Hey all,
had my 2017 C63s for almost 4 months now. Suffice to say the car has been ... a hassle. From the subpar infotainment all the way to some reliability & quality issues, it's not been easy. Despite everything, I'm trying to get the car back up to it's former glory as I think it deserves it and has tons of character. Had it serviced several times, replaced some worn interior parts, had the car polished and replaced old wraps with new PPFs, badges and had the car ceramic coated, also did some ECU and TCU updates and whatnot. Feels like the car's been in the shops more than on the road, haha.
I just wanna love the car, but it's not there yet. There are still some things I need to resolve though and I might appreciate input from local more experienced owners:

1. Aerodynamic (and high speed) noise
   1. The car is fu*king noisy, and I don't mean the exhaust. I found some relevant threads about wind noise bulletins from Mercedes, but as the car is out of warranty, what are my options? I reached out to local MB dealer with no response yet. There seems to be a lot of road noise as well. My previous Seat Leon was quieter at 190 kmh than this car at 120. I also replaced front dampers & their housing.
2. Interior squeaks and rattles
   1. I suppose you could argue this comes with the age of the car, but there are various places across the interior that are squeaky or rattling. Some of it coming from center console, instrument cluster, glove compartment or seeming from rear right passenger seating area. Any tips on where to begin and how to approach this? Again, it's worse than an older Seat Leon after several trackdays, which is disappointing.
3. Differential noise
   1. The differential is apparently noisier than it should be. Any experience with its refurbishing?
4. "Raspy" shifts
   1. Some of the transmission shifts (7sp.) feel a bit rough sometimes, as if it was generating some vibrations and deep noise as well. Any suggestions? Maybe starting with changinf the transmission oil?
5. Brakes
   1. The OEM brakes seem to be nearing the end of their lifespan, while also performing underwhelmingy (braking during a spirited drive starts to feel dangerous and spongy after a few harder corners). Tips for aftermarket brakes? As for the pads I ran Ferodo DS2500's on my last car which worked well. Not sure about rotors. I am mostly about sporty daily driving in the public, not as much for trackdays anymore.

A couple of pics for those of you who would just like to look at pretty pictures.
Thanks for any help!

 

First - I hate you for your car.....if only I was not in the US (I am stuck with two E63S wagons)....

The rest of your concerns seems like age and what we expect. For the trans there is a trans trick (hold down the brake pedal for X number of seconds - easy search)...but, it will "re-learn" what it thinks it wants you out of its shifting. Might be the way you are driving.

Road noise? Talk to your tire guy.

Brake fade...100% flush and bleed your lines (and reservoir) with Motul 600.

As for a diff rumble? If you were wise you would replace EVERY FLUID in the car but for the washer fluid. Just because someone says something had a service does not mean it was done, or done correctly.

 

Haha, I love that you are "sad" to have 2 E63s instead of 1 C63s. :-D I'd actually much prefer the E63, cause I'm a bigger guy, but it's just out of budget. Running and buying these cars in Europe is pretty costly.
As for your suggestions:

1. Tires are new SportContact 7's. Had them on my previous ride with no issues. I'll be switching over to winter tires soon, we'll see how it compares. I think it's just poor wheel well sound insulation
2. I'll try the transmission reset, good idea.
3. Brake fluid - good point, I'll put that on the list, but that doesn't solve the issue that there's just not enough "meat" on the brakes anymore and will need replacing
4. Yeah I was planning on changing the trans fluids, diff fluid and also get the engine decarbonized. Just wanted to consult with other owners if there's anything else I should know about.

 

3 - Seriously, unless you are used to ceramic...you dont know what is there. For all you know your fluid is Autozone cheapo and the pads are Napa (or eBay) trash.

For tires, I used to have a tire on my car(s)....I think it was a Michelin MXX3 (this was a LONG time ago). Day one, great tire....after 10-15k, they would buzz buzz buzz all the live long day. If the tires are at or near the wear indicators you are going to get buzz.

To your reference to the SC7 - I am pretty sure that is what is on my car(s). I kept wanting to go to the Pilots and I am out of rotation (I need fronts or rears)...and, the Pilots were not available in my size when I needed them. The Contis with a bit of wear are a bit louder. I keep my pressures a bit higher (47 rear) and that aggravates it.

 

I have no experience with the wagon, but I'm guessing the open trunk area adds to the noise compared to the sedan or the coupe in my case. If I fold down the rear seats it gets a lot noisier. I also don't have any experience with Conti tires, other than at AMG events where Conti seems to be a sponsor. I'm a Michelin Pilot Sports guy. Actually have the BMW Star marked PS4S on my coupe now. That's the same tire the M3/4 have. Awesome piece of kit. Comparing it to SEAT Leon isn't gonna do you any favor. An AMG has inherently higher NVH.

As for the transmission, I was never a fan of the 7-speed MCT, but I agree that you probably wanna make sure you have all fresh fluids everywhere. Noisy diff I would have looked at. They are not supposed to make any noise. You may have a failure on your hand. The early versions of the diff have known issues. There are a few that blew up from you vintage.

Brakes, yeah, if the pads are worn down, then they'll fade quickly. Not enough of a heat sink. The OE pads are actually great, but I replaced my front rotors with the full-floating Brembo rotors that were on the C63 Black Series and I replaced the rear rotors with Zimmermann rotors. I know you are in Europe, but here are the kits I have. I have yet to fade them even in 40+ Celsius weather bombing down a canyon road.

Front: https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mer...mbo-0004206600
Rear: https://www.fcpeuro.com/products/mer...ann-2314230212

The rest I agree, is probably mostly age. The 2017 models have some known issues as I said. Suspension is also a lot rougher in the pre-2019 models, so that adds to things starting to rattle eventually. The 2019+ models improved a lot of these things, including an upgraded Infotainment system and much better transmission, along with updated and retuned suspension. I don't know how the wagon rides, but even for the pre-2019 models, the sedan rode harsher than the coupe. The coupe was more tuned as a GT. As I said, I never drove the wagon, so not sure how it compares to the sedan and coupe.

 

I forgot to mention. If you haven't done so already, get the dynamic engine mounts checked out. The early versions are known to crack and fail, which would add to noise and vibration. Also, for brake fluid I use the normal stock fluid. Haven't seen a need to run higher temp fluid. For reference my prior car was a 2013 RS5 and I regularly faded the brakes on it. Upgraded to full-floating rotors, Hawk pads, stainless steel brake lines and race fluid, but still managed to fade them. The Hawk HPS 5.0 were best, but still faded eventually. The RS5 was known for having poor brake cooling, so it needed it.

 

@superswiss Yes - mounts. There is a LONG thread about my failed motor mounts and then failed after market mounts...and trek back to OE motor mounts....

 

@superswiss @OldManAndHisCar Thanks guys.
Makes sense there would be acoustic difference between the body types, but I don't think any of the noise is coming from the back.
I dare say the tyre noise is a lot less prominent than the wind noise, which I still don't know how to tackle. Still waiting for the response from local dealer If they can help. Used to have PS4S on my previous car as well and I found them comparable, but the contis ale like 30% cheaper here.

Oof, exploding diff is not something I'd want, haha. My mechanic has some guys who refurbish them, as there's no way I'm paying 6k for a new one, I'll probably get that operation scheduled.

The tip on the front brake kit actually looks good, that's along the lines of what I was looking for, so I might consider that, thanks! And yeah, you're right, the worn out pads will probable fade quicker. Although I have a hard time believing the kit wouldn't fade in such hot weather. If that's true, it's impressive.

I had to get the front shocks replaced, because one of them failed completely out of nowhere on a straight road. That was fun. The whole car went into a limp mode and rode like a horse carriage. My mechanic did some temporary bypass to make the rest od the shocks work, but that was painful, haha. Apart from that the driving comfort is okay-ish. I'm used to stiff suspension, harder roll bars and several other mods from my previous daily, but my ears are more sensitive. Also contemplating replacing front wheel bearings as the rear ones were completely shot.
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The engine mounts are a good point, I don't think I've had those checked out. Is it obvious from the outside that they're cracked or somehow damaged?

 

You can find used diffs on eBay etc. Likely cheaper than rebuilding one. You can use one from a 2019+ as well. They are more robust and are backwards compatible. There's a recent thread of somebody who had theirs fail and they replaced it with a 2019+ one.

How well the brakes hold up comes down to cooling. Not sure if there's a difference in the brake cooling capability between the body styles, but the coupe does have a wider front and wider wheel well, so there's at least a larger air volume around the brakes. The stock brakes never faded on me, either, but the new setup is noticeably better. Stopping power actually noticeably increases as they heat up. Full-floating rotors ensure that they are always centered between the pads regardless of thermal expansion, so the forces are evenly spread between the inside and outside pad. With the stock semi-floating rotors one pad could end up doing more work than the other pad, ultimately leading to earlier fade. FWIW, I took delivery of my 2019 coupe in Germany and spent 2 months driving all around Europe. Lots of high speed German Autobahn driving and having to haul down from a high speed when somebody didn't see me coming. That was all with the stock brakes, and never any fading even after repeated high speed braking. Also did a few laps around the Nürburgring and no fading, either. Obviously that was all with brand new pads. Drove 6000 miles around Europe, and then got about another 10k miles out of them before I had to replace them. Pretty much go through a set of brakes every 16k miles. I'm on my third set now at ~35k miles.

Regarding the engine mounts, if you do a bit of searching you'll probably stumble over some pictures. I know there are some and yes, you can see the cracks from the outside.

 

Just checked E-bay for the diffs and I wouldn't get one for less than 2k euros, which is most likely more than I could get mine refurbished for. I'll check around to see what my options are.
Looks like your brake experience is good, which is tempting me to just basically replace the worn hardware with new OEM pads and rotors, as I don't really know how old the current ones are and do the brake system flush as well. 16k miles is about what I'd expect to get out of them I suppose, as long as they perform well.

Found some pics of the cracked mounts, I'll show it to the guys at the shop next time I'm there to check it out. Fingers crossed they're alright, cause if not, I'm literally selling the car, as it's nothing but trouble and over 1k for one engine mount is just insane and simply not worth it. Already like 8k deep into all the servicing, upgrading and maintenance with seemingly more coming. So much for quality, eh. Guess I'm the unlucky one, pray for me. :-D

 

Yeah, certainly doesn't sound like the best buy. Once you are all done with it, you could have probably bought a newer model year with all the money you spent on fixing this one up. It's a 7 year old car and an early model year for the platform, so that comes with risks.

BTW, I just remembered one more thing about the Brembo rotors. The OE rotors have straight vanes for internal cooling while the full-floating Brembos use Brembo's patented pillar ventilation, which is proven to cool the brakes much better. Cooling vanes have proven to not be very effective. Even directional vanes don't do a better job at cooling the rotors.

https://www.bremboparts.com/america/...erences-204921

 

@superswiss Actually I don't think I would've been able to get the newer model, I got a pretty nice deal on this one (about 37,500 euros for 88,000 km milage and almost fully equipped). Plus I didn't want the newer one because of the OPF & the more complicated 9g. trans worries in terms of reliability and potential maintenance & repair costs.

Thanks for pointing me in the direction of the brembo floating rotors, I think that's what I'm going to do - I found some resellers that ship here to Czech Republic.

And for an update: I got a quote from the dealer about the diagnostics of the noises the car is making (wind noise, interior rattles, potential trans & diff noises) and JUST for the diagnostics, they'd charge about 1300 euros. That's hilarious what Mercedes wants to charge you for stuff like this. Seems rude tbh, but I guess that's what a regular Mercedes customer is used to paying.

That got me investigating on my own yesterday, as I just went around the interior, pushing and squeezing every panel to see where the creaks are coming from. The mission was fairly successful, as I found basically all sources of interior rattles and managed to mitigate like 90 % of them with bits of sound dampening strips from a home improvement store, haha.

I'll be booking a visit to my mechanic soon for the diff oil change, trans oil change, tyre change and engine mount check. Fingers crossed, it works out well and some improvements are noticable after that.

Will keep you posted.

 

Yeah definitely a car that will test a person's patience and one that has put me off the brand altogether.

What kind of diff noises are you hearing mate? High pitched whine? Is it only at certain speeds?

 

Seems like a generation of the car that has polarised a lot of the community for sure. I want to love the car, but it's hard doing so.

As for the differential - so my mechanic did diagnostics with some headphones (probably like a stetoscope?) and said upon listening to it it was noisier than a diff should be. In practice, I feel like there's audible noise and vibrations going into the cabin during acceleration during certain speeds and then a constant hum/rumble at highway speeds.
I was also thinking it could be the transmission, but it shifts smoothly and shifting into neutral at speed makes no difference. I'll have the trans oil changed next week, but I don't think this will resolve the issue.
My last suspect is engine/idler pulley, as I found a vid where someone in the comments said their noise was caused by an idler pulley (comment under the vid by "aubreyselowa6136"). This theory is further promoted by the facty I sometimes get a whining/squeaking noise on low revs when lightly touching the throttle, as you can see/hear and the sound is coming from the front of the car and is not related to the exhaust (open/closed valves) settings.

 

So a little update about the wind noise - spent some time looking around the internet for potential fixes and I stumbled about a seemingly dumb idea of using caulking foam to "reinforce" the door seals. So I bought the caulking foam for a few bucks, wrapped it around all door seals and surprisingly, it seems to have mitigated a noticable amount of the wind noise, haha.

That doesn't fix the noisy diff/trans, but atleast I'm not getting as much high-speed wind noise anymore. I will think of a more permanent solution eventually, but for the time being, it's some progress. Car's going into service on monday to get new trans oil, engine mount check, pulleys check & winter tires, let's see if anything changes.

As for reference, this is the foam I used. Available at any hardware store it seems.

 

Another lil' update if anyone is interested.
Had the car serviced earlier this week, told my guy about the symptoms I'm experiencing and the differential/transmission worries. He kept and drove the car for like two days and here are the results:

1. The noise/vibrations I'm experiencing at high speeds are not related to the differential at all. They diagnosed and suspected the wheels to be bad, which turns out was the right call. They are very hard to balance and even after a thorough and precise job some of the vibrations and noise persist, although a lot of it is gone now. So I'll be getting new wheels for the next summer season
2. Tires were switched to the winter ones as well. Not sure if any noise was caused by them due to point 1), but it seems the winter Continentals are grippier and more stable than the summer ones, interesting
3. Engine mounts seemed fine (luckily)
4. He suggested not to do any differential refurbishing, as it's not the cause of issues I'm having with the car and same for the transmission, which he inspected to be rock solid and works very well
5. They checked and somehow lubed up the pulley belt (is that the right name?) to see if the noise/squeaks go away, I have yet to check if that issue is gone for now
6. Apart from that he finds the car to be in good health and suggests just driving and enjoying it

And all that for measly ~150 dollars (including the tire swap), which is an INSANE contrast to what Mercedes quoted me JUST for diagnostics at around 1500 dollars.

So I think for the time being I'm done, apart from 2 things:

1. I might have the wheel wells insulated/sound deadened. Had that on my previous car and it was a night and day difference
2. Hunt down and eliminate interior squeaks and rattles, which are still somewhat present

 

Yeah at this time of the year based on where you are, summer tires get hard and start to lose grip. It's what's known as the glass transition. Below a certain temperature the compound changes from a rubber state into a more hard glass like state. Also, depending on how old the current summer tires are it might be time to replace them. At about 6 years most performance tires are pretty much done and should be replaced. The front camber setting is also very aggressive on these cars, so generally the front tires chew up the inner edge over time and start to become noisy. I need new front tires at about 8000 miles as the belts start showing on the inner edge at that point. It's known with AMGs.

As for the wheels, yes potholes and bad roads can bend them You wanna make sure they road force balance the tires and not just spin balance them and get the road force below 20 ft-lb (< ~27 Nm).

 

True, although even in high temperatures, I found the summer tires lackluster. They were completely new, DOT i believe 2023, so fairly new. They were fine once warmed up during intense driving, but in regular conditions, not as much. Might try deflating them a bit next year. And exactly, they harden a lot in such cold weather (around freezing here, lately) and it feels dangerous, while also illegal.
Can't really tell what all sorts of balancing they did, but apparently they "did their best" and I can feel the difference, so I believe them. Wheels on my previous car were so shot I had to replace them too after a few trackdays.
Hopefully brighter days with my AMG are ahead of me! And thanks for the support and tips.

 

Being a powerful RWD car, it is known to struggle with traction. The sedan and wagon in particular are somewhat under tired. The coupe has more rubber in the rear. The new 9-stage traction control in the 2019+ also does a much better job putting down the power. What brand tires are these? I personally didn't like the stock Pilot Super Sport that came with mine. Changed them to the PS4S and now have the BMW star marked PS4S. The latter is quite different than the regular PS4S. BMW worked with Michelin for 2 years to create this tire. It's way grippier, handles better, and has much better steering response, but still maintains the good ride that the PS4S is known for. It does give up a bit of wet grip over the regular PS4S, but here in Northern California where we only have about 60 wet days and winter temperatures are around 15 Celsius I run them all year.

Having said that, summer performance tires do need to be warmed up for maximum grip. I definitely spin them much more during the winter here, but the car is never squirrely otherwise. You may also wanna have the alignment checked if you haven't already done so.