_Bondo_

Hey Nathan, thanks for bringing the car by last week and giving me a quick spin. Always wanted to know how they drove. Lemme know when you wanna trade it in for a GL

xxGenericSNxx

It was nice meeting you as well. Amazing how small the car scene is, everyone can be found through forums.

Samour

crossing the border from US/Canada?

man, I have a GL 550 and I intend to drive from san francisco to vancouver on the 26th. should I be concerned? & obviously I dont have a front license plate.

xxGenericSNxx

Nah don't sweat it too much. The guy just asked to see my registration and then proceeded to say you need to put the front plate on and then let us go. As long as you're not a jerk and just say okay thank you then you shouldn't have a problem.

With that said, I've never heard of anyone else getting harassed and pretty much non of my car friends have them and they go to Canada often.

_Bondo_

Ya I was reading a thread in the S65 forum and saw your car in your sig and your location. Figured you're pretty much the only one around...

efzauner

do you have more details about your audio install?
You have the HK system right? you just changed the door speakers and tweet but not the amp? Where you not concerned about overall frequency balance? You did add a sub in the rear. how did you wire the sub amp? Did you simply take off from the high level sub signal?
thanks

xxGenericSNxx

Actually the whole system has been upgraded to JL except for the third row speakers. I bought the car that way (except with no sub! They removed their custom sub and didn't bother replacing it with anything). What had been done was they wired everything to the factory system and used the factory amp.

I then took the car to an audio shop and had them custom build a sub enclosure that fit into the same area that the stock goes into (right under the shelf above the spare tire). This way I don't loose any trunk space. They put two 6" JL subs hooked up to their 750 watt amp which is placed in the false floor between the first and second row seats (Again out of the way where no one will see it). They then hooked this up to the stock system. I have a knob up front that I can control the bass to the sub unit.

Sorry I can't help much more than that as the shop did all of the work.

But if all you're after is doing a mild upgrade to the stock HK system I'd go for a sub replacement. I've heard really good things about the stock system and I think it just needs a little more bass. I don't think it'd be worthwhile to replace all of the door speakers and get a new amp which would be the proper way to do a full audio upgrade (rather than hooking up to the stock amp like in my car). But I find the sound to be adequate enough that I don't think it's worthwhile to change the stock amp to a JL 600 watt one. The stock amp right now is 440 watt.

Simbad

Following your PM's I checked out your thread.
Wow, just read the whole thing.
I think you're a legend- Amazing ride. Always loved the 'R' and came close to getting a Diesel one for my wife.

Kudos Dude. Hope we cross paths soon so we can get that R and the CL in one of your AMG rendezvous pics :-)

SurgeSi

Excellent build thread!
Great work and tasteful mods

R-whale

^ yeah, same here. I like your tasteful mods.

xxGenericSNxx

Thanks guys. I really like the mods on your CL and E Simbad and SurgeSi.

SurgSi, are those the Wald LEDs on the front bumper?

ScaSer

hey great car you have...

what lowering system have you mounted on your car?

I have just bought the renntech V3 system, but i cant get it to work, did you have any diffyculties installing your system?

-Kasper

claimweb

I installed a lowering kit , but not electronic.
I used a selfmade one.
I think there is a seller in Canada Who make a lowering kit as mine.
This kit has 4 arms you have to change to the originals installed in the sensor of every airmatic. It's simple and works very well ..

ScaSer

i think the arm shortening is a bit pre-historic.

the renntech offers alot more... http://www.renntechmercedes.com/www/node/229

but the ability to get comfy, with the touch of a button is a fav of mine, and the speed lowering. and of course the offroad lift of the car is still possible.

xxGenericSNxx

Or STAR lowering is another option without any extra modules.

ScaSer

it sounds like a pretty conservative sollution, maybe a max 20mm lowering or something like that.

I have bought the renntech system for my R320cdi, it able to lower the car as much as mechanically possible. (not saying that i want to be inside the car when rolling)

xxGenericSNxx

Sweet. I'm pretty happy with my ride height, I only needed a little fix for the rear so I decided to go the easy and conservative route. I was able to get about .5-.75 inches which is pretty substantial.

radride

Awesome thread. I'm a closet R63 lover (checks around to see if the wife is looking what I'm typing). My wife hates them. I'm glad you saved this one. Looks like it needed a lot of TLC. I'm only going to assume that you got a smoking deal on it due to that.

R.K.

xxGenericSNxx

I wish I got a good deal. Two R63s were listed recently at only $33k albeit higher mileage than mine (one just sold and one is still for sale). I paid on the high end of what a dealer would ask but as I'm sure you know since you own a CL65 how much these quirky AMGs in general depreciate so I still paid a fraction of what the new price was. At that time there's only one for sale so you either take it or leave it as you don't know when the next one will come up for sale.

I did find that a lot of R63s for sale this year have had some sort of aftermarket (crappy) work done to it. Either some crappy radar installs or weird rear seat entertainment systems added in. It seems like the crowd that gets these cars seem to end up molesting it in some way.

Oh well. The car is really a love hate thing. Most seem to dislike it which is probably why they no longer make them for the US.

cookstar

mid 2013 the cars will drop even more now that they are both officially discontinued, same with the CL65, I can get a new one right now for 15-20k off sale price. They go for 1/3 the price on ebay with mileage as low as 5000.

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Mercedes-Benz...d1ed89f&_uhb=1

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Mercedes-Benz...t_56746wt_1139

xxGenericSNxx

Finally some updates for you guys.

First of all, I made another trip to BC and I couldn't believe my eyes. When I pulled into the parking garage, there was an R63 parked there with the full Black Bison Wald kit and Lorinser side skirts. The interior had the trim redone in a gray/silver scheme- paint or wrap I'm not sure.

I believe this is the same car as this matte black R63 due to very similar modifications and a similar treatment of LED and mesh grilles on the front bumper. Note these following two photos aren't mine, but pictures I found from a car spotting thread online when I was doing research months ago on the Wald bumper:






I didn't get a chance to meet the owner, but it was very cool seeing this car in the flesh. It seems like the owner who wrapped the car matte black has since sold it to this new owner as the license plate is different. This could also explain why the bumper is all beat up (cracks and scratches)- perhaps they just don't care that much. This is the car I saw today:






















Something very interesting that I found out is that the rear Wald Black Bison bumper is 100% compatible with the stock AMG tips. When I was ordering my front bumper, I was told that if I wanted to do the rear bumper I'd have to buy the Wald quad exhaust tips which are smaller than mine. This didn't seem like a good idea (downgrading) but very annoying that the rep didn't know his stuff and couldn't upsell me on the rear bumper at that time.

xxGenericSNxx

I have one of the last modification updates for you guys as I'm pretty much done with my car. As many of you know I redid the interior trim of my car from Burlwood to Carbon Fiber. Because my car came with a matching wood steering wheel, it definitely had to be switched out to a custom carbon fiber solution to tie in with the rest of the interior. The wheel I ordered from DCTMS has finally arrived and wow it is nice.

The design:
I wanted to make my steering wheel a little more unique. Something I've really liked from the W221 S Class wood steering wheel is how the wood goes into the spokes at the bottom like an upside down "U" shape. So I had them make the carbon fiber to replicate the same idea as the S Class, only create it in a flat bottom shape so it's sportier. Carbon fiber has also been added on top along with the sport bump grips that are common on AMG steering wheels.

Leather:
Perforated black leather with black stitching was chosen for the wheel to also maintain the sporty look. This contrasts slightly with the black smooth Nappa leather airbag which I had done a few months ago which matches the stock interior trim.

Details:
The AMG stamp has also been added to the airbag which helps maintain the AMG look found on older 00 era AMGs.

Performance:
The stock black shifting buttons suck, so I retrofitted the C63 aluminum paddle shifters. MBworld member latemodel21 helped me out with the paddle retrofit with his cutting and custom fabrication to get the buttons to fit into place on my core wheel. The wiring itself is a very simple cut and splice and it works perfectly.

Better photos will come later.

Here's how the car has looked for the past few months:




And here's the brand new wheel:

ScaSer

i think your wheel looks very cool, but the epoxy surface is very slippery like the old wood, is it not annoying when driving? the grip on the leather in a hundred times better?

Or am i the only one who dont drive with both hands on the wheel

nbv8

Wow, the new steering wheel looks very nice.....

latemodel21

Hey Nathan,

Glad I was able to help with your wheel, and it has been great working with you,

The wheel looks really nice in your R63 .... and your R63 looks amazing ! great work!

Cheers,
Chris