Background: I currently drive a 2013 E350. I owned a FWD turbo straight track street car as a kid but like all of us we grow up (kind of). I have 2 kids that I tote around to ball practice and I travel by car frequently with golf clubs, usually 2 sets. I wrench on my own cars for the most part aside from engine rebuilding or timing stuff. Oil changes, brakes, part replacement etc. I drive about 16k-20k per year. I do have a 2500 truck that I drive if weather is real bad but mostly driving the car because of long drives.

Here is the situation. I am looking for a new to me ride and I am stuck between options. S550 (2015+), S560,S63pre and post facelift.

2018+ S63 stretching my budget to the limit. Would have to get higher mileage.

pre 2018 S63. Intriguing but doesn’t have CarPlay, obviously being 7+ years most are higher mileage.

S560 seems to be the sweet spot has car play but for the price of 560 I could bump into higher mileage s63. Has me stuck.

s550 find a cheap one and spend 7500 at Renntech for performance. Higher mileage.

reliability is important to me obviously within reason. I know I’m not buying a Honda civic. Is there a big difference in maintenance vs the 4 options?

Second question after that is what options are must have. Are the tvs in the back useful with kids?

this has been a 2 month search and I can’t decide. I went and drove a s560 and a 2018 s63 today and loved both but I also enjoyed the 550 to be honest. I like having car play but I see I can install it aftermarket.

anyways this was a bit jumbled as my wife is yelling at me to get the kids in bed! Please help me out and tell me what you would do.

 

Don't buy an AMG car if it is going to stretch your budget, especially with little kids to feed, especially a higher mileage one. I would also not buy the S550 because of the tech age and age of the cars in general. I would definitely not buy an S550 and tune it. The S560 route is probably the best one if you want something with somewhat predictable spend. The 2018+ S63 cars have some pretty expensive maintenance items like transmission services every 30K and plugs that are very expensive to replace because of access. The S560 will probably also be the most reliable and you can always tune this and get a pretty fast car for the money. I would look for a loaded up S560 as new as you can find with low miles within your budget. None of these cars are cheap though, parts are substantially more expensive along with insurance and gas costs.

 

S560 is the happy medium…. If you are not a track person, or sports car driver, you’ll find the S63 useless compared to the S560 which already has an appreciated amount of power. Not to mention the extra maintenance with the S63.
S560 has a great V8, luxurious, and still very sporty in Sport mode.

 

I bought the S550 with 50k miles, added Carplay for just under $250 and the Weistec tune and filters for $1200.

For what it is (heavy boat), it's quick. Outruns new 5.0 Mustangs. Is it fast??? No. Coming from an 800whp car to the S550, it's no comparison but I enjoy the S550 more because of the comfort and style and the fact that I don't have every other car on the road wanting to race every time I drive it. The gas mileage is another plus for me.

Best of luck to ya on whatever you decide on!

 

OP drive some cars.... See what you like.

S-65 with more miles and Carbon Ceramic brakes is a winner. Brakes last and last. Car is reliable. Things that do happen and that need to be done are mostly within reach of a good DIY-er. Spark plugs are more pleasant to replace then a V-8. You will love Magic Body Control and the audio. Oh... V-12 power. Have Benz Ninja do some software changes to make it even better. Get a good inspection before buying.

 

I would pick up an non AMG car, and here the S560 looks like is the winner to me . AMG maintenance wise costly .

 

As someone who was in a very similar situation; I'd advise you find an S560. I bought a 2017 S550 4-matic as kind of a "way back into the brand" and almost immedeately wanted a W222 V2 car. The 18-20 shouldn't be called face-lifted, there are more than 5000 different parts from the 14-17 W222. After buying that car I began searching for an S560. There are so many features upgraded or added that it really is like a totally different car, tech features and driver's assistance features. You can look at the 2018 order guide and there's a section called "new for 2018" that gives an overview of all the changes. I wish I had read that prior to buying my 2017 car, which was an otherwise excellent car. I feel like both the S550 and S560 have more than enough power. I personaly felt like the suspension of my S550 didn't have the capability to keep up with the motor's capability, just my $.02 cents. Point is; the motor in an S550 is more than fast enough to keep you entertained, and even moreso in an S560.

Options are a completely different story. It is extremely difficult to find a highly optioned S560. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. If options are more important, you'll have better luck with an older S550 or an S63. For this reason I never found an S560 to buy (except 1 from another member, it had every option I wanted plus! But based on my situation it would have cost the same as the S63 I bought), and I looked for close to 9 months. I wound up buying an S63 because options were more important to me. My must have options list included Exclusive Nappa leather, HUD, Warmth & comfort, Driver Assistance Pkg, Premium PKG, Surround View Syustem, & 3D sound if the interior was dark. I wanted rear seat entertainment and climate, mainly because the front headrests are upgraded with those options. You'll have to decide which options you want, and which ones aren't that important.

I can tell you from personal experience that the rear seat entertainment is practically useless. My S63 is the third car I've owned with rear seat entertainment, and this one gets used the least. When I had my 2001 S600, my son wasn't even 5 years old; he used to watch movies on DVD's all the time on road trips. Fast forward to now; my 12yo daughter uses her iPhone or iPad for entertainment. Technology has changed and made them obsolete, just a cool feature to wow people. Or, I guess if the main screen were to go bad, it might be nice to have the reduncacy of extra screens.

 

Another vote for the S560. Sensible and best compromise for your situation. However, also agree if budget fits, an S65 is the natural choice. I personally went with this just because every time I sit behind the steer wheel and hit that start button, it tells me I'm behind something special.

 

Interesting; I actually liked the rear screens I had in my W222. Did you try to install a Fire TV Stick? Ideally that's all what someone's need...

 

Ooo. I didn't realize that could be an option. Funny I haven't turned on my rear screens since I've had the car. No kids so no one sits in the back seat.

 

Options on using them is not a problem, we know how. It's comes down to ease of use, shich is based on what my daughter normally does. She finds no reason to leave her iPad at home and use something more complicated like the rear screens. If they were touch screen, that might make it easier, but no touchscreen means it's a non-starter. And I really don't like cables, that's why I don't use carplay/Android Auto. If it were wireless I'd use it. I actually like using Waze in my wife's car through Airplay, even using the wired connection, but don't use it in mine because I don't have a touchscreen.

 

Not sure where OP lives, but he did say this is going to be a daily driver. If he lives anywhere where the climate is an issue, an S63 is a better choice than an S65. But he didn't mention anything about climate or if AWD was important.

Also, CCB are nice to have, especially if you can find one on the used market. But with ceramic pads, I get zero brake dust now. So the value of CCB's is only in the reduced frequency/elimination of brake pad changes. I used to wash my car because of brake dust, even if the car was clean, but after installing the ceramic pads in June of this year the opposite is true. I feel so normal to wash my car because the car is dirty now...

 

Why not? Those screens are nothing but screens, and Fire TV stick simply sends processed video via the HDMI cable, wherein the computing of the Fire TV platform is all done within the Fire Stick itself before it's sent as a video signal through the HDMI cable. With that, you could also use a remote control that comes with the Fire Stick and still navigate through the Mbenz screen that way (though the signal processing is all done by the stick itself not the screens).

You could even use a Google Chromecast and simply cast videos from your phone too or do screen mirroring. That's what I've used (but set your phone as the default hotspot first for the chromecast module). If you want to be creative, you can also plug an Apple TV...

I prefer casting devices over ipads for kids, which is probably why I like rear-seat entertainment in cars . I just don't trust the system enough to get them access to the ipads/tablets of the world or full Youtube access in a world like this - at least not when they are still younger kids.. Of course that's just my view about RSE systems and why they can be beneficial. We could barely trust schools nowadays, and surely i don't trust random Youtube ads or videos. Thanks god we're not in CA for schools which is hard to control - At least for now we can control what they see on RSE.