It WAS worth reading the last 3 years of postings here
 

Over the past few days, I kept this forum alive on a tab in my browser screen, and anytime I had the extra time, I at least looked at the title of each and every posting going back 3 years (page 163 at the time I wrote THIS post), at least quickly glanced at any that had the potnetila to have important or useful information within them, and raed many of them from beginning to end.

It WAS worth it.

I have only had my 2012 C63 coupe for just under 2 weeks now, but after reading all those posts, I think I have at least a reasonable idea of what the most common problems are, what some of the rare problems are, the weird things unique to the C63 or the 156 engine, and what to do when a particular display message or symptom appears.

I also have a pretty good idea of what kind of people have bought W204 C63s! A few things I have learned about "the rest of you":

- You like the power. That's why the average mpg is so bad (I'm apaprently an anomaly - I averaged over 17 mpg on my first 2 fill-ups)

- You like the power. That's why you measure tire life in 4 figures versus 5 (Ok, so I only get 3800 miles out of Pirelli Diablo 240 section rear tire on my Harley Breakout, but on cars I think I have had to buy new tires on only maybe 3 or 4 of the 42 cars I have ever owned)

- You like the power. That's why everyone tracks the cost of front rotors and pads like other people track the stock market! (An insurance agent friend told me I drive so smoothly and use the brakes so little, that if I ever buy insurance from any of the insurers who offer a discount for drivers who drive well, i.e. find it necessary to use the brakes hard far less than average, I should jump on that option!)

- You like control. That's why so disproportionately many of you drive around in "M" mode, and why no one likes to admit it if they drive in "C" (I do actually prefer S as a reasonable compromise between individual control and nanny-systems safety, but my wife insists I use "C" when she is in the car!!).

- In polite society, you never discuss religion or politics, less you start a fight or, in Texas, where at least 2% of those you meet carry, maybe even a gunfight. On the forum, you'd better not discuss dyno charts or tuners, or you'll start a flame war that inevitably ends badly (I understand the difference between correcting results to the "SAE" standard versus the "STD" standard very specifically, and I have a vehicle performance modeling program that I have used to model the performance of cars, motorcycles, trucks, and even conversion buses, but I keep the results to myself unless someone asks, because I don't like being beat up. Telling a man that his car is slower is like calling his wife or girlfriend ugly :))

- The OEM parts costs for our C63s are not cheap, but then what did you expect on a car that sells new or mid 90s in Canada (a bargain when you consider that a Canadian dollar is currently worth only about $.745 U.S. as I write this posting. (I am retired so no big bucks income, but I LOVE cars, and so when I saw a 5-year old C63 coupe with just 27,000 miles on it, I figured it was time to own a "$97,000 car" (the 2017 MSRP on one like mine in Canada), the insurance is only about $25 per month more than my last Mustang GT, and the mpg is only 3 mpg worse than the Mustang and I do only a few hundred miles per month)

- There is an amazing silence about the inconvenience and illogic in using a sophisticated software / hardware package like COMAND, with its joystick at 60 mph, to do simple stuff like switch to the next CD in the changer instead of simply pressing one arrowed button. I don't know if this is because all the rest of you are so much smarter than I am that COMAND seems easy to use to you, or because no one wants to admit that the Emperor's clothing is inappropriate, because the darn car lists for close to 6 figures, and the b=obvious question is why did you buy it! (I bought mine DESPITE COMAND, because 481 crank hp big displacement NA V8, and perfect tranny ratios, in a 38XX lb car that avoids looking like a boyracer, is just too perfect to pass by if you can possibly handle the inital and ongoing costs of ownership! :) )

- There are a LOT of complaints about dealer staff "curbing" the wheels. After just 2 weeks of ownership, I know WHY there are so many dealer incidents. First, it's all "dealers" doing this bad thing because a C63 driver is about to let someone else drive his car as often as he is willing to let someone else spend time with his girlfriend. Secondly, this is for some reason the hardest car I have ever owned (in 52 cars!) to align safely with a curb when parking - despite the tilting passenger mirror. Because of the shape of the hood and front fenders, een when you THINK the car is straight and safely away from a curb, and you can SEE that the rear tire is 8 inches away from the curb, the front tire ends up barely off the curb somehow! I know my predecessor owner struggled with this - the passenger side front wheel (not the rear) had a couple of good scars on it when I bought the car. I did alright despite the optical illusion until yesterday, when a curb in the old downtown section of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island got me! I wa sonly moving at 1 mph if that, and I stopped moving as soon as I heard a scraping sound, but I'm afraid I added to the curb rash despite reacting as fast as I could. :eek: So, now I am getting a quote from a mobile wheel repair place, because while the original scar was tolerable, TWO scars is not. When you guys do get curb rash at a dealership, yes, be unhappy but also understand that this car really, really fools you visually in close quarters. Maybe that's why all the sensors on the 4 corners? (To protect the bODY!)

- There are a lot of mentions of "software glitches" that manifest as strange gearshifting, and seemingly incomprehensible dashboard messages. As a semi-retired IT project manager, I can assure you these should be expected for at least the following reasons:

- MBs are very complex and sophisticated cars - some would say TOO complex. Complexity means the programmers have to anticipate, and remember to code, for every forseeable circumstance. They try, but it's hard to foresee EVERY circumstance. Simple example: the lane drift warning. The car's sensors recognize white painted lines on a dark surface. The programmers remembered to NOT "rumble" the steering wheel when you cross a white line but the turn signal is on. But it remains to be seen how they handled a snow covered roadway . . .

- The C63, being a costly AMG model, has even more complexity than the average MB. That "Race Start" feature is a good example

- The more complex a car is, the more testing is needed to uncover all the potential glitches that MIGHT occur. On the Chevy SSR retro pickup truck with hardtop convertible roof I owned, the testers never apparently thought that an owner might not be on leel ground when it becomes necessary to raise the roof, and so did not adequately design for the roof operating while the vehicle is on a sideslope

- Because MBs are costly, not all that many are sold compared to Toyotas and VWs. So, it takes longer for issues, like the headbolt issue on pre-2011 C63s, to manifest. That means it takes longer to recognize, understand, and fix design or material problems like that headbolt problem

- Because C63 AMGs are even rarer than MBs in general, the "recognize and repair cycle" for problem correction is even longer! Hence the 3 or 4 year timeframe for that headbolt issue to be fixed

- When an aftermarket tune is applied to a factory ECM that already has a few undiscovered software glitches, well, it's hard to predict all the "side effects". When I installed a Magbuson supercharger with its own unique tune in my Chevy SSR retro pickup, where multple aftermarket tunes had already been done for cams, headers, and 4.56 rear axle, etc, the ABS system decided that since the apaprent road speed of the rear wheels no longer matched the apaprent road speed of the front wheels, but the brakes were not being applied, there must be an ABS fault! It took a manual tuning intervention to reassure the ECU that The World had not ended!

So, yes, it has been very educational reading these 3 years of posts. I now don't have to ask so many stupid questions! And, I'm looking forward to contributing to the community knowledge here once I have acquired any meaningful C63 experience!

Jim G

:cheers:

I can see BLKROKT's chin quiver as he chokes back tears from here.

Dangggg 163 pages. You can probably see me change in life throughout that haha

We do mature and change with time! Except me. MY wife says I am successfully resisting the maturing process, despite my sincere attempts. I just love cars and motorcycle too much. She shakes her head in awe of my shallowness. :)

Jim G

You get new guy of the year award for sure.

Welcome to the C63 section.

You would have got away with not reading the last 12 months as it has many very stupid questions that have been answered repeatedly in the past.

Thank you for joining this forum.

Start with the first 5 years of this sub-forum for the most useful knowledge of the w204 platform. I'm not sure if you're aware, but a tune from stock actually INCREASES your mpg's.

Also, this is as close to an american muscle car as you can get from a German manufacturer.

Yeah, I seem to recall it going to sh¡t in the last 3 years :rolf:

Pretty much when BLKROKT started being most active. Weird...

Welcome again JimGnitecki. This should be the intro message that pops up whenever someone new goes to post in the forums.

Excellent intro and summation of the forum! You are most welcome here, can only hope we get more of "you" in here.

You guys are providng a very warm welcome. I thank-you.

Jim G

LOL! blkrokt, your work is done.

Welcome! You and I sound very much alike. I have browsers open from this forum that were to long to read in one sitting. Almost every night I slowly get through a few more pages. My wife thinks I have OCD because every hobby I get into I need to research the hell out of it and know as much information as possible. This typically starts weeks before I even made a purchase in said hobby. Cheers!

My experience is people who don't own these things will never understand why we are what we are when it comes to our cars much as my friends and family don't get my love affair with a particular Caribbean Island I spend at least 6 weeks a year on.
She who shall be listened to gets the latter but not the car so she joins the group that doesn't get the car thing. I do my thing and she and they can do theirs.

Sometimes that is the best outcome you can get, Alex! In my wife's case though, it is a sweeter situation that she now recognizes: I was perfectly happy with my last car, but she found it difficult to drive because it was a 6-speed manual with a rather abrupt performance clutch, AND it had a roofline so swoopy that my 5'10" adult son, who lives with us, literally could not fit in the back seat, so whenever the THREE of us went out together, she needed to sit in the back seat. (I had bought the car as soon as I returned to Canada after a long stay in the U,S., and she rejoined my son and me 4 months later after her employer finally found a decent replacement for her. That's when we discovered my son would not fit in the back seat!). You can imagine how much she liked sitting in that back seat.

So, she INSISTED that I get a different car, but felt it would be unfair to ask me to have to get a lower powered car, and the last car had 475 hp. So . . .

I really like the C63 . . .

Compliance with a wife's wishes can be sweet . . .

Jim G

Jim got those door pins in the mail today. All you gotta do is grab some pliers, and they come off going counterclockwise (the original pins didn't survive that well). That being said new ones look great from coming off ebay, and look 10X better than the crappy plastic ones.

Ok! That reassures me. I'll find a set.

Jim G

Nice post OP, well written...just a heads up that keyboards have ")" as well as "(" when you're done with your paranthesis. Still waiting for about 5 of your paranthesis to end :y

Yeah, I also reverse letter sequences a lot (e.g. "recieve" versus "receive") because my mind is moving faster than my fingers can!

When I wrote that 300+ page book on The Chevrolet SSR, my wife edited every single page!

Jim G

Welcome I don't think I've read as much as you have and I've been here over a year haha.

JimGnitecki and Alex.currie44 I assume you guys have figured out that you are (relatively speaking) just down the road from one another? I expect you two should get along famously and enjoy have a destination thats a nice distance for a drive.

Jim, I did roll into Nanaimo and Parksville this past week, but things did not go well and my time was not my own. There will be other days. Great thread, my friend.

604C63: Yes, Alex realized that I bought my C63 from the same MB dealership that he brings his C63 to for service. Both of us have had good experiences there!

Jim G