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If I am not mistaken what is under the hood is merely a convenient point which connects to the 12V battery in the back. For jumping from AAA and the like. I think it is really just a connection point convenient to get at - but the starter battery itself is in the trunk. This is in the trunk under the partition.
Out of the blue last week my salesman called from the local dealership to tell me that my new car had arrived and was going into PDI. This is the car I ordered last January I believe. It was raining (yes it does in Southern California upon occasion) and we figured that the car would really not be out of PDI, clean and ready until the following week meaning this week. So I made an appointment for Tuesday to go down and look at the car. Gorgeous. Incidentally they had an AMG SL55 on the showroom floor and there may have been some 63s somewhere although I'm not sure. The 55s are marked up with an ADM of $25,000 and the 63s are marked up with an ADM of $50,000.
The salesman, who works in the fleet and leasing department, said that as soon as they put that car out front ready for me to come and look at, a number of the other salesman saw it and approached him and said they each had other people who wanted a car like this and they would easily pay $50,000 over because the cars are so popular and in such limited supply. A number of the salesman had a little black book of regular customers of theirs who would happily give them an extra $50,000 if one came in the way they liked it. Like it or not - it is the way of the world. My salesman also said that they have about 30 cars that are special ordered like mine was in Germany waiting to get built and shipped. He had no idea how mine had slipped through. At any rate, their dealership before Covid regularly had 1,300 to 1,400 new cars in stock. Now they have about 700 or so.
We came to a deal and I returned the next day, this Wednesday to pick up the car and finalize the paperwork. So I drove the car home late Wednesday afternoon and it sat in the garage as I was busy with other things. The short drive home from the dealership was uneventful as I was just trying to keep the car moving along safely on the freeway while I acclimatized myself to a very different environment. At some point the next afternoon I opened the driver's side door and noticed this message on the dashboard.
Delightful. At the same time on the Mercedes remote app I was getting the following message
Need I say that this was disconcerting? The same fault somewhere in the system sends a message to the dashboard and another to the linked Mercedes phone application. So is the fault merely a gremlin?- or is it representing an actual critical state of the 12V starter battery? I called the salesman and he sent somebody out to pick up my car Thursday night. It sat at the dealership all day yesterday and because they are so backed up with service no one was able to look at it. But I did speak to the service advisor and he said they would really need a couple of days to thoroughly take everything apart and to examine every detail of the system. And certainly I know there are many other cars there scheduled with appointments ahead of me. This I understand. But I did ask him to stick it on the charger anyway I decided to pick the car up last night or it would've been sitting at the dealership Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then Monday and probably Tuesday of next week. So since the car started up and drove fine I decided the best thing was for me to keep it this weekend and then arrange a time this coming week when they have an open spot and can take it apart diagnostically. No I do not have a trickle charger and this car does not come with one. The last one I had from my GTS or my GTC, I forget which, I sold on eBay. I do have a regular full-size charger that can charge at many different amperages. Popping the hood reveals a place to attach a charger - I think for jumpstarting but it's only a remote link I believe to the actual 12 V battery which sits in the trunk.
I could attach my regular big boy battery charger to this battery but I fear doing something wrong and causing thousands of dollars of car computer damage. Smoke spewing forth while I realize I reversed the clamps, touched the negative not to a grounded body part but rather to my big toe or some other such idiocy. Although in the old days none of us ever thought twice about attaching a charger onto a car battery. And no, there is nothing in the owners manual about this other than showing the emergency port under the hood.
I at least drove the car up the hill and took a couple of quick not very good photos. But at least it is something. Oh and by the way as is always the case at least in California, when a car comes out at the dealership the tires are way overinflated. They inflate them to the numbers on the driver's side door jamb rather than the ones on the inside of the fuel door. The rear tires were inflated to 48 psi and the fronts to 45 psi. I changed them to 33 psi in the rear and 32 in the front.
California John - did you get that message to go away? I have the same error with my 22 SL63 and even have it after MB replaced the battery and did some “software updates.”
California John - did you get that message to go away? I have the same error with my 22 SL63 and even have it after MB replaced the battery and did some “software updates.”
Every week or two, the message will appear. Driving the car normally and locking it after each use certainly seems to ameliorate the issue, and I think in itself would be sufficient to make it so that the messages would not appear again.The dealership has been in touch with the Germany back-and-forth about this issue, and Germany keeps giving suggestions and ideas to try and figure it out but so far there hasn't been a solution. Right now I am in India and the car is locked in my garage at home and I won't be back for another three weeks or so. We will see what happens when I get home. Will there be any messages. Certainly the problem emerges much more easily when the car is left unlocked like after the recent time when I had the car detailed and the car was unlocked and open and being worked on for an hour and a half. Popped those messages right back up. The most recent try with the dealership was to have me cancel my Mercedes me login connection/association with the car. Actually, Germany did it on their side. And then I went to the dealership and did a new connection/account with Mercedes me. Somehow Germany was thinking that it had something to do with the Mercedes me application. But we found out that was not the case because even after doing that, I got error messages after the car was detailed. My dealership never replaced the battery because the battery would test fine with their testing software. And now we see that that wouldn't have helped....at least not in your case.
Driving regularly has nothing to do with the Critical battery issue. I have driven my SL63 virtually every day and have 5400 miles in 3 months. The Critical warning comes on every week when my detailer hand washes the car at my house. The doors may be open 15 minutes or less while he does the interior touch up and the Critical comes on every time. It even would not allow remote functions last time. I'm thinking about asking whether I can get an Optima or some premium battery in there, but if it is a software issue of being too sensitive then that won't help either.
Driving regularly has nothing to do with the Critical battery issue. I have driven my SL63 virtually every day and have 5400 miles in 3 months. The Critical warning comes on every week when my detailer hand washes the car at my house. The doors may be open 15 minutes or less while he does the interior touch up and the Critical comes on every time. It even would not allow remote functions last time. I'm thinking about asking whether I can get an Optima or some premium battery in there, but if it is a software issue of being too sensitive then that won't help either.
I'm having the same issue. I can lock the car and not drive it for a week and may get the message but the biggest concern was that when the battery seems low I can get several errors pop up when I start the car which seem to go away when i let it run for a few minutes and then restart the car. Disconcerting. Right now the detailer is finishing my PPL/ceramic coating and tinting and with them leaving the car unlocked, etc I've been getting critical battery messages several times a day.
Every week or two, the message will appear. Driving the car normally and locking it after each use certainly seems to ameliorate the issue, and I think in itself would be sufficient to make it so that the messages would not appear again.The dealership has been in touch with the Germany back-and-forth about this issue, and Germany keeps giving suggestions and ideas to try and figure it out but so far there hasn't been a solution. Right now I am in India and the car is locked in my garage at home and I won't be back for another three weeks or so. We will see what happens when I get home. Will there be any messages. Certainly the problem emerges much more easily when the car is left unlocked like after the recent time when I had the car detailed and the car was unlocked and open and being worked on for an hour and a half. Popped those messages right back up. The most recent try with the dealership was to have me cancel my Mercedes me login connection/association with the car. Actually, Germany did it on their side. And then I went to the dealership and did a new connection/account with Mercedes me. Somehow Germany was thinking that it had something to do with the Mercedes me application. But we found out that was not the case because even after doing that, I got error messages after the car was detailed. My dealership never replaced the battery because the battery would test fine with their testing software. And now we see that that wouldn't have helped....at least not in your case.
Thanks for sharing your experience - I was hoping you had found the magic solution! The dealer told me my battery tested fine, too, but I insisted, hoping that would save me future trips back to the dealership, and to rule that out as a possible cause. I had the same issue with my E63s, and with that car it actually was a faulty battery.
I drive around 50 miles roundtrip a few times a week, and lock the car on both ends of the trip, and the messages still come up consistently. It started with the warning about 12v battery, and now has escalated to the red message saying, "Stop vehicle - see owner's manual." With that message, none of the niceties of the car, like the airscarf, mood lighting, remote start, etc., will work.
I was told the same thing, that the key is very sensitive and to keep it away from the car when parked, but so far nothing seems to be helping the situation.
It seems a typical MB "bug"? Had it several times on my pre facelift S63 (A217), and now 2 times on my current S63 (A217 facelift), also it happened within 2 hours after a long trip, so would be strange that the battery would be really critical. Up till now it always was "false alarm" and according to the dealer a known bug.
Does anybody know if getting a different battery, like Optima, would help? Or, is the problem in the software so a battery change would not help?
I looked in Optima's site and didn't find anything for our car. Of course we don't know if a new battery or type of battery would help with this. Also @twin250s said, California John - did you get that message to go away? I have the same error with my 22 SL63 and even have it after MB replaced the battery and did some “software updates.”
Picked up my AMG SL63 in December, its been in the shop 3 times already. It appears these cars were rushed to market during the pandemic and are not the quality I expected from AMG. So far the convertible top mechanism had to be removed and re-build, there was a kink in a hose that supplied airflow causing erratic acceleration, and now it is back in the shop for a complete software re-boot as every warning light came on (all at once), including some odd ones such as the parking brake was on (it wasn't) and that the car was in neutral and would roll (though it was safely in Park). It is no wonder these cars are stacked up at dealers and not selling, such a shame, it is such a beautiful car and so much fun to drive...but just not worth the headaches.
Last edited by Fee366; 06-17-2023 at 11:05 AM.
Reason: typo
have had mine in the dealer 4 times and over 50 days.
Long list of items replaced including battery, ecu, heater core cover was not secured, all of the interior has been reinstalled and about half of it replaced, could go on.
Good luck.
Last edited by Ben M Johnson; 06-18-2023 at 04:09 AM.
Congratulations! Beautiful car. Sorry you're having issues. I'm 3 weeks into my SL63, about 500 miles. No issues with the battery so far. But I did experience one glitch the first week in - the top would not close. I used the slider on the control panel and the hard button, and the warning kept telling me to keep my finger on the slider or button. I was, at least I thought so. I turned the car off and re-started it and the top worked fine. It was possibly operator error, possibly a glitch, but it has not happened again. Otherwise, no issues with the car. Some new owners have complained of road noise or wind noise with the top up at 60 mph but I have not experienced that. It's a beautiful car and I get tons of comments and compliments on it wherever I go.
This is an ongoing issue. The top can get stuck all together in the down position. They did an update to try and fix it, but it keeps coming back. I’ve had it back to the dealership to fix 3 or 4 times now. Every time they push an update to the car the top gets stuck again.
@California John or Anyone,
I really like the 2022 SL63 BUT what led me to this Forum was searching through MB SL63 Carfax reports. I noticed a trend of Computer reprograming in the new SL models. I attached a couple pics one such that had its computer reprogramed 3 times in around 3k miles! I have read through this thread a couple times. So bottom line... is this car worth it? Are these problems actually fixed? Should I just go with another brand? Please help!
Last edited by Wolfman6276; 05-08-2024 at 04:50 PM.
Driving the car is amazing. They have worked out most of the software issues. There are only minor issues that pop up with updates. If I were you, I would buy a 2023 or a 2024.
Overall, despite all the software headaches initially, I look forward to driving the car every time I get in it. It’s actually a daily driver for me.
It's hard to know if the car is "worth it" without knowing other variables - price, condition, etc - and prices of used models is something I know nothing of.....But if you are worried about the computers (and there are really many) being reprogrammed - that is a GOOD thing as it means that they have been updating them. There were numerous "bugs" in the car's software - but with the very latest updates you should be OK from that point of view. It isn't like they kept reinstalling the same software and the computer(s) kept losing the programming. For better or worse a speciality car such as this has computer programming from dozens of sources and it doesn't always go together properly - even though it should. I am very happy with mine.
09-23-2022, 12:31 AM
Should I?????
