irieblue

Since it's been rather quiet here regarding MODs, Though I'd post some info about a recent upgrade I had done by Steve of MBenzNL when he was in the San Francisco Bay area in April... If it were not for this board, I would not have discovered MBenzNL....

This is a genuine Mercedes Benz S63 steering wheel complete with paddle shifters, all I can say is this is one nice upgrade.

What was Mercedes thinking when they put those silly little plastic switches onto the backside of the stock steering wheel ?

The S63 steering wheel is thicker than the stock, and not as "squishy".

I was somewhat disappointed with the lack luster acceleration by just kicking down on the accelerator at HWY speeds. Overtaking maneuvers are now 2 clicks down before giving it some gas. The nice thing about the 7-G tronic gear box is that it always seems to find the correct gear, thus at 70 MPH on the HWY, 2 clicks down normally displays 4th gear without the car even lurching. It's definitely made driving the car more fun..

As upgrades go it's simply a matter of taking the Air bag off the old steering and putting it on the new one, however, that sets off all kinds of warning messages on the dash, that you need to reset with the appropiate hookup which MBenzNL is equipped to do.. I had asked my dealer if they would have done this for me, and they said no, so MBenzNL was pretty much the only way for me to get this done....

silberrosa

Nice upgrade indeed. Funny you mention the shift buttons as these were changed as of MY09 to shift paddles. They are smaller than the AMG version, but still get the job done. One thing you might consider trying, instead of "2 clicks" as you use to downshift, you can also pull and hold the downshift shift paddle and the system will choose the optimum gear. I think you might also be able to pull and hold the upshift paddle and it will retrun to drive. Give it a shot and congrats on the nice mod.

irieblue

I can confirm that holding the down shift paddle to auto select the correct gear as well as holding the upshift paddle to go back to drive works.

I.e at 70 MPH, if you hold the down shift paddle for a couple secs, it goes straight from Drive to 4th, then once you are done passing , holding the upshift goes from 4th back to D. It's really hard to tell what gear it selected, but the REVS go from say 4000 down to 2000 RPM.

Mercedes22

Yes Steve is a very clever man, highly recommended.

Chucky300

Beautiful Upgrade!

I would love to do this but I have a strong love for the Wood Steering wheel - and to my understanding - there is no such thing as a Wood / AMG steering wheel.

Mercedes22

AMG only do full leather steering wheels. A friend of mine has just done a Wood/Leather wheel with Paddle Shifts on his W215 CL55 as the standard AMG CL wheel only came in Leather.

AustinGuy

Wood and sporty don't go together. I guess that's why you don't have wood steering wheels on Ferrari's, Lamborghini's and Aston's...

I too thought that I couldn't let go of the wood steering mindset but once I grabbed the steering on my S63 it was like .... uuummm ... how do I say it - holding on to a hot chick with a tight bod and firm curves. All in the right places.

Chucky300

I'll need you to be more specific... LOL

vonbeeler

I did this mod to my previous 03 S500. There was a wood/leather AMG wheel offered then. It was great. I too prefer the wood though and can't go back to all leather. The dealer installed it for me. Austin if you HAD to classify your cars first priority would it be luxury or sport? For that reason they should offer wood AMG. Not to mention the rest of the interior trim is wood.

Regardless I still think its one of the ugliest steering wheels in the market with exception to my 05 Corvette. GM changed it for 06. I was waiting for a possible revision in the S class steering wheel design for 2010 for an upgrade but I guess it remains unchanged. Does anybody here think the wheel is attractive or is it just me?

DCTMOTORSPORTS

We have a S63 steering wheel core ready for wood conversion!
We can add wood insert on top and bottom for you if wood/AMG steering wheel is what you are looking for!!