E55 KEV

AirMatic suspension now a no cost option for 550e on mbusa. It was $1,610.

DarrenK

Airmatic is great...until it breaks. And they all eventually break. I guess if it was free I would have considered it more strongly, but the cost to fix it is high (and was higher than the cost of the option!). When it does break it can leave you stranded if the car is resting on the tires! But it would have been a nice feature for loading and unloading.

E55 KEV

Since I'm actually on the fence between a GLE550e a GLE43 and GLE63 I may end up with it anyway. It's standard on the AMG versions.

baobay

Its standard on the GLS. The ride is very smooth. I lease, so I am not concerned about the reliability of it, but I do see the concern if buying to own.

Nor Cal SL55

On a recent 900 mile trip over the last several days, I was thinking if I would notice a difference in an AirMatic suspension compared with the standard set up I have on my 2016 GLE 550e. I've had the AirMatic in the past on a W220 that I owned for 12+ years and it was always very comfortable (yes, I had to fix the many problems too).
The standard spring suspension on the GLE 550e is very comfortable, no quibbles here.

Just my 2 cents...

E55 KEV

Curious, when your W220 AirMatic failed could you still drive the car or did it leave you stranded and need to be towed to dealer? Thanks.

Nor Cal SL55

Not that I should have - But I drove it 5.5 hours home with the pump cycling on and off the whole way. The strut was still bottomed out. this was on the drivers side front tire.
This was dangerous as the tire would hit the suspension if I turned the steering wheel too much in one direction. I made effort not to make this happen as much as I could.

I certainly didn't want to drive that distance in a tow truck.

E55 KEV

Thanks, do you remember how many miles the car had when it failed. How old was the car?

Nor Cal SL55

The car was a 2002 S430. I traded it in when I purchased the GLE 550e. The car had about 157,000 miles on it and I shredded all the maintenance documents when I traded it in, so hard to say exactly how many miles.

I would say the car had about 120,000 miles on it when this major failure occurred. I had replaced all 4 struts at various times thru ownership and the pump as well. It was having some minor sag problems when I traded it in - I didn't want to spend more $ on this 14 year old car. Other than the suspension, I had no other issues with the car and it was a great car for a long time.