2018 S560 Likes, Dislikes and Issues after 5 months ownership
 

Hi Members

Finally I found the time to create an account here and stopped just following.
Owning a couple of BMW 7-Series over the past years, I had chosen to switch brand after BMW frustrated me with the last car I bought from them (N63 engine, with all the issues you can find out there). Anyhow, I ordered my S560 (Almost fully equipped, w/o the fancy roof tinting, as I hate sunroofs anyways) in January 2018, got delivery in June and want to share my experience with you so far.
(I do want to skip the standard things like; I love the look, the tail lights are so nice, the star on the hood, power, 9 gears, colors and so on)

Likes:

• MBC is outstanding and separates the car from the rest out there. Also I would prefer to have an AWD car, but the trade is worth it (if you have alternatives or weather in your area permits).
• Seating is comfortable and seats can be adjusted in endless ways.
• Noise level is ok in my car, do not have the feeling something is "open", although I am aware of the numerous reports from other members here. Maybe I am just lucky.
• Interior lighting is amazing. Driving at night is almost more fun now.
• Heated armrests are really a great addition for the cold part of the year
• Overall quality of the materials and assembly is great.
• Rear entertainment system plays movies from the SD card

Dislikes:

• Command System is not really what I would call intuitive. Would love to have some more buttons and knobs, especially for the radio functions.
• 3D Soundsystem... well maybe I am picky, not knowing what the non 3D system experience is; I would say the upgrade is not worth the money. Although the turning speakers in the door are nice to look at.
• No self cleaning headlights - really MB? That is a long time since I had to stop on the side of the road to clean my headlights with a snowball during winter weather...:wall:
• These cheap buttons on the middle console.
• Operating the rear entertainment system w/o the remote control is challenging. I have two 5 year old girls and wish it would be as easy as select a film, push a button and done. No; Select a film, Switch off parental control, Switch on displays (one at a time), Share media source with rear,... find out you are not in full screen or stuck in radio for what ever reason, so start over again. Great...
• No Intelligent Light Functions in the US model. I would pay and take the risk to get the EU light functions activated. So far, I am underwhelmed by the light
• Night vision - The idea is nice but it does not work all the time and the "red box" is almost impossible to see fast enough. Again, I have the feeling that also the "flashing at recognized objects/people"-function of the headlight is deactivated in the US. Need to confirm, but where I live there are not so many pedestrians walking around in the dark.
• No storage space for anything in the car. I have the 4 zone climate control, so the middle armrest compartment is nonexistent too.
• Steering assist is not even close to what my expectation was. The car is holding the lane like it had to much beer.

Issues:

• Trunk does not stay closed. Issue is known by MB but there is no fix available yet. Workaround which works for me; is to push the emergency release button (5+ times) on the inside and try again. After some iterations it stays closed. Very annoying and I wonder how long it takes them to come up with a permanent solution. I try not to use the trunk at all, awesome...
• AC system is third class during warm weather. The car blows cold air at me for 20 minutes until I almost freeze in my seat while having 100+F outside. During the 20 minutes, the fan motor is so loud, you can not talk to anybody in the car. "Diffuse" or any other setting is doing nothing, so I have to adjust fan speed and the front outlets (little knobs) by myself to keep it comfortable. BMW did do a way better job on their 7-series - Set a temperature and forget; you could not even tell where the air is coming out of the dashboard, it just worked. Very disappointed of the MB AC so far, told SA but he can not recreate the issue in the winter... We will see next summer.
• The car is trying to stop for toll booth in MA, but there is no toll booth. This behavior caused almost someone to rear end me, after the car rapidly slowed down for no cause, driving along in the left lane on the Mass Pike. Living in CT and just driving occasionally to MA, I was expecting to see all kind of reports from other MA MB owners, where their car slows down for all "toll booths", but nothing... Can be reproduced every time (sent videos to MB/SA), seems to be the DYNAMIC SELECT option of the Speed Adjustment menu, which acts weird in my car. I filed a case with MB a couple of weeks ago, but no reaction so far.

That's about it for my introduction, looking forward to be part of the forum now :)

Dan

Confirming that flashing at recognized people function works in the US. Objects, I do not think so. Animals, it does not flash at.

Who do you get to pay to activate the EU intelligent lighting system?

Thanks for letting me know. I guess I was just to distracted by the changing display, looking for the red box, that I missed the probably more useful flashing. Might get more opportunities to test it in the darker season.

I wish I would know somebody who can activate the EU light function! My search was not successful yet.

The AC issue would be a deal breaker for me in So Cal. I think most of the interface issues will be vastly improved with the new MBUX system now on the A Class, and soon new GLE Class. Glad you are enjoying MBC!

So I guess I am lucky with the New England weather in this case :-)
I will report if they found a way to fix the AC on my car, but I have zero hope they find something until next summer.

thanks for your feedback, not sure if you overall like or dislike the car?

I've had mine for about 3-4 months and had a '15 S550 before this one, I find the '18 560 a much better car: quieter, better ride (MBC is a great addition) and smoother acceleration. The curve function is very cool, especially when accelerating quickly around a curved freeway onramp. I wish I knew when the MBC was on or off, it seems to have a mind of it's own, would be nice to have a light or something on the dash to know when it's enabled

I also have the rear seat entertainment system and tray tables. I use it primarily as a mobile office. For some reason the MB WiFi, when connected to my phone, seems to slow the speed of connecting my outgoing calls.

I agree MB Command is not intuitive. But my AC works fine and the trunk stays closed! haha

I've also had the car slow down rapidly for no reason, no toll booths in Scottsdale. I've also had my parking sensors go off for no reason while driving slowly, nothing near the car, this has happened repeatedly.

I love the stereo (not 3D), I love the comfortable interior and accent lighting, especially at night like you said.

Overall I'm very happy with the car

The S class seriously lacks headlamp washers?!

SERIOUSLY?!

If LEDs did not get hot, they wouldn't require heatsinks....but yes, perhaps they don't get as hot as xenons, but......

The BMW 7, Lexus LS500, Porsche Panamera and the Audi A8 all appear to have them. Just stared at their front end on Google Images and they all have the cutout.

Seems like more MB cost cutting to me.

This is ridiculous that a 6 figure car cheaps out on headlamp washers when they exist on my lowly C.

Under your same logic wipers and washer fluid is not necessary for the front windshield.

You may feel it's not necessary, but I just went on www.lexus.ca and stared at the 2019 Lexus LS. Headlamp washer = standard.

Yes, the new C also doesn't have it, but that's beside the point. It just reinforces MB cheapening out on shi*.

You cannot defy physics. Dirty headlamp lens = reduced light output, and on LEDs, that is a major issue since they do not produce the same light output as bi-xenon headlamps. If anything, it is more necessary than before.

This isn't a discussion about what I want to do, as this thread literally is talking about likes and dislikes of the W222. The OP pointed out a dislike, and then you brought in other flagship cars as a comparison. After you did that, I went to various Canadian sites since I'm not American and disproved some of your allegations.

I personally agree it's on the "dislike" side of things for the W222. Whether or not it's a big deal is purely subjective to the person. Night time driving is something I do often, so it's a negative point for the S class. As far as vehicles choices for me, that's not something that is relevant in this thread.

Overall I do like the car! :-)
It drives really awesome and it is even somewhat relaxing driving around with.
So far the S does what I was hoping for, minus the 3 annoying issues and my SA.

Nice to see you're happy with your car overall.Some issues you mentioned here are issues as you said but they can dampen your satisfaction . It's funny giving your feedback on the trunk closing issue as well. I know they test many things but a trunk closing overlooked ?

Hi Dan:

Sounds like there is still a ways to go in terms off getting this car where you want it to be.

Dan, you wrote,

• Noise level is ok in my car, do not have the feeling something is "open", although I am aware of the numerous reports from other members here. Maybe I am just lucky.

Can you tell me what you mean by "open?" Are you referring to noise?

I think he means there have been reports of cabin noise as though a window or sunroof were somewhat "open" like when a truck would pass the car the noise would intrude as if everything wasn't sealed properly.

Correct. That's what I have meant.

(Had 10 minutes fun with my trunk today... seems to get worse with the lower ambient temperatures)

Understood. Thanks so much!

On the w221 I had the headlamp washers and when the temp went below 20 they would leak really bad.... kind of annoying. And was a known issue.

I am hoping to revisit this "noise" concept and was hoping to ask a question on sound in the cabin in general.

I am going from a 2002 E430 RWD to a 2008 550 4Matic.

The 2002 seemed to be very quiet. When you accelerated away from a stop sign, it was largely silent. The 2008, is louder. You "hear/feel" the engine a bit more. There are no error codes or anything else to be considered. Are the S550's of those days supposed to be silent or is a not of engine noise normal?

As an aside, the gas pedal is pretty hard to press. I mean, you have to seriously press it. Is that unusual? BTW, if I have not said it yet, I will. I do so love this car. I wish the wood steering wheel was a bit smaller and fattened in the 10 and the 2 position. It is pretty to look at but good LORD, can they make it any bigger? I am looking at steering wheel covers now. I have this fantasy that I can somehow, as stunningly untalented as I am, buy a steering wheel cover, wrap; some type of a substance around the 10 and the 2 position and then cover it all with the steering wheel cover so it looks really cool. Pray for me. Any suggestions welcome.

Best of holidays to you all!

The gas pedal issue sounds strange to me. You might try the 221 forum which accounts for MY 2007-2013 in the US, I'm sure someone there can assist., Best of luck, enjoy!

I live in Texas where it gets over 100ºF for at least 3 continuous months in the year.
I never found the 2015 S-600 to have any complaints in the A/C department.
Also, did you use your seat air ventilation system?
But, then again, in Texas anything other than white is a bad color for late July into early Oct.

That let me hope for just an issue with my AC.
The Bimmer and the S560 are both black cars.
Seat ventilation is quite useless, as it seems that the fans stop working everytime the car stops (you can tell by the noice). In commute traffic here, stopping is not rare though. But yes, I use it every now and then.

Oh and my issue is not that the car is not getting cold. The car freezes me to death during the first approx 20 minutes driving, blowing ice cold air at fan speed 7(?) at my upper body.
Just in case that didn't turned out right in my first post.