it? Back in 2001, this would have been some awesome car, really. Back when I was 17 or something, I'd have loved this. Saying that, I'm still giddy about it now. Just looks really cool, I think, with the spare wheel on the back. Sort of looks like it's wearing a rucksack, don't you think? And also, this is the family pack, so it's got an additional two seats, so it's a seven-seater. And these rear windows here pop out. Now, it's not bad in terms of rust. There's a little bit there around the wheel arch, but it's not bad, really. It's just the level of repairs, really. The previous repairs are quite poor. I think what I'm going to do first is drop it off at the valetters for a very thorough clean. Might even get them to buff some of it and see what it looks like. Buff the headlamps, stick a new set of plates on it, and then kind of re-evaluate. Because it's not worth spending a fortune on this, is it, really? Because it's not worth an awful lot. In fact, it's probably not worth anything to anyone apart from me, who's got some sort of weird fetish with them. Let me show you inside, then. Unfortunately, we've only got the one key, but it does work. Inside, again, is quite grubby. What have we got? We've got the V5 in there. We've got the navigation disc there in a Lady Gaga case, which makes no sense. Some very snazzy cup holders. It just needs a very good clean. I'm confident all this leather will clean up quite well. We've just got quite a bit of mould there growing on the centre armrest, and some mould on the headlight in there. But we've got a nice walnut trim. Everything works. Oh, look at this that I found, as well. Let me show you this. In here, we've got an old Nokia. Look at this. Remember when phones looked like that? So we've got that. We've got four pounds in the old-style pound coin, which you can no longer spend, and an old-fashioned £20 note. When was the last time you saw one of those? With Edward Elgar on it. What else have we got? We've got some fuses. And, again, in its day, this would have been quite a nice car, really. We're missing the tread plate thing for the footrest. That's missing. It might turn up in the car, because there's an awful lot of rubbish lying everywhere. But, yeah, it's only done 45,000 miles, and the service history is really good. Well, it is, I'll say that, as it flashes up to tell me it's 730 days out of service. But, in that time, it's done no miles. And, yeah, the engine is sweet. Listen to this. Five litre. I think it's something like 306 horsepower. You ready to see these windows pop out? You ready? Ready for this? Oh, yes. Like magic. Quite a nice day here, as well. 22 degrees. What else can I show you, then? That's pretty much it. That's jammed. I've tried spraying it with WD-40 just to lubricate it, but my cigarette lighter is jammed. Glovebox there. As is often the case with these MLs, the fabric here is fine on the driver's side, but it's a little bit saggy on the passenger side. Up here, we've got... I'd forgotten about this feature. You can stick your garage door opener, or electronic gate fob, or whatever, up there, so that when you press that button, it presses the button to open your garage door. In the back, we've got... Again, it's just a bit of a state, isn't it? But I'm confident it will clean up. I mean, look at the colour of the carpets underneath. If we can just rip out all the seats and everything, perhaps, just clean everything, we might have a nice, genuine car. A little bit of rust there on the outer edge of the sills. Nothing that can't be fixed. Let me show you in the boot, then. Now, again, there's a little dent there. I think someone's been a little bit too fierce slamming that spare wheel. This looks like original paint, so I think that will clean up. I've swapped batteries, by the way, because the old one was dead. So that is the dead battery there. Empty bottle of Malbec. Some Atlases and stuff. It's just a bit of a skip, but I think, I think I can save it. All this will clean up. That loose trim there will stick back. I'm confident of that. It looks far worse than it actually is, I think. Of course, I might be talking nonsense here, but we need a new spare tyre as well, because look how perished this one is. I can't even see the date on it, it's that old. Does it have a date stamp anywhere? Apologies, this isn't riveting viewing, is it? Well, there it is, anyway. I just thought I'd show it to you before I get back on the road. I didn't want to do this at the guy's house, by the way, because I always think it's a bit of an invasion of privacy. It's fine if they offer, but I didn't want to ask. I don't like putting people in uncomfortable positions. I wouldn't like it if somebody came to my house and stuck a camera in my face and said, oh, can I film your old ML on your driveway? So I didn't ask. So now I've got, I don't know, about a three-hour drive back, and then try and figure out what to do next. Like I say, I think I will wash it first. I think that's the best thing to do, and then kind of see where to draw the line with it. Definitely paint the front bumper. As for the rest of it, I don't know. We'll see what it looks like when it's clean. Right, I'll catch you later on. Well, we're here at SBR over in Stockport, and my ML500 is all ready to collect. I'm dreading the build, but it's had an awful lot of work. So I thought today we'd come down and speak to Sam, and he can explain everything that he's done. There she is. Finally. Finally done. So I dropped the car off. It'd only done 44,000 or 45,000 miles, but I wasn't sure when it was last serviced. So I asked Sam to give it a full service, a gearbox service, and just generally check over the car and make sure everything was right. I'd already had the MOT done at this point and fixed the seat, so I knew that it drove okay, but there were a few issues. I've just spotted the bill on the passenger seat, which I am slightly worried about, but there's two pages. Yeah, that's what worries me a bit. What did you do then exactly? So full inspection. Obviously, I'd already passed an MOT, so that was good news for you and us. Yeah. But service-wise, it was miles behind. It needed a lot of catching up. I think it had been done kind of every 10,000 rather than every year because... Which could have been every six or eight years with this, couldn't it? Yeah. Yeah, because whoever owned it before done such low miles. I think they just thought they'd just stick to a mileage schedule rather than a yearly schedule. So it's had spark plugs, all the filters? It's had a B service, oil filter, air filter, cabin filter. We had to change all the spark plugs. There's 16 plugs on it. Okay. So that's a costly job. Did you have any issues? Did they all come out all right? No, they all come out all right, to be fair. They're all pretty badly rusty, so good job we did. I wouldn't want to leave them any longer. You commented that the steering was a bit hazy. Not true, yeah. We flushed out the power steering fluid, put fresh in. We changed the fuel filter on it. Not many people know it's got a fuel filter. And that's at the back, did you say? Yeah, it's behind the passenger rear wheel. So the whole wheel has to come off, all the arch liner has to come out, and then you eventually find it. But Mercedes don't sell them anymore. Right. So we had to search around online for one of them, which was a challenge. Gearbox service. Oh yeah, gearbox service. That wasn't leaking, was it? Because I thought that was leaking. I don't know if it has been leaking in the past and somebody's fixed it, because it's bone dry. We did the service, but the fluid we measured coming out, more went back in. So I think somebody's probably fixed it and not topped it up. So there was like a litre difference. Was it black? Was it the original fluid? It definitely needed doing, yeah. I'd say it's not been done. But if it was sticking to his mileage, it would be due. But it really should have been done 20 years ago. And there was an issue with the indicators, they weren't cancelling. Indicators weren't cancelling. You can't buy the stock on its own, we had to buy the full switch pack. Right. But that was like 300 quid from Mercedes. We found a brand new one online for about 70 quid. Right, okay. So that was worth looking around for. When you were going from park to drive, there was a bit of play in the linkage. Okay. So we had a look underneath and one of the bushes was missing. Right. So we put a new bush in, so that feels more sharper now. And did you do something with the accelerator pedal as well? Accelerator pedal, when I was driving, it felt like it was disappearing inwards. Yeah, because that's a common issue, isn't it? Common issue. We used to re-bush the pedal, change all the bushes, but Merckx had a full pedal completely rebuilt for like 30 quid, so that was well worth it. The parts, they've either got stuff or it's no longer available, there's no in-between like Germany. I feel like once they've sold what they've sold, I don't think there'll be much more coming out. And what else did we do? The cigarette lighter drawer thing was jammed, wasn't it? Yeah, there's a couple of coins stuck in there. We've got it opening and closing. You've got to give it a bit of a tickle to get it out, but yeah, it works. And rust-wise then, it wasn't too bad underneath? No. Because my mechanic, when they MOT'd it, said it was all right. Yeah, underneath, I think it's had an under sealant put on it, early stages in its life. It's all flaking off now and is exposing a bit of rust, but a lot of people put it on now to cover it up, so it's done it the world of good, to be honest. So really, that could do with doing again now. Yeah, I might get that done then. Yeah. It's going for bodywork now. I need to get a load of bodywork done and the wheels. I need a tyre for the spare as well. These tyres were all right then, weren't they? Tyres are old, but there's no cracking or anything. Right, okay. So yeah, they're actually all right. They weren't advised on the MOT, but I know they're old, but yeah, I didn't think they were cracking. But yeah, so it's going for bodywork next. And it needs quite a lot, the more I look at it. I think it's either do the obvious or- Do the lot. You end up going crazy, because it's just starting to- I know. Little bits, and it's like, I'd kind of expect that on a car. Yeah, it's not horrendous, is it? It's just had loads of paint before, so it's all sort of- Yeah, the sun's caught it on the top. I think it must have had a paint job, and then the lacquer's not been great or something. Auxiliary belt you changed as well, did you? We checked the belt. It was cracking a bit and fraying a bit, and it was the original belt the car left the factory with. So we took that off and the tensioner bearing and the guide pulley bearing had gone, so belt and pulleys and tensioner. Right, okay. A little bit unfortunate, but- And have you driven this? Have you road tested it? Yeah, I've drove it. What do you think of it? I really liked it, yeah. Right, okay. I've actually enjoyed the whole thing, to be honest. Yeah, good. Do you get many in still, or not? We have a couple in. I have a couple of 55 AMGs in, but non-AMG ones, no, they're a bit not many. They've all been scrapped, I think, haven't they? No one cares about them, yeah. They've all been scrapped, yeah. But no, we don't have many, but I have a couple. And the actual engine itself is quite a bulletproof thing, isn't it? Really good engine, yeah. But in my opinion, that's the best engine that's made, I would say. Really? Yeah, yeah. It's a shame they stopped using that, to be fair. Yeah. How does that compare to the AMG, the 5.4? Same engine, it's just tuned up a little bit more. And then obviously, like in your SL, the same engine again, but with a supercharger on it. So they use that engine across the board, really. But yeah, it's a really, really good engine. Right, okay. So I don't think you're going to have any problems with that at all. Transmission was good as well, to be fair, as long as it was serviced. Four-speed or five? Five-speed. Five? Yeah. And you've been doing some filming on this, haven't you, for your own channel? We have, yeah. We've done a full video of all the service work we've done and the little bits and pieces we've done. Okay. So it's going to be all on our channel after you've posted, yeah. I'll leave the link below to Sam's channel, but it's, what's it called? SPR Autos. SPR Autos, simple as that. There we go. Right, let me go into the office then and pay up, and I'll catch up with you later. Right then, guys, first time in the ML500 in about a month, and I've missed it, genuinely. If you're a long-time viewer of the channel, you'll know that I love the old W163 ML. It's for sentimental reasons for me, really, more than anything, but I just like them, always have done. And the fact that this is the big five litre just makes it a bit more special. I paid my bill, which, to be fair, Sam's done me a real big favour with. He's given me a little bit of discount, which is nice. He's done loads of extra work to it that he didn't need to, but he did. Slow down a bit, you. No one lets you go, do they? Nobody. Cheers. I'm going anyway. Thank you. Cheers. He's just gone above and beyond, really, and replaced loads of little things while he was there, so I do appreciate that. My bill was, in case you're wondering, bear in mind I paid £1,000 for the car, £1,345.10, so more than I paid for the car. This is always the case, isn't it? When you buy a cheap car, you always end up sinking a load more money into it straight away. And I haven't finished yet. Right, now we're going to drop this off at Jimmy the Magician's. It needs a load of paintwork. And also, I need to replace these, so I need to get onto my trimmer, get him to come out and replace both side panels. That one you can't see, but it's sagging a little bit, so I'll get that done as well. But I'm intrigued to see how this drives now. It should feel a bit tighter and a bit more responsive. He was right about the gear lever. That feels very tight, as does the accelerator, actually. Oh, yeah. Old 300 horsepower V8. Oh, and the fuel light's on. They really do drive like an old 90s truck, these, which is quite endearing. It certainly isn't a BMW X5, anyway. It does feel sharper, though. It's definitely got more oomph. Makes a nice sound, too. So I think, ladies and gents, I'm going to leave this video here. I think you've waited long enough for this. It's been months and months since I picked this up over in Kent. I guess when it's all finished, I'll do another video with it, with a full reveal. I still need to run it to Prestige and get the wheels refurbished. I still need a new tyre for the spare. Loads of little things to do, really. But all the important stuff's done. The rest is just cosmetic. Oh, yeah. It flies, this thing, actually. That accelerator pedal's much better as well. It used to rock from side to side, left to right, like a pendulum. I'm glad the notchy steering's been fixed. Almost felt like the column was the shape of a 50p piece, if you know what I mean. It didn't feel smooth. And now, smooth as you like. It drives really well, this. Ah, I need to figure out how to set my clock as well. I also need a sat-nav disc. We're getting there, though, aren't we? We are getting there. I think by the time we're done, this should owe me... What does it owe me right now? £1,000 plus £1,300 at 23. A couple hundred quid at my mechanic's. This is going to owe me about £4,000, but it should look pretty mint. It's a really tricky one to value this as well, because there just aren't many out there. Especially ones with only 45,000 miles on the clock. I would have guessed it's probably worth, I don't know, six grand when it's done? Maybe? I don't know. Not that it matters, because it isn't for sale. I'm going to keep this one. Add it to my weird little eclectic collection. I think when it's all finally done, we need to take it on a road trip, don't we? I'm not sure where yet, but if you've got any suggestions, let me know below. Right then guys, I shall love you and leave you. I'll see you next time. Thanks once again for watching. Make sure you give the video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't done already. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. I'll leave the link below. And yeah, see you next time.