A year ago we purchased a beautiful S560 with a 2 year CPO warranty. We love the car although sometimes all the tech can be overwhelming as compared to the 2005 Lexus LS 430 it replaced. So far it has been trouble free as it comes up for it's one year service at 40K miles. I am curious as to others experience with repairs as the mileage and years increase? Thanks.

 

I owned a pre-facelift W222 (S550) up to 75K miles with zero cost in maintenance (needed lower control arms at 74K miles; sold it to Lincoln dealer as is).

I currently have an S560 mid 30s-k miles with full detailed history. Not a single major or even minor repair beside replacing hose clamp (recall).

I’ve been on this forum for a few years and in other brand forums for nearly 2 decades. The W222 page here is the one with least amount of reported issues/problems by users I have ever seen on any forum/website. First I thought it’s because there isn’t many data points or statistically valid sample with high mileages… but we are now in 2023 and the W222 page remains solid happy customers type of threads!!! U would rarely ever see anyone posting any issue. Go to the BMW 7 series or W223 or even W221 and see how they are completely different in terms of happy vs problem reporting posts by users compared to W222. Plus the vehicle is maintaining its value like crazy and it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE now to find a good equipped one on the market as people tend to keep them.

 

I have a 2018 S560 with over 130K miles that I bought second hand and it has been extremely reliable. I drive the car daily and besides routine maintenance I haven't done anything. Occasionally, I get an issue with using Apple CarPlay and I have to reset the radio / USB phone connection but that's it. Having owned an ES 300, LS 400, SC 400 and LS 430 the routine maintenance is far more expensive on the Mercedes but on the flip side I haven't had the issues I had with the Lexus vehicles I owned. The previous owner had a full service record and the only documented issue besides maintenance was a differential issue.

 

Wow ... 130K on the facelift... must be one of the highest reported mileage I've seen at least on the web/forums for the S560. Glad to hear the confirmation about it's reliability (especially the Airmatic ride at this mileage; Mbenz had a ton of issues in the past at around 80-100K miles for previous models)

 

No issues yet knock on wood.

 

Lots of miles in a short period are likely highway miles which are a lot easier on a car assuming the car was maintained than over a long period of time. It also depends on the roads and temperatures that the car has been subjected to.

 

My experience so far...

Background... https://mbworld.org/forums/s-class-w...ware-long.html

It now has 79,500 miles on it. Scheduled maintenance is being performed at 10K+3 intervals so next one coming up will be 83K.

At the 73K maintenance while test driving the car before delivery the tech felt a vibration under acceleration, inspected and found that the transmission mount had collapsed. Was fixed under CPO. Only heard about it when picking up the car.


A couple of months ago I started hearing a noise from the front left suspension. Happened when going over speed bumps, entering driveways or turning the wheel at slow speeds. Started getting louder and louder (video attached) to the point where it was bothering me, called my SA and he told me that given the mileage it was probably a control arm but I could drive it for a while without any problems. Last week lumbar, side bolsters, shoulder and massage started working in intermittently (video attached). I would set it and the display would revert back to where it was before and the bolsters would not inflate or deflate, depending in which state they were in when it stopped working. Would happen and a few hours later would be ok, than next day would not work, then sometimes when I parked the car and came back sometime after that it would be working again. No real pattern. When I had shoulder support inflated to 10 which is where I always have it, I would hear the pumps coming on in 20-30 second intervals, so my guess is that it was leaking and pumps would keep coming back on to keep it at level.

So took it in to check both the suspension noise and the seats. Suspension noise was in fact control arm and some adjacent parts. Fixed under CPO.

As far as the seats, the minute I told my SA what it was and showed him the video he told me he had just recently had two other customers with the same issue and that CPO would probably not cover that.

So, the only issue I have had with the car so far that was not covered by CPO were the seats.

With that said, it is by no means inexpensive to keep the car's recommended maintenance on schedule to minimize the chance of having a problem that might cost more to resolve.

 

I just fixed a minor issue that seems to be similar to yours. Check my thread below. It works perfectly now.
https://mbworld.org/forums/s-class-w...-air-leak.html

 

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Very interesting that you mentioned the high temperatures. In the past 3 weeks this car has been boiling under the Florida sun and since I always use remote start to cool the car down, I did notice one day that the cabin temperature was 165 when I turned on remote start.

I'm even now considering adding some X-Protector myself once the issue is fixed. However I doubt MB will be so cost conscious as you were. My guess is this repair will cost me some good money as they will probably have the "replace everything" approach. I'll ask to see the parts that were replaced to see if there was any damage to that same tube.

 

I have spend a good amount of time invistigating the design and routing of all the air tubes inside the seat, as I described in the thread that I shared the link for. I am 100% certain there is an inherent design issue and that the solution I offered can take care of it. Almost certain this could happen to any car left under sun and hot conditions; could happen any-time.. just a matter of when. If they fix it, I’d still recommend you also do the prevenative solution I proposed just in case. I can see it happening again and again and again without that isnulation above that particular module. All tubes are routed just about less than half an inch or so from that module and in many cases they’d be touching it and when it happens under hot conditions, tube will burn, melt and start to leak. There is at least 4-5 tubes routed right near that module.