xxGenericSNxx

Picked up a used R63 two months ago. The car came with 47,817 non pampered miles. Being very meticulous, the car needs a lot of work to get everything operable and into a satisfactory cosmetic condition. Pictures hide a lot of the issues. Less than half of the issues were known when I flew out to St. Louis to take a look at the car in person and the other half discovered after I shipped it back home. Unfortunately when I had the car looked at, all of these issues were overlooked by the MB dealer.

However, being my dream car, good things don't come easy. So the project for the summer will be to get it back to tip top shape and to start modifications. The following are things that are either inoperable or are the result of not being well taken care of wear and tear issues. To give you an idea of time frame the car was purchased on 4/21/12, delivered on 5/6/12 and has been out of my hands (at the shop) probably half of the time since delivery. So whenever I get to see the car/drive it, it's still quite a surprise to me and puts a smile on my face every time.

The car itself was originally sold to an MB dealer in Atlanta, titled in Colorado and later sold to another dealer in Atlanta. It was later picked up at an auction by this used car dealer in St. Louis which I highly don't recommend and won't give them the satisfaction of posting their name nor their license plate advertisement on my car.

The car is Majestic Black Metallic (hints of blue and gray in the sun) on Charcoal Nappa Leather with Burlwood Walnut Trim. The car has every US option available for this model year which includes:
P03 Premium 3- Distronic, Keyless Go
289 Wood Leather Steering Wheel (actually a downgrade from the standard AMG wheel which is thicker and has the AMG bumps at 10 and 2 O'clock)
319 Lighting Package- Cornering fog lamps, Bi-Xenon Active Headlights, Headlamp Washers (how is this not standard on a car of this caliber?!)
864 Rear Seat Entertainment- 2 Screens on back of front seats, DVD player with two inputs, Second row center console
872 Heated Rear Seats
Linguatronic Voice Recognition (don't know code for this and it's not on my netstar window sticker maybe this is standard despite the brochure showing it as an option)

Known issues:
A/C display on dash broken
OEM Factory spare tire trunk cover replaced for crappy "custom" solution
Tail gate repainted and badging put on crooked
Rear bumper repainted so poorly there's visible runs/ drips on a section of the bumper itself
Missing nav disc*

Hidden issues (discovered after delivery):
Rear A/C inoperable/ needs new unit
Valve body failed 100 miles after delivery
*Nav reader broken
Missing factory subwoofer (or subwoofer of any kind)
Misc. missing pieces in spare tire area
Second row and trunk cigarette plug inoperable
Rims downgraded to 19" S550 Sport AMG rims 3 wheels are 19X9.5 one is 19X8.5
Removable second row center console has been taken apart at some point and squeaks a lot
One wood trim on center console doesn't match in color to surrounding pieces (too dark)
Various small interior trim pieces missing or broken


That's all I could think of off the top of my head but I'm sure there are more.

Here's the list of completed modifications as of 9/2/2014:

Exterior:
Wald Black Bison Front Bumper with Quad Fogs and Angel Eyes
Custom Carbon Fiber Lip and Vent Inserts for Wald Front Bumper
Carbon Fiber Mirrors with Arrow LED Turn Signal
Custom Carbon Fiber 3 Fin Diffuser with Mesh
Lorinser Side Skirts
Euro Spec Rear 4 Piece Flares
OEM Accessory Rear Wing
21" OEM AMG Wheels (Euro R63 Option)
15mm Front H&R Spacers
20mm Rear H&R Spacer
AMG Affalterbach Wheel Caps
AMG Affalterbach Hood Badge
Wheel Locks that work with extended bolts
2010-2014 Style AMG Trunk Badge
Gold Calipers with AMG Lettering

Interior:
OEM Ventilated Front Seats Retrofit
OEM Second and Third Row Side Sun Shades Retrofit
JL Speakers in lieu of all factor HK speakers
2X 6.5" JL 6W3V3 Subwoofers in custom enclosure at OEM location
Calibre K40 (previous installation)
Carbon Fiber Interior Trim (using OEM base plate)
Carbon Fiber Flat Bottom Steering Wheel
Nappa Leather Stitched Airbag
AMG Affalterbach Steering Wheel Emblem
AMG Aluminum Paddle Shifters Retrofitted
AMG Floor Mats
AZN Optics LED Interior Lighting
AMG Door Pins
iPod Connector (Wired to Center Armrest instead of the Glove Box)
Front Side Tinted Windows
Brabus Alcantara with Blue Stitching Door Panel Inserts
Heated Third Row Seats (Using all OEM parts)

Engine:
Carbonio Carbon Fiber Airbox
AFE Pro Dry S Air Filters

Here's the list of planned modifications:
Fire Extinguisher (Europe Option)
U80 120V Plug (Facelift Option)
Emergency Triangle (Europe Feature)


Enough talk and here's some photos.

This first set is a few days after I got the car hanging out with some friends:













































Replacing the missized wheel with the correct one. Those front brakes are huge!





After removing the jack, the car sits nice and low. Wish it were like this all the time.















License plates arrive:








Nice road trip up to Vancouver, BC:
















With an R Diesel buddy:












Trim removed getting ready for its journey to Taiwan for CF treatment:







Interior has been stripped!









Custom subwoofer cover which was really poorly made. It sat higher than the OEM lid and scrapped the trunk whenever it closed. Workmanship is not very good.




Since then I have replaced it with the OEM lid and had this custom sub box built. It fits into the extra space above the spare tire and is removable so the spare can be used when needed:





Mockup with 65 look tips:






R63 spotting yesterday! Undoubtedly the most blurry photo ever, but at least the quad tips can be made out. Much better than not snapping a photo of another R63 that I saw last week.





Although this car is so high maintenance, it's quite a fun project and I love researching how to fix things on the car and things that I can modify. It's been quite educational learning about the ins and outs of this car even though I'm having a mechanic work on most of it. I'll be updating this thread as more modifications and cool photos come along.

xxGenericSNxx

With a CL63 buddy:






With an E63 buddy:

South Ocean1

Those are some great photos!!! Thanks for posting them.

I was sorry to hear about all of the issues with the car. I am hopeful that once you get them resolved, you will be good to go for many years.

I also can't wait to see the car in finished form, particularly with the 21 inch wheels. What wheels did you decide to go with as those are going to be the most important addition visually to the car. I was surprised in one of your earlier posts how "relatively" inexpensive ordering the factory 21s (from Europe) was - although that might not give you the look you want.

I continue to think the R63 is one of the coolest cars Mercedes has ever made. I am glad one of the 44 or so has found a truly worthy owner. (I think there are closer to 44 as the list you posted tracking R63s that have popped up for sale, many of which I have seen watching listings as well, supports that slightly higher number assuming some original owners still have theirs).

Kind regards

xxGenericSNxx

Thank you South Ocean.

Yes I was sorry about the issues too but there's nothing I can do about it. I just have to fix it and move on, no point dwelling over it. It was a nice learning experience for me as this is my first used car. Now I know to buy certified/ 1 owner/ an old guy's car. heh

I am still not sure which 21" rims to choose. I was leaning towards the HRE 948RL but I haven't seen them in person to really be sold on them. I was also looking at the DPE SC7 but fear that the spokes are too thin. For such a big car, the spokes need to have some visual "weight" to it. Ideally I'd love a set of 5 thickish spoke concave wheels, but my requirement is that the spokes must have a design to them. A flat slabbed spoke is quite boring which is the case of the ADV.1 5, 360 Forged Concave 5, and HRE 945RL just to name a few. A wheel like the GFG Drama is nice: http://www.carid.com/images/gfg/whee...chrome-lip.jpg because it has the OEM look to it while also being concave. However it's from a low quality company. So I don't want to end up sticking some cheap rims on the car because we see that too often with 2001 S430s and 1992 SC300s with chrome pillars... yes you know what I'm talking about. But I'm open to suggestions if you have them!

So the wheels can wait at the moment. The 21" OEM rims are nice but I don't like how the whole thing is painted silver. That means that when it is rashed, the whole rim will need to be repainted when repaired. I'm much rather have a polished lip which is so easy to fix.

I'm also looking for the OEM 20" rims as my winter wheels and then putting these 19s on the S500. But I don't want to buy new as IMO they're too expensive for stock wheels.

Since I'll probably do stock 20s in the winter, it'd be nice to change to something different for the summer instead of OEM 21s again. So we'll see. I'm just waiting it out right now and hopefully something more interesting will come to the market.

Yes I agree with you that it's closer to 44. That posted list already has more than the 30 that AMG claimed. I am in the process of adding another one to the list from another person near Seattle that bought one not on the existing list. I'm fairly certain the blurry Iridium Silver one I posted is an original owner from another dealer here as I believe they got one allocation. And the Cubanite Silver one I saw last week I don't know whether it's new or used. I'd find it hard to believe that not a single original owner has held onto their car so I'm more inclined to believe it's MBUSA's figure of 44. But now I'm also starting to think it might even be higher because I saw so many the last week. Maybe it's just coincidence but who knows.

bobafett

Nice dude. Traffic on 90 was so bad that you could get out and take pictures??

Going to be interesting to see how this shapes up, but there's no doubt it'll turn out really well given your attention to detail. Congrats.

--Dan

xxGenericSNxx

Yeah I 520 bridge actually and the bride went up for whatever reason. Perfect opportunity to take some cool photos. BTW you can see my buddy's car behind mine. hehe

bobafett

Ah, north-sider. Funny stuff for sure. People must have been wondering why some guy got out of his car to take pics of his minivan?

--Dan

malahhaor

I told my wife who actualy hates minivans and SUVs (thank you lord) that if we ever needed a bigger seating car it would be a lowered r63. To which she replied " you can drive that tank your self I'm keeping my cls" and that's fine by me first thing I will do is get the 63 badges off and give some vett a run for his money.
Good choice. I think issues you are having are negligible comparing to what this can offer. Have fun, be safe and good luck.

zneB-sedecreM

Interesting choice.
Congrats on getting one of the rarest AMGs made. There can't be that many floating around in that color either, especially with distronic, that's awesome. There's a gentleman who lives near me in the Bensalem, PA area that has a lowered, tinted silver R63. Every time I see it, no matter which angle, for some reason I know it's an AMG. Other than that, I've never seen another one in reality.
I'm glad you got your dream car! The mods that you have planned sound superb. I love the 65 tips. The quote you got to do your Alcantara sounds like way too much (I got quoted for a place in NJ $1,100 with material and labor for the entire headliner, visors and pillars. My car is a CL, the headliner in an R is bigger, but not 4X bigger though. You may be like me and sometimes not care what things cost, but shop around bro, there's better deals out there than $4,500 to do the suede.) Seems like you have a vision for this elusive minivan/torpedo, I like that, like even before you got it you just knew how you wanted YOUR R63 to look like. I'm the same way with my CL, and wheels were the one thing I really didn't know which kind I wanted. I ended up getting and have the only set of Vossen CV3s done in carbon fiber. I see what kind of style you're going for with your rim, I think it'll compliment it, especilly when lowered. I've never seen the WALD BB bumper for the W251 or the Lorinser skirts.
Definitely a good idea to get all the trim in carbon fiber. What did you get quoted to get that done?
Can't wait til all the ideas are put on the car

zneB-sedecreM

Also, I def think you should get rid of the orange side markers. Either smoke them or something. But something that would make a HUGE difference and something I've never seen on an R Class; paint the headlight housings the same color as your car, but just leave the 'eye ring'. I think that would look mean.

xxGenericSNxx

Thank you.
Yes the shop I got quoted from is known for price gouging. There's only one more reputable shop that I know of in my area that does this type of work so I'll try them next.

You got PM on the CF work.

Don't worry, the orange lights are definitely going. On Euro spec R Class cars, the orange light is actually a parktronic sensor painted body color. It would be a direct replacement with the amber light. I'm working on getting the part number so I can hopefully order it at the moment. Then when I get the Wald bumper, I'll put that in place for the parktronic instead of having the hole at the North American awkward place.

Also I hope people don't think it's weird with a Wald front bumper, Lorinser side skirt, and AMG rear bumper. The Wald Black Bison looks like a more aggressive AMG bumper on the front, but I found the rear to be really lacking in design. Also the exhaust openings are more narrow than the OEM one so I'd have to downgrade my exhaust tips. All Rs have the same side skirts regardless if they're AMG or not so I decided to go for Lorinser since Wald doesn't make one. As a result many people do a full Wald kit with Lorinser sides and it looks fine.

Here's a white R500 like that. They also painted the headlight housings matte black:

http://www.mercedestuningmag.com/wp-...***-wald-2.jpg

http://www.mercedestuningmag.com/wp-...***-wald-1.jpg


Here's a matte black R63 with the same stuff as the R500:

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/t...9/DSC_0630.jpg

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/t...DSC_0392-1.jpg


Don't know why everyone was dumb about not painting their amber lights body color.

You can see how the Black Bison front bumper is like a more aggressive AMG bumper like the one found on the R230 SL65 or on the S63/65 and CL63/65.


I'd like to paint the headlight housings matte black but I'm afraid that if I have the lenses opened up they'll never seal correctly and I'll get condensation. I currently got a 4 year extended warranty after all the additional issues popped up so the headlights for sure wouldn't be covered and the idea of a lowering module might need to be put on hold if the air suspension won't be covered as well since those bills are very costly.

BTW where can I find photos of your ride? Saw you have Distronic. That's the first thing I look for when I spot MBs on the street. That and night vision are probably my most favorite options on the newer cars.

South Ocean1

xxGenericSNxx:

I understand what you mean about the wheel selection being an important but difficult decision. Also, 21 inch wheels seem to be particularly rare beyond the stock choices offered by MB. The aftermarket jump up to 22"s which I think are too big for that car and would compromise the ride quality too much.

While probably not along the lines of what you are thinking given they don't have the lip you highlighted, I think either the 21 inch wheel 5 spoke wheel offered sparingly on the W164 ML63 10th Anniversary would look great on the R63. I also think the 21 inch five spoke design for the new W166 ML would also look great on the R63. From an offset perspective, I think both could work but the latter from the W166 ML seems closest.

http://www.alloywheelsdirect.net/mer...g_vi_wheel_781

http://www.alloywheelsdirect.net/mer...oke_wheel_2976

Whichever way you go, I really look forward to seeing your project unfold with plenty of pictures!!

Kind regards

xxGenericSNxx

Thanks for the suggestions.
The second set is too aggressive, it'll stick out an additional 8mm and I'm currently a hair past the fender line.

The first set would work but I'm not sure about the design.

Reason I said 21 is because stock OEM goes up to 21 so it's factory OK. Ideally 22s look best on this car but the sidewall would be too thin and I'm afraid ride quality would really suck. The ride is already harsh with 19s. The beauty with custom rims such as HRE, DPE, and ADV are that they can make any size and offset that you want.

If I can't find anything at the moment I'll just wait for something else to come to market. There's plenty of other stuff on the car currently keeping me busy.

Thanks I'm excited too. They're fixing the rear AC and nav and installing the iPod integration and led parking lights and license plate lights this week. Can't wait to get it back!

kennyjr748

xxGenericSNxx - I can't wait to see how this turns out!

ghaffar23

A belated congrats on your R! I will be getting my wife a Bluetec R and have come to really like the look and the practicality of these cars. It's a shame that they don't make the AMG, nor will they continue to sell them in the US any more. Sorry to hear about your story of how the dealer in STL didn't disclose everything about the vehicle. With 44+/- built, you really can't be picky I guess. I live about an hour and half southeast of STL and can attest to many dealers there giving buyers the shaft. There are good ones though so I can't be unfair to those. In any event, I look forward to your modifications! Enjoy the R AMG in good health!

xxGenericSNxx

Thank you Ghaffar. I really like the versatility of the R-Class in general. I find it to be the perfect 5 or 6 passenger roadtrip car and it's great for older people to get in and out of. There's lots of room all around and it doesn't feel like a big hulking SUV despite being a tad longer than the GL. It's nice to have a car that's low like a wagon, spacious like a big SUV, and fast like a sports car. It's the characteristics of the three other cars in my sig combined into one.

Yeah that's something I noticed in STL and hope it doesn't ring true of all the dealers. I went to St. Charles MB to get my car inspected and they didn't find any issues. When I got back home they weren't willing to help at all after finding out all of the issues once my local dealer started diving into it. Another annoying thing I found that was common practice over there is all of the dealers putting their ugly stickers on the back of all of their cars. This practice isn't common here on the West coast at all. Luckily mine didn't have the dealer's ugly sticker, probably because the owner was driving it and didn't want that silly thing on the back.

09W211

interesting. sub'd to see how benz's mini van can be dressed up.

xxGenericSNxx

CF trim has arrived! Being installed as we speak. Shout out to my tech, Tom, from Mercedes-Benz of Seattle (formerly Phil Smart MB) is the best. He's been the only one working on my car through all of these projects and he's extremely thorough and does an excellent job.

Currently they are:
Installing OEM iPod connector with Automatic Audio Selector Switch
OEM AMG chrome door pins
Retrofitting 2nd row side sunshades with new panels
Retrofitting 3rd row side sunshades
Reinstalling consoles and CF trim pieces


And another shout out to Ivan from DCT Motorsports who did the CF work. Ivan's excellent service allowed me to receive the trim under special time constraints and he really made things work. The quality of the CF is top notch. I showed a few SAs and techs at the MB dealer and they were very impressed with the quality claiming that
it's better than factory and appears much deeper. I'm so happy with the outcome! Definitely recommend DCTMS to anyone thinking about CF work in the future.


This is how the car looked for the last month:




















Unboxing of the CF:















































Stay tuned for installed photos later in the week.

bobafett

Looking good. Nice progress ahead. Are you doing any audio component swaps to fix some of the crappy stock stereo work?

--Dan

xxGenericSNxx

All I added are 2X JL 6W3V3 subwoofers are in the spare tire area (spare tire in tact).

The interior has mix matched audio components. The rear doors have JL tweeters with stock mid range. The front I will find out tomorrow when the panel is pulled. Fairly certain the center speaker in the dash has been changed (to a better one). All in all, sound system components are better than stock, so I'm happy about that. Just some of the fit and finish (wiring) work is questionable.

Sorry forgot to take a picture of the sub enclosure in the tire area- car's still out of my hands at the moment.

D2FORGED

Definitely in for more! When you get to the wheels part, let us know! We'd love to be a part of this!

nizzle

I was like WTF? Did he really just get out in traffic on the bridge and take a few pics? LOL It makes more sense now that I know the bridge was up. I see some pics from Seattle Wheel (in the Ballard area) and some down at Lake Washington too. Lemme know if you guys meet up again. I'll throw my E55 in the mix

Ludicrous Speed

the CF looks pretty sweet - what did that run you, if you don't mind my asking?

xxGenericSNxx

@nizzle Yeah, I'm not crazy enough to get out during traffic to take photos!

@Ludicrous Speed- you've got PM.

Well more progress is being made. All of the door panels have been pulled and now I can inspect the car's audio components. The car is equipped with JL C2-650 6.5" door speakers, tweeters, and audio crossovers. So it's nice to know that the components are quality, on an otherwise questionable install.

Typically the service bay is supposed to have cars in it. My section is filled with boxes!




More parts!





Rear door panels are having all components swapped to panels with the built in shade.








Front doors only needed trim installed:







JL speaker components:










iPod connectivity installed, will be wired into center console upon center console reassembly (it charges my iPhone 4!):






(Lower panel not fully installed yet)













Car should be finished by the end of tomorrow!

Ludicrous Speed

First song you need to play when driving away is "I'm Sexy and I Know It".