Hi, I'm new to this forum. I'm trying to configure Individual Dynamic mode and I have a few questions regarding just what the settings are:

DRIVE: Reduced, Moderate, Sport, Dynamic. How are these modes defined?
TRANSMISSION: M or D. What do M and D stand for?
DYNAMICS: Basic or Advanced. How are these modes defined?
SUSPENSION: Comfort, Sport and Sport +. I know Comfort is high ride height and Sport + is low ride height. Is plain Sport low, medium or high ride height?
EXHAUST: Balanced, Powerful. This one I understand.

Lastly, is it true that to get the car to start in Individual mode, you need to push the start button with your foot off of the brake, and then push the start button again with your foot off of the brake, and then choose to start in Individual setting on the screen?

Many thanks.

 

DRIVE: These are different throttle maps and shift programs. Reduced has flat and lazy reduced torque/power to make it less likely to spin the wheels on slippery surfaces. This setting is used if you select the Slippery drive mode. Moderate has a progressive throttle map and lazy shift program for normal driving. It's used if you select Comfort mode, Sport is a slightly aggressive throttle map and a sporty shift program, staying in a lower gear for more immediate acceleration. It's used by the Sport program. Dynamic uses an even more aggressive throttle map with an even sportier shift program. It's used by the Sport+ drive mode.

TRANSMISSION: M is manual, so you have to shift with the paddles. The transmission will automatically downshift to prevent stalling, but if you don't upshift it will never upshift for you. If you hit the redline, it'll bounce off the rev limiter. D is automatic.

DYNAMICS: These are handling modes. Basic is used by Comfort and basically neither under nor oversteers. Advanced is used by Sport and slightly oversteers. Pro is used by Sport+ and oversteers even more.

SUSPENSION. Ride height is only one aspect. The other aspect is the adaptive damping. The sportier the setting the tighter the suspension gets and the more it controls body roll.

It is possible to code the system to always start in Individual mode or whatever mode you want. Contact any of the third-party coders such as BenzNinja, RJAutomotive or MB House. But outside of that, yes if you want it to start in a particular mode, you have to select it as you describe. Depending on model year, there's also something called Emotion Start. Press and hold one of the shift paddles and then start the engine. It will briefly open the valves and blip the throttle for a more emotional start. AMG got rid of this in later model years. Regulations are killing all the fun.

Best is to first try each of the pre-defined modes and see what you like in each mode and then put together your personal profile. If you bring up the performance display in the instrument cluster you can see what the respective settings are for each mode. Below you can see my Individual mode configuration for my C63S Coupe.

 

Thanks for the excellent information.