Tom in Austin

Yes, that notch had to be there for some purpose! Like the idea of looping something around it and pulling, makes perfect sense. Now, how did you get the 1 and 8 plugs out, they're so close the inside fender ...

95Sinned420

At first I also thought there had to be another way to pull those out.since on the W222 they inconveniently put a wire plug of some sort behind the firewall right in front of the coils.
Anyways, I did a lot of searching and no one really talked about it or seemed to just skipped over that coil in their video tutorials (probably to not show how hard they struggled taking it out).
You'll find that the plastic hard part of coil shaft BARELY has any room to wiggle when fully extended, it literally will be hitting the firewall where the bump is. The trick that I found to work out the best is sort of counter-intuitive. Instead of pulling that shaft as far out as possible and pulling straight up (you would think that's the direction to go), you have to instead, pull it down to either the left or right side and of course, bending and manipulating the top soft rubber part of the coil to give you that 1/4 inch clearance you need. I found the passenger side was harder than the driver side for some reason. Anyways, yeah, don't be afraid to bend the rubber boot and wiggle it down (the spark plug hole opening is wider at the bottom end the top and also at an angle to where it comes out easiest this way. Thankfully, putting it in was a lot easier. I struggled for a good 10 minutes, took a break to do some re-searching, then struggled for another 10 minutes and finally got it out. So the driver side was the same concept and took me only a few minutes to get it out. Helps if you have smaller forearms/hands like I do.

Sleeper Benz

May I suggest activating your vehicle's W.O.T. switch occasionally... WIDE OPEN THROTTLE does inexplicable mechanical wonders!!