CLK430 Trials & Tribulations: Introduction

Okay, so I finally pulled the plug and bought a low mileage, 2002 Mercedes-Benz CLK430. I'd been shopping for a fun convertible for a while with the romanticized image of top-down, wind-blowing summer fun.  I'd build a set of basic requirements to narrow the scope of my search - those criteria were:

• Four seats
  (there's three of us, and getting something that could only seat two seemed like asking for trouble from whoever would get left out)
• 2000 or newer, but I was really hoping for something newer than 2005
• Reliability
• An active and established user base (forums, etc.)

I won't bore you with all of the details, but the CLK430 met all of those, plus it only had 40k miles. So, my adventure begins...