incubus

I'm intrigued by the whole paddle shift concept on a mercedes... i wanted to know what the genuine advantages of having such a system are?

i used to drive an Audi a8 with tiptronic transmission adn there was no clear benefit of the tip. as the transmsision was laready set to sport mode and the gears would change at higher revs than normal...

whoover

I use mine all the time. The program is different in different years, but the '06 AMG program is perfect. You knock it down to the lowest gear that will not overrev (often it's one click of the - button). Then you stomp it and the transmission upshifts only at redline. Note that this is the '06 S65 (and I presume S55) program. The '06 C55 behaves differently. It bounces against the rev limiter and you have to upshift manually.

Note that they're buttons, not paddles, in the W220. But they give you a lot of control conveniently in the late model variants.

GrepAwk

I never use it.

The automatic shift program in "S" Sport mode is good enuf for 99% of the time. IMHO, the buttons on the back of the steering wheel are a geewhiz feature, and waste of plastic and wire.

It's more fun to nudge the shift lever to the left or right to manually downshift or upshift.

Hotrod-Realtor

I love to use the steering wheel shift buttons when I have both hands on the wheel and occasionally use the shift lever too. At speed the steering wheel buttons are the bomb! A few nights ago an accord came flying past me on the highway, and immediately got off on the exit. I was headed home and followed him out of town where I jumped on his bumber about 2 car lenghts back and pushed him down the road. There really wasn't a good place to pass and it was fun watching him squirm. I was a little concerned he was driving beyond his ability but was impressed that he was using both lanes and never exceeded 90 mph. This went on about 4 miles until he made a right turn which was the direction I was headed. As soon as I followed him around the corner, he put his blinker on and pulled over to let me pass. I am sure his nerves were shot because we were pushing pretty hard. When he pulled over I was hard on the throttle and when he pulled back behind me I was at 60 mph on my way to 100 and he was killed. I used the steering wheel buttons then too.
All the best,
Warren.