270win

Yesterday I had the chance to drive my boss's 2010 E63 for about an hour...alone...so yeah, I wanted to see how it compared to my 05' E55.

It's just a completely different animal. It's a fast car, but it doesn't FEEL fast. I found it to be sluggish in traffic. I would see a gap in traffic that my 55 would easily make, but by the time the 63 would decide what gear to use and get into the rpm range where it makes power, the gap was sometimes gone. It definitely takes more planning in traffic. The 55 is SO much more immediate in it's response. I was thinking about buying this car from him in the next year or two, but it just isn't what I've come to love about my E55.

It was strange, while I didn't feel that it was very fast, I would jump into it and look down to see almost ridiculous numbers (mph) for what I felt like the car was actually doing.

Hands down, my preference is the E55.

PeterUbers

Awesome

stockC43

Having owned and driven both 55's and 63's the easiest way to describe them for me is like this. The 55's tell you they want to be driven fast and the 63's, you need to tell them that you want to go fast. 55's are eager and always want to "go" but the 63's only come to life above 4000 rpm. Now if I can only have a 55k with a .9 trans

baldmike73

its mainly the power delivery - having had both the 55 is like an animal trying to get out of its cage while the 63 is more refined - once you put the pedal down the power is so linear it just keeps pulling and pulling in any given gear. so much more refined on the delivery of power -

love both just don't miss all the gremlins of the 55 - and i was dying to get a wagon so I'm a bit biased

JoeNobody

Yeah wish there was a way to transplant 7-speed into E55. You can do an engine swap, but transmission swap is near impossible unless someone figures out how to get the computers behaving.

mtrhed

The 7spd trans. adapts and changes moods very quickly. Hard to drive it hard all the time so the trans. goes to granny mode. The e63 can be very quick when the trans. is in beast mode. Fastest car I've owned and I've had Porsche, BMW and American V8's. That being said, there's no supercharger....

tubaprde

This is so true (and I didn't believe it until about 1hr ago). I drove an '06 e55 around for 1 hour today and then drove an '07 e63 directly thereafter. This time I had the chance to drive it on the freeway with no traffic for 20 minutes. At first the tranny and maybe throttle response was in granny mode. After 30 seconds of spirited driving, it just took off. Shifts felt faster and the powerband snappy. The low end tq felt the same vs the e55, but then at 4k rpm it took off way faster to redline. The e55 feels great I think because of the long gears in 2nd and 3rd, and it's monster tq that can handle those long gears. Like when a normal car would have to shift it just keeps pulling for another 1 to 2 seconds--making it feel deceiving fast (which it is). But at the end of the day when you really gun the e63 and it's not in granny mode, the 63 feels faster.

Just my 2 cents and I'm not an engineer, just my laymen interpretation.

270win

Great replies. I don't think he drives the car hard enough so it may be in more of a granny mode. Also, I didn't drive it hard, just fast...it's not mine and I respect both him and his car so in all fairness I'm sure I'm more aggressive with my own car. As far as being refined, it's WAY more refined than the E55.

I'm also sure I'm biased.

tubaprde

I think that pushing your foot past the click down on the accelerator a few times tells the computer you mean business. It might be just as simple as that?

e500slr

I love both, they're just DIFFERENT. So damn different even when the E63 is a W211 as well. It's crazy, I just cannot get over how different they feel. Like a completely different car. I love the E63, have driven it many times, feels like a tight sports car. When you kickdown it pushes you into the seat pretty good and the shifts are pretty firm and feel very nice. The 55 is like riding a tornado, it just WOOOOOOOOSHHHS you forward. The E55 feels more like a plane to be honest (no joke) whereas the E63 feels like a fast car.

tubaprde

Yeah good point. E55's like a 747 (no gears just thrust). Of course the e55 has gears but it will pull for so long and hard without needing to shift. I wonder if the tesla feels the same way???

dllhg

Well the 2010 is naturally aspirated I believe the 2012 is when they get seriously fast. Tune only and they push over 600 WHP and 700 WTQ.......

tubaprde

Yeah the TT's are at a totally different level.

270win

I haven't driven a TT yet. That's probably the way I'd want to go. But it'll be years before it's in my comfort range. Maybe a 14' wagon with a tune.