LOOKING AT A 2018 C63S COUPE WITH 50,000 KMS ADVICE
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w204 C63
LOOKING AT A 2018 C63S COUPE WITH 50,000 KMS ADVICE
Hi all, I'm currently in the market for a 18 c63 or a 2019 rs5. How good are these cars as daily drivers? reliable? I'm really stuck between the 2 and need some advice. also what r the fail points on these cars. I've only really heard of exhaust flaps and coil packs. anything else? thx
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From: San Francisco Bay Area
2019 C63CS
No need to shout in the thread title 
. I can give you my perspective as I'm very familiar with both. I had a 2013 RS5 Coupe, the V8 predecessor of the one you are looking at. I replaced it with a 2019 C63S Coupe, because the new RS5 became boring and uninvolving to drive. I drove it when it came out and it was a hard pass for me. The transmission and everything feels numb and clinical. My biggest issue was that just driving it it didn't feel much different than an A5 or S5, so it didn't have that special feeling about it being an RS compared to the previous generation that set itself apart from the S5 with the high-revving V8 engine. Audi heard the complaints and tried to spruce it up with the Competition and Competition Plus packages, but it was too little too late.
Having said that, the RS5 is the clear winner when it comes to daily driving. It is available with either a fixed suspension or the Dynamic Ride Control suspension. Unfortunately, the latter isn't an adaptive suspension. Instead it has three fixed settings. Comfort mode as a result is too floaty and Dynamic is too harsh for anything other than glass smooth German roads, so the only real usable mode is Auto. But overall, Audis are just more tame and subdued and therefore better suited for daily driving.
The C63 is a special beast. It reminds you every time that you are not driving a C300 or C43. It's involving and emotional to drive. However, I will also be the first one to say, it's not really at home in slow city traffic, stop & go as such. The 2019 is the facelift model and the facelift has a revised suspension that rides much better. Probably one of the biggest complaints about the 2018 and earlier models is the harsh suspension, especially in the sedan. The coupe rides better. The other thing is while the transmission is not numb as in the new RS5, because it uses a wet clutch instead of a torque converter, it can be jerky at times, especially in slow driving. To drive the C63 smoothly in daily situations, you have to know what you are doing with the throttle. However, the 2018 and 2019 have different transmissions. Mechanically the same principal, but the 2018 has a 7-speed, which is a bit sluggish in manual mode and my biggest dislike with it is that Comfort mode is terrible, because it starts up in 2nd gear. The 9-speed in the 2019+ models is more crisp, always starts in 1st gear and is much better for cruising due to having 3 tall overdrive gears. The spread between 1st and 9th gear is so large that it gives you faster acceleration in the lower shorter gears while at the same time offering better highway mileage in the high gears. The 2019+ is both slightly faster 0-60 and has higher highway mpg all thanks to the transmission.
I do love my C63, but mostly as a grand tourer for road trips on the open road and for carving up the canyon roads around here. Not my favorite car for dawdling around town, but I don't daily drive in general. Mine does have the Driving Assistance package and DISTRONIC does a decent job driving smoothly in stop&go traffic. However, I live a car-light lifestyle as I can do most daily errands on foot around here and I don't commute. If I do need to run an errand around town for which I need a car, I generally take my wife's hatchback which is much less fussy for that kind of driving. My RS5 was also more at home around town, but then it lacked that edge when I took it out to the canyons. So it goes back to what I said earlier. Audi focuses more on a daily driving balance, whereas the AMG 63 can be daily driven, but they are more focused on higher speeds and provide the tingly feeling when you get on it. It's also underscored by Audis only having 3 driving modes, whereas the C63S has 4 in the 2018 including a track mode, and 5 in the 2019+ with the added Slippery mode. Especially the 2019+ models are super adjustable with all the modes and the 9-stage traction control.
I'm gonna say you need to drive both on the kinds of roads that you'll be driving and see which one suits you better. They are at different places in the spectrum. The RS5 is not a bad car despite my criticism, and definitely the better choice for a daily, but its biggest problem is that an S5 is just as good as a daily, so you pay RS money, but have to wonder what you really get for that, because to feel the RS in the RS5 you gonna have to take it closer to the limit, whereas with the C63 even normal driving is a special experience.
Almost forgot the biggest difference between the two. AWD vs RWD. If bad weather such as snow etc. is a thing where you live, then quattro may also be the much better choice. I got bored of quattro, because here in Northern California it's dry about 300 days a year and I'm on summer performance tires all year. AWD did very little for me and was mostly a downside.
. I can give you my perspective as I'm very familiar with both. I had a 2013 RS5 Coupe, the V8 predecessor of the one you are looking at. I replaced it with a 2019 C63S Coupe, because the new RS5 became boring and uninvolving to drive. I drove it when it came out and it was a hard pass for me. The transmission and everything feels numb and clinical. My biggest issue was that just driving it it didn't feel much different than an A5 or S5, so it didn't have that special feeling about it being an RS compared to the previous generation that set itself apart from the S5 with the high-revving V8 engine. Audi heard the complaints and tried to spruce it up with the Competition and Competition Plus packages, but it was too little too late.Having said that, the RS5 is the clear winner when it comes to daily driving. It is available with either a fixed suspension or the Dynamic Ride Control suspension. Unfortunately, the latter isn't an adaptive suspension. Instead it has three fixed settings. Comfort mode as a result is too floaty and Dynamic is too harsh for anything other than glass smooth German roads, so the only real usable mode is Auto. But overall, Audis are just more tame and subdued and therefore better suited for daily driving.
The C63 is a special beast. It reminds you every time that you are not driving a C300 or C43. It's involving and emotional to drive. However, I will also be the first one to say, it's not really at home in slow city traffic, stop & go as such. The 2019 is the facelift model and the facelift has a revised suspension that rides much better. Probably one of the biggest complaints about the 2018 and earlier models is the harsh suspension, especially in the sedan. The coupe rides better. The other thing is while the transmission is not numb as in the new RS5, because it uses a wet clutch instead of a torque converter, it can be jerky at times, especially in slow driving. To drive the C63 smoothly in daily situations, you have to know what you are doing with the throttle. However, the 2018 and 2019 have different transmissions. Mechanically the same principal, but the 2018 has a 7-speed, which is a bit sluggish in manual mode and my biggest dislike with it is that Comfort mode is terrible, because it starts up in 2nd gear. The 9-speed in the 2019+ models is more crisp, always starts in 1st gear and is much better for cruising due to having 3 tall overdrive gears. The spread between 1st and 9th gear is so large that it gives you faster acceleration in the lower shorter gears while at the same time offering better highway mileage in the high gears. The 2019+ is both slightly faster 0-60 and has higher highway mpg all thanks to the transmission.
I do love my C63, but mostly as a grand tourer for road trips on the open road and for carving up the canyon roads around here. Not my favorite car for dawdling around town, but I don't daily drive in general. Mine does have the Driving Assistance package and DISTRONIC does a decent job driving smoothly in stop&go traffic. However, I live a car-light lifestyle as I can do most daily errands on foot around here and I don't commute. If I do need to run an errand around town for which I need a car, I generally take my wife's hatchback which is much less fussy for that kind of driving. My RS5 was also more at home around town, but then it lacked that edge when I took it out to the canyons. So it goes back to what I said earlier. Audi focuses more on a daily driving balance, whereas the AMG 63 can be daily driven, but they are more focused on higher speeds and provide the tingly feeling when you get on it. It's also underscored by Audis only having 3 driving modes, whereas the C63S has 4 in the 2018 including a track mode, and 5 in the 2019+ with the added Slippery mode. Especially the 2019+ models are super adjustable with all the modes and the 9-stage traction control.
I'm gonna say you need to drive both on the kinds of roads that you'll be driving and see which one suits you better. They are at different places in the spectrum. The RS5 is not a bad car despite my criticism, and definitely the better choice for a daily, but its biggest problem is that an S5 is just as good as a daily, so you pay RS money, but have to wonder what you really get for that, because to feel the RS in the RS5 you gonna have to take it closer to the limit, whereas with the C63 even normal driving is a special experience.
Almost forgot the biggest difference between the two. AWD vs RWD. If bad weather such as snow etc. is a thing where you live, then quattro may also be the much better choice. I got bored of quattro, because here in Northern California it's dry about 300 days a year and I'm on summer performance tires all year. AWD did very little for me and was mostly a downside.
Last edited by superswiss; Jan 16, 2025 at 03:49 PM.
