Good Morning
I’m about to buy an SL55 Tribute edition - until today I never had such a sporty car other than a SLK200 kompressor in 2004.
I’m a bit worried about the daily use - I would like to use the car as a “normal” car, for example going every weekend up to the mountains with snow in winter. The 4m+ with winter tires will help - But, isn’t the car too low?
I’m also a bit worried in respect to speed bumps, ramp in parking areas… can you please provide some tips?
many thanks in advance

 

Zero concerns and I haven’t bottomed out once. Yes, I’m careful, but I try to be careful with all my cars. The SL isn’t that low and with the nose-lift, that gives even less reason to be concerned. I use the nose-lift in 2 spots; never once had a problem with a speed bump - Good luck! KH

 

Car can definitely be used as a daily driver. I have never had an issue with speed bumps or ramps in my 2023 SL55. And I don't have the front lift option.

 

I've only had mine for a couple weeks but am certain you can daily this. Drove it through snow and rain on the PS4s and it handled it no problem. Had an RS5 before this that had a winter setup and I am certain with those winter tires on the SL the thing will outperform my truck in the snow.

I don't have the lift system in mine either but I haven't come across any bumps yet that pose any issue.

 

So I'm gonna deviate from the posters above. I've lived with and driven performance cars for many years. An AMG can absolutely be used as a daily. They are designed to be a sports/performance car that you can drive daily, but they are still performance cars and not a normal commuter car. Some concessions are to be understood. First off, an AMG has higher NVH than a normal car. Suspension is firmer, tire sidewalls are shorter and wheels are bigger. With that you have to exercise certain caution driving around. You do not want to just drive through potholes for example, which in the winter can be a problem as you don't know what's hiding under the snow. That can end badly for the wheels and tires. Keep in mind there's no spare, just a can of goo and a compressor to seal a smallish puncture in an emergency.

You also wanna slow down over speed bumps much more than you would in a normal car. You may also find that the transmission can be temperamental at slow speeds, in city traffic and such. As opposed to a normal car that has a torque converter, this transmission has a wet clutch and that can at times be jerky if you are not conscious about your throttle inputs. City, stop & go and slow traffic in general isn't really the forte of a 55 and 63. These cars are built and tuned for the open roads and driving fast. If you've never owned a performance car, I'd suggest you spend some time with one first to see if you can live with it.

I love AMGs and similar cars, but AMGs are on the rougher side. Like one poster above, I had an Audi RS5 before. Audis are more daily driving friendly. They are softer and less hardcore than AMGs. Personally I don't daily drive in general. I work from home and live in a highly walkable neighborhood, so no commuting and most of my errands I can do on foot. I tend to use my wife's normal car for errands around town that require a car. Just less thinking involved. I don't have to worry about potholes and it has a torque converter automatic so I don't have to think much about my throttle inputs. That's great if I just need to get somewhere. Don't get me wrong. I love the transmission in the AMG. I come from driving manual transmissions for over 20 years, and I find it engaging and mostly drive it in manual mode. Wouldn't want a torque converter in that kind of car, but it's for when I wanna actually drive and not just do a mundane errand. The AMG is a great long distance cruiser, though. A true grand tourer. Love doing road trips in it on nice roads. I did European Delivery and travelled through Europe for 2 months with it. Great on the German Autobahn, but much like here, it felt a bit like an elephant in the porcelain store around town. I do have the full Driver Assistance package, though, so on the rare occasions I find myself in stop&go traffic, I just engage DISTRONIC and Active Steering and let the car deal with it. DISTORNIC does a pretty good job driving smoothly in slow traffic.

Let me conclude with this. The SL is tuned somewhat softer than my C63, so what I said slightly varies between the different models, but at the end of the day, you are driving a performance car and not a Toyota Camry. BTW, the SL 55 also has two suspension options. The upgraded suspension adds active roll stabilization instead of fixed sway bars. That improves comfort on straight lines as well, as the wheels can move more independently over bumps than with a somewhat stiff sway bar. The active roll stabilization kinda gives the best of both worlds. Comfort in a straight line and flat cornering when driving spirited.

 

Thank you for the detailed feedback!!

 

My SL55 is my daily driver, about 20-25 miles per day. It’s a great car as a daily driver. My only real shock was the tires wearing out much faster than any other car I’ve owned. Got 11k out of the front tires, the rears are fine. I was expecting to get at least 20k miles since it’s just a commuter car I drive fairly easily.

Service A was $129 with a coupon at the dealership. Service B was going to be $1300 but I just added on the brake fluid change to the Service A coupon and it was $400 total. No idea where they get the nerve to charge an extra $900, only thing I didn’t do was the cabin filters, but that would have been like another $150 or so.

So it can be a reasonably priced daily driver, just factor in the tires every 10k miles (at least the fronts) or even less as some posters reported only getting 6k miles out of them.

 

The weight doesn't help the tire wear, glad you are enjoying it. Do share pictures

 

I have read through my owners manual, and I haven’t seen where there is a manual nose lift option. It might have been incorporated into an automatic function in ‘22 or before. I used mine as a daily driver, but I have a spare car for inclement weather. I don’t want any water and or road grime getting under the underside of the car. So, unless I get caught in a sudden rainstorm, only dry roads for me. I also dread any depth of puddle, because any of these more modern cars with a lot of control modules HATE getting water on them. In another thread, talking about this issue, and cars that are in flood zones, if water gets to the bottom door sill, either standing water, or thrown up under the underside by driving through maybe 1 foot of water, these cars begin to develop serious electrical issues.

 

If you have the Performance Trim Option then you have the Front-Axle lift system. You can use it optionally to raise the front end on precarious entry angles or other situations when the front end might rub or get damaged, Plus when you use it you'll be asked if you want it to lift at this location every time...so the system will know that whenever you get to this particular place it will lift automatically. I think the lift is an inch or two - I forget the numbers.

 

Thanks California John! I actually had my owners manual open to page 230, flipped back to page 218, and voila, sure enough, there it was, just like you posted. I don’t know how I read that page, but the information there didn’t register. I must have been daydreaming of riding the freeways of California!