smess

After reading the Motor Trend article on the 63 claiming to be a 4.6 0-62mph I was shocked to see the Benz website claim 4.2.

I actuall bought a SL63 yesterday and ran it against my E63 which is a 4.3 car and believe me the 4.2 that Mercedes is claiming is on the money.

Out of three runs the SL beat the E slightly and one run the Sl got a bad start but hung at the E's rear doors.

Overall I am very impressed with the Sl63, I have owned an SL55 and a SL600 and several older SL's.

juicee63

So you have an E63 an CL 63 and now an SL 63?

smess

actually I sold the CL63 to my brother I guess I need to update my profile.

EXECMALIBU

I was disappointed in the SL63 and doubt that it is as fast as either my sl55 or Sl65... Maybe it is that the sl65 has so much trouble hooking up that with race start you have a similar 0-60 times...

juicee63

So what do you think? Seems we have alot of negative comments on the sl63?

I thought it would be a great improvement over the previous model.

I will not go near a dealer for fear I make a huge mistake

FloridaE55

Where did you get the 4.2 secs. from? the US-website still shows the 0-60 time as TBD and a 0-62 time of 4.6 indicates a 4.4 time for 0-60. In addition to that, the 2009 SL-brochure shows 4.4 as well.

4.2 was (and I suppose, is) the claimed time for the SL65.

juicee63

Yeah , the 65 is not a car you can compare a 63 to. I would imagine the SL 63 would out perform the 65 on many road tests just not straight line speed.

The 55 vs 63 debate lives on but seems the SL version has many improvements over the E63 and CLS 63.

smess

http://www.mbusa.com/vehicle-showroom.do

FloridaE55

Obviously an error..
According to that, the SL63 features a 6.0L V12-engine..

They mixed up the numbers. Here's the correct info (page 9 of 12):

http://www.mbusa.com/media/downloads...re/slclass.pdf

Tuskir

I find it hilarious that all of you are arguing about what SL63's 0-60 time is. It could vary from run to run depending on traction and tires, all of these 55's, 65's, 600's and 63's have the same 0-60 somewhere in the low 4-second range depending on launch. 0-60 says absolutely nothing about performance. A lotus elise with 190hp, an SLK55 AMG with 360hp, and an SL65 with 605hp can all do 0-60 in 4.2 seconds, does that mean a lotus elise or SLK55 AMG are as fast as SL65? No, it simply means that all these cars can launch equally quick. How much does 0-60 really tell you when pretty much all modern high-performance cars do it in around 4 seconds? No much at all. You need to look beyond 60mph to see a car's true potential.

NY_SG

Benz won't put out the SL 63 to be faster than SL65 are you crazy.

It be just plain stupid.

DNJ

0-100mph?

alroumi

I agree with you 100%.

Ted Baldwin

Very true........but.
This is like the gas tax holiday. Very good idea in theory but in practice, not useful since none of the candidates proposing will actually be in office this summer to sign it into law. Only George Bush can, and he hasn't said anything about it.

......When buying one of these cars, you are not allowed to test drive them. You buy them sight unseen. You rely solely on second hand information which are all subjective. The only objective info car makers release are stuff like 0-60 time, weight, gas mileage. The 0-60 time I agree is imperfect. What is the buyer to do? If you demand an SL63 for a test drive, your local dealer will chase you out of the building unless you agree to buy them of them from him/her. If your argument is that car manufacturesrs should release more objective data for performance cars, I agree with you totally. If you argument is that folks should ignore the little objective performance data there is, then I don't agree. So your point is diluted by the fact that MB does not have, lap times, braking distance, skidpad, lane change mph etc on their website. Instead they have.........yep, 0-60 time.

Ted

EXECMALIBU

Obviously 0-60 is the standard and is used by virtually every auto maufacturer includung MB.

0-60 (0-100 kph for Europe) has for the past 70+years been the main benchmark for judging how fast a car or motorcyle accelerates.

This is the easiest test to do because it can be done just about anywhere( only a short strech of straight road and a watch) and can be done by anyone. But this is just one of many performance tests (0-100, 100-0 ,skid path, salom, road course, drag strip etc).

Obviously my 71 Cuda would be faster then my 72 911S at the drag strip but not at Willow Spings. But most people think of the Cuda as the faster of the two cars because it accelates faster to 60 after 80 the Porsche starts pulling harder ( comes on the Cams)and catches and passes the Cuda.

Tuskir

Great points Ted. I would propose switching from 0-60 to 1/4 mile time and trap speeds as a new performance benchmark. As some mentioned, 0-60 has been the benchmark for some 70 years, however, it has outgrown its usefulness in performance cars in the past 5 years or so. As cars grow more powerful, traction becomes the limiting factor, not power.

A front-engined, RWD car on street tires is traction limited to a low 4-second range regardless of whether it has a million hp or 400hp. The only way it is possible for a road car on street tires to achieve a sub 4-second 0-60 is if its either AWD or mid/rear engined layout. For instance, look at the "Speed Kings" article from R&T (http://www.roadandtrack.com/assets/d...0_Data.pdf.pdf) As you can see, a 1000hp twin-turbo Viper achieved a 0-60 in 4.3 seconds. Without knowing anything else, one would conclude that a 1000hp Viper is as fast as 360hp SLK55 AMG or 190hp Lotus Elise (which also achieve 0-60 in 4.3 seconds in C&D tests) and that 810hp extra don't give you additional performance .

On the other hand, if you look at 1/4 mile times, you will see that the twin-turbo Viper does 11.7 @ 146mph, while SLK55 only manages 12.8 @ 110mph. Here you can clearly that although Viper and SLK55 have identical 0-60's, the Viper is a whopping 36mph faster through the 1/4 mile. So again, my proposal for car manufacturers is to switch to 1/4 mile as an acceleration benchmark. It would be an easy switch IMO, since many of them do report 1/4 mile times already.

ferraribuysell

0-60 is fun, Ive seen 3.3-3.7 for my Z06 in the magazine. I couldnt hook up that power to the road to even get close to these numbers. Im probably hitting 60 in the low 4's in first gear but it want to spin the tires in the first 3 gears. I love the SL's I have an SL500 and want a SL55 or better. SL63 isnt doing 60 in 4.2 sec.

FloridaE55

I totally agree on your input, but as the title of this thread already indicates, this is NOT about any real numbers or capabilities of the car itself, it's only about the number MB is CLAIMING.

FloridaE55

THAT'S the point and why I doubted the CLAIMED 4.2 secs.

FloridaE55

I toally agree on that! I had this discussion a few weeks ago in a different thread - Boy, was I bashed by the SL65-owners for saying EXACTLY what you did..

Addicted2Speed

Mercedes claims different 0-60 times for various models based on how high in the AMG food chain they are. They can't say with a straight face that the cheap SLK55 "is as fast as" $180,000 SL65. Most of their consumers don't know much about performance at all and look at 0-60 as a determination of how fast a car is. But the truth is that every AMG from SLK55 to SL65 does 0-60 in the low 4-second range. Line up them up a stoplight, and whoever gets a better launch wins to 60. Having power and actually putting it down are totally different things.

SL65 owners can say what they want, but unless they put some drag radials on their car, their 65 is no faster than any other AMG to 60. SL63 is actually likely to be faster in the real world than SL65 to 60 because it will be able to put the power down more effectively. When the SL65 does hook up (somewhere in 3rd gear probably lol!), 63's and 55's are pretty much toast

Murtaza

Wow, crappy time for a 1000hp car, sure thats not a typo and it's 9.7?

Tuskir

The time is actually amazing, look at the 146mph trap speed (Bugatti Veyron only managed 137mph trap speed). For the record, SL55 AMG only traps in the 112-114mph range and SL65 AMG around 120mph. If you want a twin-turbo Viper to run 9's, it will need drag radials.

juicee63

How can the time be amazing "looking at the trap speed"

The trap speed is amazing but the ET not so good for 1000hp.

Ferri

It would be, if the SL 65 wasn't capable of doing 0-60 in 3.8 seconds