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My understanding is that the dash cam does not carry over. It stays with the car though so the new owner will have it. It's not a subscription but rather a one time purchase to enable it. I had the same question when I leases a 2024 E350 before purchasing a 2025 E450. I reached out to MBUSA and they said it will not transfer to another car.
My Merecedes dealership website shows my car is “in stock.” My salesperson says the car has been scheduled for the truck and should arrive at the dealership in four days. Only one of those can be true. Which one is correct?
My Merecedes dealership website shows my car is “in stock.” My salesperson says the car has been scheduled for the truck and should arrive at the dealership in four days. Only one of those can be true. Which one is correct?
I'd bet the salesperson. Dealer websites (in the US, at least) are super wonky with inventory.
My Merecedes dealership website shows my car is “in stock.” My salesperson says the car has been scheduled for the truck and should arrive at the dealership in four days. Only one of those can be true. Which one is correct?
the dealership website is automated - the salesperson presumably is a real human.
It’s also on the mbusa.com website. Is it equally wonky with inventory?
It is. There's also a way for dealers to prevent a sold unit from showing up in any inventory listing. Your dealer (and others' here) did not, either because they don't know how, don't care, or don't think you're going to commit.
Looks like delivery went up by $100 starting 1/1/26. New cars are now sporting a $1350 delivery charge and my PO build sheet also got updated to reflect the extra $100.
We picked up our (actually my wife's) E53 on 12/31. Replaced a 2020 E450 which was simply the best car we've owned - never a problem - everything was great. So far, so good on the new one other than the modulated brake pedal with the PHEV behavior (she'll get used to it...I hope).
We went with the 20" wheels for the all-season tires. I may try to pick up a set of 21" AMG Mesh with summer tires as well...ride reports would be appreciated.
Adding a Level 2 charger to the garage. My wife does a lot of short trips and while it does seem to get a full charge at ~24 hours...her drain/charge intervals are needing to be faster.
We picked up our (actually my wife's) E53 on 12/31. Replaced a 2020 E450 which was simply the best car we've owned - never a problem - everything was great. So far, so good on the new one other than the modulated brake pedal with the PHEV behavior (she'll get used to it...I hope).
We went with the 20" wheels for the all-season tires. I may try to pick up a set of 21" AMG Mesh with summer tires as well...ride reports would be appreciated.
Adding a Level 2 charger to the garage. My wife does a lot of short trips and while it does seem to get a full charge at ~24 hours...her drain/charge intervals are needing to be faster.
the brake pedal feel is a mess. not sure how MB could not get this sorted - my X5 PHEV had consistent brake feel regardless of drive mode.
I have driven my daughter's GLC 350e a few times and I'd describe the brake as.... unpredictable. It does what you expect it to do 90% of the time. Then in the odd 10% you may not get the expected output which can be worrisome. I think the E53 will have the same feel (only experience is during a test drive, where I felt the physical brakes were not seated yet and were weak).
My Audi etron GT has amazing brake feel with a perfect blend of regen and actual brakes. I never once felt the brakes not do what I expect them to do. So it is absolutely possible to make it happen, we'll see how the E53 feels. My daughter has yet to complain about her brakes so I think they're largely fine.
I like the way the E53 wagon looks in pictures. But I was surprised by how stunning it is in person. From the side, it has a long hood, and a sleek body with the roof gently tapering off at the end giving a sporty look. The front and back emphasize performance. The overall performance and traditional Mercedes luxury cues harmonize really well in this generation. I tend to prefer the previous AMG grill, which is now standard on the E450 All-Terrain to the Panamericana AMG grill. In this application, I have no complaints with the grill. The mixture of shiny chrome, black chrome, and matte aluminum across the exterior is interesting to the eye. Well done Mercedes.
Here are some stock photos of the interior that I pulled off the sales listing. It has the black MB-Tex and Dynamica interior with red stitching. I am very pleased with the look of the interior.
I continue to think that is exceedingly dumb that the steering wheel blocks the turn signal indicators. It would be so easy to move the turn indicators to the center where they are visible by a driver of any height. The turn signals no longer make the "blink blink" sound either. I can't see or hear the turn signal indicators. I have a bad habit of moving the turn signal stalk all the way up or down to signal a lane change. If you see a guy in a silver E53 driving down the road with a blinker on it could be me. What I didn't recall from the test drive, is that in my default seating position the numbers on the tachometer are blocked by the steering wheel too. The light that indicates that the engine has warmed up is also blocked by the steering wheel.
Overall, I'd give the interior an A+. The Alcantara seat inserts with red accents look and feel great and they add a sporty element to the car. They pair nicely with the AMG dark grey wood. The lighted AMG on the dash is well done and adds to the ambiance at night. I'd give the driver display an F+ because a driver should be able to see all the indicators on the driver display. The capacitive touch controls on the steering wheel seem like a highly questionable choice. I suspect that the capacitive control on the left side of the steering wheel could drive me insane if I had to use it frequently. It seems to swipe across when I want to swipe up or down, or vice versa. I plan to set the driver display configuration and then never touch the left side button with arrows ever again. Initially the capacitive touch volume control on the center dash was hard to use, but I have started adjusting to it.
If Mercedes would put some real buttons on the steering wheel and hire someone that passed a user interface design class to design the driver display, this would be an excellent interior. As is, it is an excellent interior with a few obviously bad choices designed to frustrate the driver. The interior is comfortable, feels special and is a nice place to be in. Like the exterior, the interior is a nice combination of sport and luxury and fits this car's personality.
It is. There's also a way for dealers to prevent a sold unit from showing up in any inventory listing. Your dealer (and others' here) did not, either because they don't know how, don't care, or don't think you're going to commit.
I'm going to guess that my dealer puts the customer sold cars on the public listings to encourage new customer contacts inquiring about the cars, but I don't know why they do it. I'm also going to guess that the cars appear in inventory when they are scheduled for a truck instead of being scanned in at the dealer's location.
When I did a google search, my car came up first in the Google ads listing. Google apparently knows that I like my car. I was really tempted to click through and "reserve" my car.
I'm going to guess that my dealer puts the customer sold cars on the public listings to encourage new customer contacts inquiring about the cars, but I don't know why they do it. I'm also going to guess that the cars appear in inventory when they are scheduled for a truck instead of being scanned in at the dealer's location.
When I did a google search, my car came up first in the Google ads listing. Google apparently knows that I like my car. I was really tempted to click through and "reserve" my car.
There is a flag in the database to show if a car is Reservable or not. Your car's flag was set to Reservable, it could be both ignorance or trying to market your car for other prospective buyers. Out of the 275 cars I tracked 159 were marked non-reservable. There are cars that were marked non-reservable in October when they first popped in (that is when I get the data) and they're still for sale as of today. Reservable means you can select the "Start Purchase Online" process on the MBUSA website. There is another flag that shows whether a car is "Available" only cars with that flag set to true show up on MBUSA or the linked dealer inventory sites. You can was also set to Available as I scraped it off the site. It was also populated into ipacket which is where dealers upload photos and build sheets. Your car had no photos uploaded, usually sold orders don't get photos beyond the generic render photos.
The turn signals no longer make the "blink blink" sound either. I can't see or hear the turn signal indicators.
I have a correction. I was driving the car in electric mode. I stopped at a stop sign and turned on the left turn signal indicator. The turn did not require turning the wheel enough to cancel the turn signals. In electric mode with no music playing, it was very quiet inside the car, and I could hear a "blink blink" sound of the turn signal. The car does emit a turn signal noise.
There is a flag in the database to show if a car is Reservable or not. Your car's flag was set to Reservable, it could be both ignorance or trying to market your car for other prospective buyers. Out of the 275 cars I tracked 159 were marked non-reservable. There are cars that were marked non-reservable in October when they first popped in (that is when I get the data) and they're still for sale as of today. Reservable means you can select the "Start Purchase Online" process on the MBUSA website. There is another flag that shows whether a car is "Available" only cars with that flag set to true show up on MBUSA or the linked dealer inventory sites. You can was also set to Available as I scraped it off the site. It was also populated into ipacket which is where dealers upload photos and build sheets. Your car had no photos uploaded, usually sold orders don't get photos beyond the generic render photos.
Interesting. If you see photos of the actual car you have a good idea that the dealer ordered it for inventory. Since you are scraping from the site, this means that you only see cars marked "available" or does the JSON pull somehow see cars not marked "available?"
Having the car marked available did allow me to pull the generic interior and exterior photos, which I grabbed while they were there.
I’d give the entire UI an F. It is absolutely awful and a big step backwards from the W213. Did Mercedes not expect 213 buyers to buy the 214? So many items I took for granted and didn’t bother investigating until I bought it. I like the car a lot, but would not have bought it if I knew I’d have to give up basics like being stuck with native maps that I’ll never use as a default center display instead of radio, having no SXM in the station memory, far less programmable drivers display including inability to show tire pressures in my default, inability to have both AC and recirc on the static climate display, a constant camera display rather than randomly changing views while parking, as well as things I did know about like the blocked turn signal indicators, complete lack of a legible conventional tach, poor carryover haptic steering wheel controls, no easy volume control, etc.
It is insane that in a 600hp performance car with programmable display you can no longer have a legible round tach with oil temp and tire pressures as a default. Yet there is all of the Track screen BS. Didn’t know there was an indicator light of the engine being warm, which would be a decent workaround if it was not blocked by the wheel.
Mercuccio - You mention the capacitive center volume control. FYI it can be used as up and down buttons as well, which was a pleasant surprise to me.
I’d give the entire UI an F. It is absolutely awful and a big step backwards from the W213. Did Mercedes not expect 213 buyers to buy the 214? So many items I took for granted and didn’t bother investigating until I bought it. I like the car a lot, but would not have bought it if I knew I’d have to give up basics like being stuck with native maps that I’ll never use as a default center display instead of radio, having no SXM in the station memory, far less programmable drivers display including inability to show tire pressures in my default, inability to have both AC and recirc on the static climate display, a constant camera display rather than randomly changing views while parking, as well as things I did know about like the blocked turn signal indicators, complete lack of a legible conventional tach, poor carryover haptic steering wheel controls, no easy volume control, etc.
It is insane that in a 600hp performance car with programmable display you can no longer have a legible round tach with oil temp and tire pressures as a default. Yet there is all of the Track screen BS. Didn’t know there was an indicator light of the engine being warm, which would be a decent workaround if it was not blocked by the wheel.
Mercuccio - You mention the capacitive center volume control. FYI it can be used as up and down buttons as well, which was a pleasant surprise to me.
I want to disagree with you, but most of what you say is entirely accurate. The map taking over the center console is particularly maddening when you take into account that, depending on configuration, you may have two other screens with maps on them (the dash and the heads-up). So, it is easier to have three screens with maps than it is to just show you what’s playing on the radio...
I’d give the entire UI an F. It is absolutely awful and a big step backwards from the W213. Did Mercedes not expect 213 buyers to buy the 214? So many items I took for granted and didn’t bother investigating until I bought it. I like the car a lot, but would not have bought it if I knew I’d have to give up basics like being stuck with native maps that I’ll never use as a default center display instead of radio, having no SXM in the station memory, far less programmable drivers display including inability to show tire pressures in my default, inability to have both AC and recirc on the static climate display, a constant camera display rather than randomly changing views while parking, as well as things I did know about like the blocked turn signal indicators, complete lack of a legible conventional tach, poor carryover haptic steering wheel controls, no easy volume control, etc.
It is insane that in a 600hp performance car with programmable display you can no longer have a legible round tach with oil temp and tire pressures as a default. Yet there is all of the Track screen BS. Didn’t know there was an indicator light of the engine being warm, which would be a decent workaround if it was not blocked by the wheel.
Mercuccio - You mention the capacitive center volume control. FYI it can be used as up and down buttons as well, which was a pleasant surprise to me.
You can turn off the Zero Layer interface and revert to the single app view, which is similar to how the 213/213mopf was. Press and hold Home until you're given the option.
You can also change the climate shortcut buttons. In the Climate screen, press the gear and choose the button you want.
Is there a way to have a shortcut button to navigate to home? Or do you have to go into recent destinations every time?
I'm not aware of an on-screen shortcut button, but I use a voice command: "Hey Mercedes, let's go home" or similar.
EDIT: You might also be able to build a routine for this, or the proactivity feature may display a button to navigate home if you initiate it from the same location. My car suggests my work address every morning, that I want the seat ventilation on, and I want to turn on Activating massage. It took some time for these to appear. It also shows me "Home" later in the day if I'm at my office.
Last edited by wdimagineer; Jan 11, 2026 at 08:04 PM.
Mercedes SLR McLaren 722 S Is Extremely Rare Example Modified by McLaren
Slideshow: A one-of-one U.S.-spec Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster became even rarer after a factory-backed transformation at McLaren's headquarters.
