jjprusk

I recently purchased an SL550 and may eventually upgrade to an SL55. I was wondering if I could get a comparison from anyone who has driven both on the difference in the brakes between the two. While I really like the SL550, the one item that could use work is the brakes and in particular the brake feel. The pedal is way too loing and doesn't have a good firm feel to it. It looks like the AMG has fairly different brakes and I was wondering if there is any difference in the feel.

david_101

have you driven either a 55 or 65?

the brakes on my 65 often mislead me. while they ALWAYS stop the car, it's sometimes difficult to judge the correlation between pressure on the pedal and the resulting stop. so, i find myself applying more or less pressure near the end ot the stop until actually stopping. occasionally, i slalom the car a bit to scrub speed at the very end until terminus. it just takes some getting used to.

how's the 550's acceleration? did you get the sport package?

jjprusk

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it has the AMG sport package and the Premium II package. While I really like the car, the brakes are a big dissapointment. I'm used to stiff, firm brakes in myh former cars (911, 911turbo, M3, M5...) the brakes in the SL550 are very difficult to read and to operate smoothly. I was hoping that the AMG versions (with different brakes) would fix the problem. I wonder if some of the aftermarket brakes would affect the feel of the brakes?

I'm still brearking in the car, so I don't have too much feedback on the power yet. I think 7 speeds are not necessarily a good thing - too many gears for around town. They're trying to compensate for less low end torque (my M5 had the same setup), but around town its not a positive to have to deal with the additional couple of gears.

CASL55

First read this document, especially pages 23, 24, and 25.

http://www.mercedestechstore.com/pdf...2003-05-04.pdf

Note that there is no pedal pressure change depending on what is happening with the brakes themselves. There are three modes that provide different amounts of pedal resistance depending on how far the pedal is depressed, starting with a spring and some hydralics, going on to a heavier spring, and ending up with a rubber stop.

The sensotronic system is used in both SLs. Neither car will privide you with the pedal feedback that you enjoyed in your Porsches, where you could feel with your foot when the pad contacted the rotor, and could get an idea of the pressure on the rotor from the pedal force. The sensotronic system is designed specifically to remove direct control of the pad/rotor contact force from the driver, and allow the electronics to control that force independently for each wheel. Haptic feedback from the pedal is a casualty.

After two years of driving my SL55, I've gotten so used to the system that it doesn't bother me...most of the time.

Jim

MBTECH2003

EVEN the SLR employs this exact system and does not have the brake feel you desire.

jjprusk

Thanks for the info. - the presentation was quite interesting. I can see where this technology applies to luxury vehicles (which is one-half of the SL). However, this doesn't work very well for sports cars (the other half of the SL). You would think they would change this on an AMG version, since its more clearly targeted at the sports car market. The brakes will stop the car, but the feedback is very poor and doesn't allow for proper trailing off the brakes - a major function when driving on track or in a true "sports car" mode.

IngenereAMG

I think that it is a matter of adapting your driving style to the vehicle. I drive my Indycar differently than the F40, and the F40 differently than the 348........and the M3 differently than the SL55. The pedal 'feels' different, but you have to get a 'feel' for how it works and feels. It honestly took me about 5 minuted to figure it out...........and now I find the SL is as good (if not better) a canyon carver or track car as the M3 or 348.

DiamondKomp

I think I read that MB is ditching their senso-brakes in all models going forward because people hate them.

IngenereAMG

Most people can't drive either......let's hope that they don't ditch the automobile in general.

Wolfman

I agree with IngenereAMG that the brakes are different, but easy to get used to. Some people may not like them, but this is partially due to wrong customer expectations.

First off, Mercedes has no intentions to build a kind of sportscar that delivers a similar driving experience to a Porsche or Ferrari. Not because they can't but because neither MB nor their main customer base really has an interest in it.
AMG's are spec'd to deliver what many of their customers (many of which are European, not American) want; a highly competent and somewhat forgiving "point-and-shoot" high performance car that allows the typical Mercedes driver to easily keep up or outpace their sporty competitors. Not with highly refined and involved driving skills, but with barebone power.
And this is really not such a bad concept because there are more worse than good drivers out there, including many Porsche or Ferrari owners that are easily overwhelmed by their cars.

Regarding the comment that MB will ditch the SBC brakes because people hate them is simply wrong.
MB thinks that their sensotronic brakes are superior to standard mechanical brakes in everyday traffic conditions and they are. They are planning to slowly discontinue them but primarily due to high costs and the fact that an updated mechanical brake design has been developed to deliver the same features at a lower cost. Brake feel has simply not been a priority.

Wolfman