I spend on avg 4 hours/day in the car (yep, lousy commute for 160 mile/daily in SoCal), and the W220 is a great car for commute & cruise around. I love just everything about it: great look, fabulous interior, adequate power, good combination of ride & handling, reasonable gas mileage (20 mpg avg so far), blablabla.... As the matter of fact, I like it more than my brother W221, that car look/feel too futuristic to me, great power though.

My only complain: the steering wheel !!!. The W220 is head & shoulder above the Lexus LS430 when it come to handling & driving soul. But they really share common in having such a boring steering wheel: lack of grip & excitement, too small (on the ring), and too bland.

I bought a new OEM steering wheel (for $20 on eBay !!!), and they provide quite a better grip than the 3 years old one in my car, a bit thicker on the ring (from what dealer explained, the leather shrink after extended use, and make the ring smaller), but it's still not enough. It's nowhere close to the feeling that the BMW/Audi provide on their cars.

So I'm looking at couple options: send the wheel out to shop so that they could pad it & make it much thicker, buy a Brabus one, or upgrade to the S55/CL55 one, or they make it whatever getto way I want.

I'm not really into the wood version, since they look nice, but not much grip there. Not to mention they don't do well w/ heat. Any other recommendation ?

As for now, I'm more into having the S55 version of the steering wheel in my car. I like its thickness & provide better holding pattern

I'm also tempting with the steering wheel on the Maybach 57S: thick & two different type of leather, unlike the skinny leather & wood that the regular Maybach share w/ the S600

Any other choice, anyone upgrade to the 03-later S/CL55 and wanna share your experience.

Any other choice ?

 

Im interested in this as well, so let me know what you find out. Also if u change styles of wheels I may be interested in your current airbag, thats if you decide to use a different class wheel and cant use it. Thanks

 

it seems to me that any quality upholstery shop would be able to re do the leather on the wheel the way you want it. though i could be wrong

 

i'd just go with the s55 wheels instead of the hassle of getting it re-padded....personally i love the wood on the wheel