fastlaw

i bought a 2007 E63 about 6 weeks ago. having looked at about all the reviews on this car, as well as comparisons with e55's i felt as though online info wasnt really capturing my impression of the car.
yes, this is my first post here. however, you can see that ive been a member of 6speed and have lots of posts re my 2007 997tt.

first off, it does not have shocking or extra impressive acceleration. period. i dont care what reviewers say, it doesnt. the lack of sufficient torque is a major drawback of this car. believe me, i've tried every type of launch and know very well the pattern of acceleration in this car. i see posts by folks that drag this car and apparently spend lots of money to only pick up 50whp. i imagine that those posts cause a large number of people who dont have the car to assume that the car is something that it isnt. It isnt a fast sports car and 50 whp isnt likely to make a huge difference. dont get me wrong, i'de take 50 extra hp, i just dont think it will make all that much difference and given the current excessive costs, i dont think those mods are worth it. in fact, given the limitations of the tranny, i dont know if its possible to transorm the car into something special without also finding a way around the tranny limitations.

now, while the e63 is no sports car, i see the speed of the car as well above normal for a sedan! no question about that. given its size and weight, its amoung the fastest sedans. just, with all the posts that i read, it seems that some guys who should get a sports car will buy this car and invaribly be let down by the performance.

unlike my porsche which will rev to redline very, very fast, the merc seems to take forever for the engine to reach high rev. its like the engine is so large that it has to overcome a whole lot of inertia just to get wound up.

now, despite the above, my impression of the car is not totally negative. despite not living up to the hype, it still drives fairly nice. it feels extremely stable, safe and durable. the above average speed that it does have seems to fit more into a safety feature than a sports feature. it is fast enough to get you out of most bad situations requiring a little power.

due to the car being built like a tank and seemingly very safe, i think i will hold on to it until my young daughter is old enough to drive. i think that given a few more years of use, it would be a great hand me down first car.

the gas mileage sux. the huge engine really is thirsty. due to the wide rev range, and the gas required to reach high revs, aggresive driving will really suck down the gas in a hurry.

the engine sound is pretty good. ive heard all the rave reviews about the sound at higher revs or WOT. i agree with most of those, it sounds awesome. However, during most low rev driving, the engine sounds a little like an sewing machine. so, i have just a slight complaint with the grandmother sound of the engine at low rpm. i dont want a lound sound, but at least a little more tough sound at low rpm would be better.

the interior of the car is fantastic. i think some of the buttons and controls could be simplified, but they dont bother me much. the leather is really nice and the interior looks - expensive.

overall, i think this is a great grovery getter and wonderful short range family or business car. For those of you having the need for speed, this is not the car for you.

timeToy

Do you also own an M5 ? or maybe a Lotus ?

fastlaw

uh, no. are you implying that i am failing to compare the e63 to those specific vehicles? if that's your point, you are correct.

fastlaw

i expect that there will be some negative blowback from members of this site. you love your car, and i dont blame you. but i speak the truth, you know it deep down.

Boughtittwice

timeToy

No that was a smart *** comment leveraging a recurring meme from this board, implying that your "review" is all over the place.


So bottom line you are disappointed with the acceleration of the car compared to your Porsche 911 Turbo ? Make sense, as you put it yourself this is not a sport car and anyone that get an E63 with sport car expectations is going to be let down, maybe you should have test driven the car before buying it.

Also, the E63 is a lot of great things, but it is NOT a great first car for the student driver, Honda Fit is where it is at.

E63s do not sound like sewing machines at low RPM, at least mine doesn’t, maybe yours has an issue.

france2112

Your review is spot on. I test drove an E63 a few times and your review is exactly as I would have put it. The E55 was more of a muscle car with 996TT torque and acceleration due to the supercharger and more torque. A simple pulley, ecu upgrade and larger heat exchanger and the E55 really screamed for not a whole lot of money spent. That would have been the sedan for you. Porsche TT acceleration with sedan comfort. The 63 has the advantage of being more refined and consistent with its acceleration due to the normally aspirated engine and no worries about IAT pulling timing or shutting the supercharger down. You may have also liked the the 2006 S65. That car is a sleeper and has 610 horsepower and 738lbs/ft of torque not to mention they are cheap as hell now.

Larry

tbal

Test drive a cls55 or e55 and see what you think...

infantry

No torque? I am so confused. This is the reason I chose pikachu, i mean E63 over the M5. I tried to overtake someone in the M5 and noticed i downshifted 4 gears, whereas i can stay in 7th gear sometimes and still torque ***.

MB_Forever

I think the problem with your review is that you were expecting a 4300 lb luxury sedan to accelerate or even act like a tiny sports car and a 997TT at that. Almost none of the people who bought the E63 were expecting this car to accelerate like a 997TT. In fact, far from it; they all knew that it was a fast sedan, and as you put it, an incredibly fast grocery getter. Moreover, I believe that every single member on here with this car knew that the car would be very expensive (and very hard) to extract more power out of due to the naturally aspirated engine before they bought it. The general consensus was if you want to keep the car stock, buy an E63, and if you wanted to mod for more power, go with an E55.

If you compare the 2007 E63 (in stock form) to cars in its class (also in stock form) especially at the time of release, I think you'd agree that it would rank very good especially that 100% stock E63 have run 11.9 to 12.1 @ 118 to 119 mph at various tracks. I'm thinking of cars like E55, M5, S6, CST-V, etc... And yes I do agree that none of these cars accelerate like a 997TT but I'm also sure they were not designed to do so.... although I did reach 0-60 mph in 3.9 to 4.1 seconds multiple times back to back (the video is on youtube), which to me, is somewhat close in acceleration to many sport cars. I know you've tried multiple launch configurations but 3.9 seconds is very decent anyway you look at it.

On another note, if you want a NA luxury sedan that can hit 10s with few mods, the C63 would be a better choice. I know it is the same engine as the E63 and may not have the torque you're looking for, but the C63 is capable of hitting 11.1 @ 125 mph with long tubes, tune, and drag radials only. If you shed a few pounds (carbon fiber hood, trunk, light weight wheels), then 10s are definitely within reach. In fact, in the same day and at the same track, I think the C63 was out trapping and out ET'ing a highly modded E55 and a modded SL600 twin turbo with a LOT of torque.... and yes the transmission was able to handle it just fine

220S

The OP obviously bought the wrong car. The E63 has a NA motor. The 997TT has a FI motor. Have you compared the E63 to a NA 997.2? They are very similar in their power band characteristics.

Sell the E63 and get the E55. Or just wait for the upcoming 5.5TT motors.

For what you are clearly looking for in performance ("straight line giggle grunt") do some research and stop making mistakes. Just do your homework. Otherwise, it gets too costly.

btw, the E Klasse is an "executive saloon" car. Of course it's not a sports car. A sports car is is a "small, usually two seat automobile designed for high speed driving and maneuverability."

What do you actually want from a car? That's what you need to figure out before you buy.

EDIT: Mo beat me to it in his post above. Right on information as usual from him.

btw, here are three reviews from 2007 (and don't forget that's going on 4 years now) that talk about what the E63 is and what it was built for doing....

http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...mparison_tests

http://www.insideline.com/mercedes-b...z-e63-amg.html

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/200...cedes-e63-amg/

HeissRod

Agreed. I can't believe it's being contemplated that this would make a good first car.

220S

Yeah, that's either incredibly irresponsible or the OP is simply lying in order to make his disappointment more exaggerated. In other words, he's saying it's such a slow car that his daughter would be better off driving it.

HeissRod

Maybe he's only running on 4 cylinders.

220S

I'm sure his disappointment is perfectly legit. But he comes from a 997TT that's heavily modded and he didn't know what the E63 was really about, that's all.

It reminds me of a colleague who just bought a Leica M9 for $7k. And spent another $6k for two lenses. That's $16k for an extremely well built German digital camera with top optics. But now he's complaining about the performance. He's pissed that he can't do any macro closeup work and that the frame rate and buffer is too slow for him, etc.. Duh, it's a rangefinder camera not a blazing fast DSLR. It's designed for a completely different use. They guy just didn't do his homework. The Leica is exceptional for what its intended use is all about. He read reviews and looked at test results etc., but he never knew what the camera was really about. He bought the wrong tool. But now he's telling everybody how a Leica is so disappointing despite that it happens to be the best rangefinder camera available.

I guess I have little patience for that sort of ignorance. Why do people buy certain stuff and then complain about it? Surely they can do their own research and know what they're getting into from the very beginning. It's the OP's first post here and he never asked here before buying and he clearly didn't drive the car extensively before buying.

There's no excuse, imho. The OP bought the wrong car, and that's it. There's nothing wrong at all with the car itself, he just didn't make the correct purchase for what he wanted.

End of story.

220S

p.s., remember what EVO said when the E63 first appeared in Europe?

It's all pretty self-explanatory. The difference between FI and NA characteristics.....

"Peak power is produced at 6800rpm (the old supercharged V8’s 476bhp was achieved at 6100rpm), and the torque figure is both lower (507lb ft versus 516lb ft) and produced higher up the rev range (5200rpm versus just 2650rpm). Ultimately, the E63 is still a torque-fest, but the engine delivery is very different to the fearsome old supercharged V8.

In one sense it’s less exciting. The new engine simply can’t match the angry, instant torque of the outgoing one, and as a result the E63 feels slightly slower when you give the throttle a prod. The traction control is much less busy too, giving the impression that the engine isn’t such a struggle to contain. But the pay-off is much crisper and more accurate throttle response, a chassis that can exploit what’s on offer rather than simply try to stave-off the engine’s excesses, and a wonderful charge up to the 7200rpm red line."

fastlaw

guys, really. instead of admitting the truths in my review, the reviewer himself is attacked. that's an ad hominum argument.
im not a car newbie. im not a forum newbie either. i didnt buy the wrong car, not do enough research, nor was i expecting 997tt performance. geez.

several folks said i didnt do enough research on the car. although that is not correct, it does somewhat touch upon the reason for the post. in reading these threads on the car, people could easily be lead to believe that the car is something that it isnt. thus, the reason why i gave an honest review. btw, its not like the review was terrible. it is what it is. an honest assessment.

fastlaw

other than assuming that i thought i'de be getting 997tt performance, i agree with everything u said and it all makes good sense. you did 0-60 in 3.9 sec in a stock w211 63? that is fast

AKnight55

You have Balsa planes too??? That has been a childhood of mine since I was a little rugrat

wsybert

You better check with you mom, before using that kind of language.

fastlaw

i am a guy who owns this car. you are a guy who doesnt. you also apparently know nothing of the difference between crank horsepower, wheel horsepower and, most importantly torque to weight ratio.
my first car was a Mustang 5.0. would i get my kid a Mustang 5.0 as a first car? hell no! that car with all its torque and propensity to get sideways was really fun for me, but certainly not what i would want to give to my kids. it was only like 225 hp but a beast. the e63 is far, far, more tame. like i said, the power that it does have is more like a safety feature than an unexpected danger. if you havent driven one, then you really dont know what your talking about and have no place calling me names.

abrim

maybe this is the car he bought...

haha just kidding, I should upload that to the poser thread, but honestly nobody buys one of these thinking it's a sports car. I can take you out in my viper and show you how a real sports car accelerates if you would like?

emoving

Maybe he did the 2 into 1 conversion on the pipes. I hear there is huge power gains. JETSET....What an idiot.

abrim

Haha!! Yeah it creates more backpressure and you get like 700 ft/lbs of torue! At the wheels!!

Haha I know the license plate cracked me up too!

MB_Forever

Your review gave the impression and possibly the implication that you were expecting the car to accelerate in a super impressive way that it may compare to a sports car. If you compare 3.9 seconds to other sedans, it is very impressive.... but if you compare it to super sport cars, it maybe not so impressive. This is the statement I was referring to "it does not have shocking or extra impressive acceleration. period. i dont care what reviewers say, it doesnt."...

Anyways, I'm not sure what exactly you mean by impressive acceleration, but to me, being able to pull 0-60 mph in 3.9 seconds 4 times back-to-back is very impressive for 100% stock 4300 lbs luxury sedan

Here is the video by the way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taCQ0sUef10

And here is a 1/4 mile run of a stock E63 doing 11.9 @ 118 mph with a baby seat in the rear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5TOGO4noJA