Originally Posted by superswiss

I could be wrong, but the metallic looking parts are not painted. It's metalized plastic. While plastic underneath, the top layer one touches is aluminum.

https://www.deepcoat.com/what-to-kno...izing-plastic/

Originally Posted by SW20S

Nope, tap it with your fingernail, its clearly plastic. The small areas around the buttons may be metalized plastic, but the big surround is just plastic.

Originally Posted by superswiss

Maybe so. The thing is I don't really touch the surround. I touch the buttons. They feel solid as opposed to the piano black capacitive buttons.

Originally Posted by SW20S

Originally Posted by superswiss

Let me preface this by saying I'm a computer engineer and grew up in a digital world. So, gadgets and technology are my thing. My smart home is full of technology from the washer and dryer that alert me on my phone when the load is done to smart locks and connected garage door opener and Gigabit Ethernet throughout the house with Gigabit symmetric Internet I have it all. Touchscreen on my smartphone and fitness tracker etc. great! Touch interface in a car; stupid. Especially so in a car that's sporty and firm. Try to hit something on the touchscreen with your free-floating arm bouncing around. It's playing Whack-A-Mole while driving. The capacitive buttons on the steering wheel are horrible. Simple things like turning up the volume a notch or two is nearly impossible as you have to try to swipe it with precision while you are bouncing around in your seat. It's not about having a learning curve. It's about a fundamentally misguided UX in a car.

As an AMG driver I can tell you that cars like this need to be driver oriented and the things that are used frequently need to be ergonomic and easy to operate. The SL like other AMGs does have the AMG Drive Unit on the steering wheel at least through which you can easily adjust the drive mode and related settings via a knob on the right and two programmable soft buttons on the left. I love this in my AMG. But the rest is an ergonomic nightmare. Trying to configure and control things through the touchscreen while driving is silly and super distracting. I had a few loaners now with the new interface with plenty of time behind the wheel and trust me, it's not about getting used to it.

It's not for nothing that customer satisfaction has taken a nosedive. Volkswagen was the first to admit that going with a touch interface and capacitive buttons was a mistake and they are rolling it back for future models. The new chairman has specifically pointed out that constantly changing the interface with every new generation of cars is frustrating customers. There are only so many functions that a car does, and moving the controls around every time a new generation comes out doesn't serve any purpose. It's just change for change’s sake. You don't have to be anti-touchscreen to admit that it's an unsuitable interface for a moving car where you are supposed to pay attention to the road and not a touchscreen. It's been shown many times that these touch interfaces are mentally more demanding. Voice control isn't' the solution, either. Voice control is surprisingly mentally demanding, because you still have to think about how to phrase your command even in the newer so-called natural language systems. It's not a natural conversation when talking to a machine.

Originally Posted by kcirm

Dramatic as hell, I work in Big Tech and have been growing up with since birth and I can say this cars interior is fine. Prior generation ergonomics was a 8.5/10, this is an 8/10. You're still entirely encapsulated by the road, besides when you change a song track.

Originally Posted by superswiss

Try to hit something on the touchscreen with your free-floating arm bouncing around. It's playing Whack-A-Mole while driving. The capacitive buttons on the steering wheel are horrible. Simple things like turning up the volume a notch or two is nearly impossible as you have to try to swipe it with precision while you are bouncing around in your seat. It's not about having a learning curve. It's about a fundamentally misguided UX in a car.

Originally Posted by UrBusted

Out of interest what operations are you doing while driving that makes it so difficult?? Most of my cars are now touch screen and from what I can see neither me nor most of the people here have any such issues with using it. We set up navigation and whatever Spotify playlist we want to listen to when we leave home (CarPlays 100x easier with touch screen anyway), the temperature controls are also easier with touch screen seeing as how we don't have to look at one place to find and move the knob and then look at another place to see the temperature we've set; the place I can sympathise with you on is the volume control and Mercedes steering wheel seeming cheap. I do agree that buttons do make it seem more premium but the market trend for 90% of higher end luxury cars within this price range is big touch screens and ambient lighting and it works. There's more new Range Rovers and S Class' here in London than there was old shapes.

For people such as yourself and Streamliner I 100% believe you would love the new Continental, probably one of the last of its kind to have a combination of new tech whilst maintaining the traditional wood/button layout; as soon as the EV variant comes I'll probably start looking at one.

Originally Posted by superswiss

It doesn't matter what operation. You are trying too hard to justify it. But if your curious, your example of adjusting the temperature for example. I just blindly reach over to the climate control physical button, tap it twice to lower the temp by 2 degrees if I'm a bit warm for example. I don't have to look at the temp or the switch. Doing the same with the touchscreen, I have to look down away from road, then hold my arm steady enough to hit the right part on the screen. While I don't constantly adjust the temperature, it's annoying enough when I do it. It just reminds every time, that it is inferior to use and I catch myself being distracted looking at the screen instead of the road.

BMW still does touchscreen right. There are still buttons and a rotary knob to operate it while driving, but if stationary you can use the touchscreen for example. I'm not completely opposed to touchscreen as an additional input method, but don't take away the physical controls.

Originally Posted by js_cls

In the 7er I drove, you have to use touch to get to the AC controls. The iDrive knob does not highlight the lower area in which the controls are present. And outside of temperature, fan speed, seat heating/ventilation, and modes, etc. are all behind a menu.

Originally Posted by crabman

Here's are recent review that's a little more balanced. Keep in mind Motoman was hit and nearly killed by a distracted driver; he is very much against touchscreens.

Originally Posted by superswiss

It doesn't matter what operation. You are trying too hard to justify it. But if your curious, your example of adjusting the temperature for example. I just blindly reach over to the climate control physical button, tap it twice to lower the temp by 2 degrees if I'm a bit warm for example. I don't have to look at the temp or the switch. Doing the same with the touchscreen, I have to look down away from the road, then hold my arm steady enough to hit the right part on the screen. While I don't constantly adjust the temperature, it's annoying enough when I do it. It just reminds every time, that it is inferior to use and I catch myself being distracted looking at the screen instead of the road.

BMW still does touchscreen right. There are still buttons and a rotary knob to operate it while driving, but if stationary you can use the touchscreen for example. I'm not completely opposed to touchscreen as an additional input method, but don't take away the physical controls.

Originally Posted by UrBusted

Which car are you doing it in with a touchscreen? It's the exact same process of making use of your muscle memory to find and tap the location twice as moving the switch up or down twice in your c63s. Unless you're aggressively driving 247 why would you need to steady your arm? There is no other options around the temperature control on all the touchscreens in any of the cars for that reason, the Audis and most of the new Porsches has a separate screen for it; the possibility of touching the wrong thing is the same as moving the wrong switch out of the 12 switches on the W222 dash until you get used to its exact location. Maybe when you daily drive one with touch screen temperature controls you'll gain the same muscle memory you have for those switches, there's no other way for us to go seeing as how all manufacturers have followed track. One thing I'd like to note is once I've got used to bigger screens I've found it difficult to go back/enjoy smaller ones, the same as when using larger tablets, phones, laptops etc.

BMW doesn't anymore btw, I don't like the way they've gone either. Having the buttons and switches there made the interior seem more complete, my facelift g80 interior seems a bit incomplete compared to the pre facelift. Unfortunately it's the way the industries gone so we have to get used to it or go buy a Bentley/Rolls Royce.

Originally Posted by superswiss

C'mon, this is getting silly. You are trying to convince me that you've developed muscle memory and can touch your way to a specific area of a flat screen w/o looking? You gonna have to show me that. Tactile feedback is the key here. I can feel a physical button. I can't feel a virtual button on a screen. Is this really that hard to grasp?

As to what car I'm doing this in. Take your pick. I've had new S Class and new C Class loaners. The latter was actually worse, because the software was all buggy. CarPlay kept disconnecting, so I constantly had to fiddle with it.

Originally Posted by UrBusted

I agree, we won't find a resolution to this matter, but yes when a touch screen button is in a fixed location you do develop muscle memory to touch it. I don't understand what's unbelievable about touching something that never moves location. Do you need to look at your iPhone/samsung or other touch screen devices when entering your passwords, opening WhatsApp, opening the mail app etc? You know exactly where it is and can probably get to it from the home page with your eyes closed lol.
Message me if you're ever about in London, more than happy to go on a drive with you

Mercedes quality has apparently gone to trash lol, your new C Class impressions are interesting, they've depreciated A LOT here.

Originally Posted by Frenetic

Steamliner, the other thread got locked before you can share the buyback amount. Would you mind sharing the details?

Price paid, amount owed (if any) vs buyback amount and any other incidentals received?

Originally Posted by Streamliner

I had one SA say that pre 2021 MB’s “across the line” we the last good ones.

Originally Posted by Streamliner

After not being able to get a reply to my multiple emails, I phoned Sedgwick and asked them to reconfirm that my repurchase was moving along. They said that they had not received my approval of their offer, so they had discontinued the process. I just about hit the roof! I walked them through the emails I sent and they said “Oh, yes, I see that you did approve it.” As it turns out, since they messed up, the process had to start all over again, with another “2 to 4 week” wait time. Anyway, I expect that they will take the car back within the next two weeks and I will post details at that time.

My gut feeling is that MBUSA is swamped with a tsunami of repurchases and that they are falling all over themselves trying to deal with it. As I mentioned previously, some dealer service advisors will tell you, OFF THE RECORD, that they are facing historic levels of issues with 2021 & newer vehicles. I had one SA say that pre 2021 MB’s “across the line” we the last good ones.