Took recent delivery of a 2020 S63 Convertible, after having a 2017 S63 convertible. A few few things have vanished from the car, with no warning.

1) Seat belt extender - gone. This is a crucial feature that was used frequently on the 2017 model, in fact it was featured prominently in much of the advertising literature. One of those things that is just standard, it was never even listed as standard or optional - it's just there. Well, they decided to remove it, but apparently ONLY from AMG models. It's listed and talked about in the owners manual, but then a few pages away in a different section it mentions it and says "The seat belt extender button is not available in Mercedes AMG models.". So the much less expensive S-Class Convertible/Coupe get it, but the AMG (mine was nearly $190,00), does not get it? What is the reasoning behind that? Now, if you never have the seat belt extender, maybe you don't care, but coming out of the 2017 where you had it, it just seems nonsensical to remove it. The seat belt is very difficult to retrieve, thus why the function existed. Now, you can basically only extend it by opening/closing the door, so if you don't put your seat belt on right away, your left having to open the door again or damage your rotator cuff reaching for it. This was a valuable function as well to help passengers, who might not routinely ride with you nor know how to access the belt. Just ridiculous this was removed from a near $200k vehicle. And since there are were no cars to see prior to ordering, you would have no idea this feature was nixed.

2) Ability to control passenger seat from driver side - gone. Here again, page 92 discusses the controls that do this, but then in a little note "This function is not available for all models." And there you have it, it's not on the US Convertible (and presumably Coupe) models. How insane is this. Anyone who had a prior model knows that virtually anyone getting in the rear seat on the passenger side always needs help. The control on the head restraint tilts the seat and moves it forward, but only to a point. After that, you have to manually use the door controls to give the passenger the full room/access to enter the rear. You could do it on all AMGs before, from the driver side controls. Not anymore...gone. "not on all models" is all it says, but it's happy to discuss the feature and how convenient it is, even though it's missing. I guess maybe non-AMGs have it, I don't know. This makes it much more difficult for passengers to enter the back seat from that side. What's now in place of that button - the control to adjust the rear headrests up or down, which is a feature i NEVER use. They are always kept in the down position. The rear seats are large enough and deep enough those would rarely ever need to be raised. Dumb, dumb, dumb. And again, no warning at all this would vanish.

3) Surround view camera button - gone (or at least inconveniently altered). 2017 has a simple button, press it anytime pretty much and you could see all around the vehicle. Simple and quick, and very effective for when you are pulling forward into spaces, as the camera only comes on when you go in reverse, so you have to turn it on at other times. Now the button is the parking assist feature, so pressing it engages the self (parallel) parking function, which is not what I need. However, from that, you can use swipe controls to later engage the cameras. While you can still access it, it requires more steps, and distracts you longer from operating the vehicle, and then it offers you countless views, when all you need is the basic view, so you have to toggle down to get what you want. So it takes longer to park now using the cameras....and BTW, you need these given how low the front of the car is.

Just be warned if you are ordering this car that you will be losing features, I was not warned and seriously I may have just opted for other models. Even the dealer had no idea why the features were missing. Also, the folding mirrors would not fold when locking the vehicle, even though the feature was turned on. To get it to work, required using the manual button to retract the mirrors, then opening and shutting, then using the button to extend the mirrors....then after that they would close automatically once locking the doors. Hard to say what other issues I may run into.

Other than this, the car drives better than the 2017 model and does have an improved, smoother transmission. But geez, why on earth these basic features were excluded form the high end of the model line is just an insult frankly.

 

I felt the same pain on my19, the most frequent one I used was the passenger seat control!

 

I posted this yesterday in response someone's question about it. Pretty much sums up what they did, and the poor logic behind it.

Would be great if AMG could issue a software update that would re-purpose the buttons... I'm almost certain they are software controlled, to where their function could be changed via programming and maybe even replacement button tops could be installed. Long shot I know, but might be worth pestering AMG about it.

https://mbworld.org/forums/s-class-c...ml#post7897478

 

Congrats on the car. I'm assuming the 360 camera and self-parking works similar or the same as in my '19 C63S Coupe. They greatly enhanced the self-parking, so the button has now two functions. If you press it once, it activates self-parking, but if you press it again it switches to the 360 camera and if you press it again it turns the 360 camera off. It does take two button presses, but it's still pretty convenient. You can also set the camera as one of your favorites in the multimedia system. Then you can press the favorite button on the steering wheel and select the camera. Takes two clicks, but can be done directly from the steering wheel. I have the camera set as the first favorite in my list so I don't have to swipe left to find it.

I can't really comment on the other ones, but the seat belt extender button is still there in my C63S Coupe, so that seems a bit silly that they removed it from the S63.

 

Sorry I was wrong on pushing the park button twice. I must have misremembered something. I've been using the favorites to activate the camera. It comes on with the front camera that way and then you can swipe for the other views.

 

Indeed a real pity that they removed these things, only on the AMG models, since there are more Individual / Drive Dynamic buttons are located on the center console (like exhaust, dampers, etc), so they moved some buttons to the door panel.

 

In 'insult'? Really? You're insulted??

 

I believe these were removed at the time of the refresh. I have a 2018 S63 coupe and I don't have these either. My 2015 had them.

 

it was removed from 2018 on!

 

He feels insulted for paying a lot of money for "job not being done properly", which I'm sure we all have to agree on, could be a feature not well thought through, non-ergonomic UX, low build quality or a badly implement basic functional element.

 

Totally agree!!
It's a $200K Coupe!

 

There has to be a correct way to talk about issues and addressing them.

And it's not that one:

 

Some poor decisions made by AMG at time of refresh regarding what buttons stay and what buttons go, but extremely minor issues when considering the overall greatness of the refreshed car. Yes it is expensive at 200k but a bargain compared to a new Bentley CGT. And all luxury cars priced like these depreciate similarly.

Opening and closing the driver door substitutes for the seatbelt button. Or just twist your torso and grab it.
Doubt anyone ever used memory #3, no big loss there.
Camera now accessed via favorites, just takes longer to get it it.
Passenger seat control button I will miss.

Just frustrating that these were 'unforced errors' in that they could have left everything as is and just used touch sensitive buttons between the 12.3" screens to replace the physical buttons lost with the single glass panel, or moved the rarely used rear sunshade and rear headrest drop into COMAND.

 

The passenger control button is my pain, I use it almost every time somebody sits next to me.
The Bentley GT has an option from the command to adjust the passenger seat to be even with the driver seat.
Who would ever use the rear headrest?

 

Particularly since it only lowers it if manually raised!

I will be asking the tech/software guy at my dealer if it would be possible to repurpose the button. Despite being physical buttons, highly likely their functions are actuated via software.

 

Interesting!
Drove 2019 Mercedes E300 as a rental and it has passenger seat button!
Go figure :-)

 

Yeah its silly, I believe the passenger seat button is only removed for the AMGs, the S560 coupe still has it... I Don't know why they would remove that feature for the top model?!?

 

Just poor decision making when rearranging buttons, the AMG has some extra controls on the console so some that are there in the S560 had to go elsewhere. Instead of prioritizing ones actual owners might use, they sacrificed them (i.e. passenger seat control, seat belt extender, surround camera) to make room for ones unlikely to be used (rear headrest drop and rear sun shade) as well as driver seat mem#3. Those rarely used functions could easily have been migrated into COMAND and no one would have cared, which would also have been cheaper/easier for Mercedes to since the door buttons on the S560 & S63 would remain the same. They literally made a change that adversely affected ergonomics, removed features, and added some complexity for their top model!

The buttons are no doubt soft controls so I still think someone who knows M-B programming could potentially repurpose them... if so, since they are present on the S560, might even be possible to get the correct button keys for them. Somewhere in there is probably settings like:

Door Button 3:

• Passenger seat control (S560)
• Rear headrest lower (S63)

Door Button 7:

• Driver memory #3 (S560)
• Rear sunshade (S63)

Dash Button DA3:

• Nightvision (S560)
• Park sensors (S63)

Dash Button DA4:

• Sunshade (S560)
• Nightvision (S63)

Dash button DA5:

• Seatbelt extender (S560)
• HUD (S63)

 

Please have a look at this video



seems to be a 2020 model in Europe.
seat belt extender seems active
so may be the passenger seat too!

are US models diferent from Europe configuration ?

 

I think USA/EU models are the same (well except for the UK right hand drive / RWD cars of course)

Seat belt extender still works, but the button that activates it was repurposed. Without the button you would have to open then close the door to get it to extend from the retracted state. Same goes with the passenger seat control, the button to activate it was repurposed so no way to instruct the car to apply the driver seat button functions to the passenger side.