HydroLogic

This is my first MB. I am coming from a 2015 manual M-3 and a manual S5 before that.

Just got back from a 700 mile round trip to Yosemite. Babied it in Comfort mode until mile 1,000 then mashed the accelerator peddle liberally after that. Lots of curvy, smooth mountain roads and long straights to put it through it's paces. Kept it in Race+ mode most of the time once over the break in period. This thing is an absolute beast. The acceleration is insane, even when you are already at speed. Race starts throws your head back and is just simply amazing. The car feels super planted and smooth through the twisties. I pushed it pretty hard and it always felt in control. I have the performance seats and while at first I thought I made a mistake because they were uncomfortable, now I love them. Just had to adjust them a few times to get the position correct. Had 2 passengers and a few hundred pounds of gear and everyone was comfty and having a blast when I stomped on it. Upgraded sound system is well worth it. Exhaust sound at WOT in Race+ is intoxicating. Suspension is awesome. I don't know why people are complaining. Even in Race+ it feels smooth and comfortable on most road surfaces. I only have one single complaint: the damn doors don't want to stay open on a slight slope. That's it. Other than that, this is my dream car. I got the Magno Grey with Nut Brown interior and Natural Grain Brown Ash Wood and holy **** what a combo. I'm just super stroked every time I walk up. Got an Expel matte full front and 20% tint all around with a 60% windshield. Next week the Escort Max-CI 360 gets installed. Soon I'll do a tune, probably Renntech. That's all I'm planning as far as mods. I'll post some pics after I wash her. Ordered in May, received 3 weeks ago, and absolutely worth the wait!

E634Me

We have 8.5 km to go to the magic 1500 km. Won’t likely hit it today as it’s snowing today in Fussen Germany. Drove in snow coming down last night for the last 15 km back to the hotel and again this morning up to the castle Neuschwanstein.

Tomorrow will be the magic day

24Hours

I'm hoping my trip in April won't encounter snow... safe driving!

Looking forward to your pics of the castle.

stmiami

Can you post some pics of your car?
I’m curious to see if the front xpel matte paint film matches the magno paint on the car.
i have a selenite magno Grey Wagon scheduled to be deliver in Dec. thinking about doing the same.
thanks in advance.

simarddominic

1200 miles on mine and I have exactly the same feelings about the car ! It's a beast ! And it feels almost always on track ! And when the rear dance a little bit, it's very easy to regain the control. I'm in love with it !

E634Me

Sadly the weather didn't cooperate with us. The castle should have looked like the first photo, but we couldn't see it except from up close and then it looked like the second photo. Still well worth this portion of the trip to check this off the bucket list for my wife and girls. Next stop Salzburg.

E634Me

Surprisingly, we haven't taken the time to take many photos of the car, plus its been overcast or drizzling much of the time.

But here are two, one in poor lighting at the delivery center and one random snapshot of the car outside in the hotel parking lot here in Füssen.

24Hours

The second pic looks like a spy pic! How are you liking the CCB so far?

E634Me

So far so good, but haven't done any heavy braking with them worthy of their need.

I was surprised by their strong initial bite right out of the factory door even when cold. I thought they might need a bit of heat in them first to really dig in. This is true of some racing brakes I have had on my track bikes. But, I have so far found them way more than adequate to handle any traffic condition that I might expect to encounter while the brakes are cold.

The biggest issue I have (and I'm sure I'd have with the regular brakes too) is not over applying brake pressure on light little stops around town when surprised. Easy to toss folks forward in their seats a bit

Getting good use of the autonomous driving features too. There are a few observations and a minor complaint. That is when the lane tracking feature is engaged (but not the self driving feature) and you brush up against a line, the car will aggressively slow and grab the wheel. Kind of annoying. I'd prefer a chime or something first before the car reacts. The other observation is that in the self driving mode, the car still needs some help around certain corners. It can only turn so much on its own apparently. OK for the autobahn most of the time, but no good enough to handle the country roads on its own without supervision. Not a problem in my mind, but wanted to let people know that they shouldn't expect a fully self driving car.

That said, the cruise control is first rate. The speed limits are up and down all over the place here, often 10/20 km/h in very short intervals. The cruise control picks that up and drops the speed or raises it as required. You can also pull the lever and have it pick up your last set speed or change it to the current speed limit. Pretty cool. It is also nice that you can adjust the following distance for the car in front. There have been a couple times when traffic has slowed down abruptly and the cruise control activates the brakes pretty darn hard as needed. So far I've never felt worried about it not stopping or slowing down in time - but have had a foot covering the brake anyway just in case.

Have about a three hour drive to Salzburg tomorrow and assuming the streets are clear, should get in a race start or two, will also get to experience driving in Sport/Sport+ modes, and might even through it in Race mode just for fun briefly. Will not likely attempt any speed limiter checks with the family in the car - though if traffic is flowing well we might feel comfortable with some speeds that would be well above legal US speeds - maybe 120/130 mph ish, we'll see

signes

Good info. Re CCBs and bite, mine were like that and it made smooth city driving a chore. After they were properly bedded, totally different. Still all the braking power with none of the grabbiness. Highly recommend while you’re there with the higher limits that you go through bedding them.

Agree on your other points, esp lane departure. Way too aggressive IMO, a preliminary warning as you mention would be nice.

Great run to Salzburg, hope you don’t have too much traffic. Stop by the Sacher there and have a slice of legendary torte. Jealous of your trip!

HydroLogic

yep will do. Off to Vegas for trade show so it'll have to be next week. The matte Expel is a perfect match. Can not tell whatsoever its there. Looks just like the rest of the car. Glad I did it

2012 merc amg

Wow, what a great experience being there E63, sounds great. Good summary about the cruise control and the lane departure, I feel the same, the lane departure on my 212 was overly aggressive too and I tended to leave it turned off unless I was really tired and it was late or something, helped to keep me from getting drowsy, maybe that's why the engineers at benz did it like that? I did not even realize that the cruise would hold the car at the speed limit as per the display, then again mine is normally set a little bit over, but I'll have to try pulling the lever and see if it holds me at the speed limit. One thing I notice is that with the cruise engaged unless your going under 65 mph or so it will not run 4 cylinder mode and fuel economy tends to suffer a little vs driving the car with cruise control off, then it seems to hold 4 cylinder mode pretty well. If I'm low on fuel and have a ways to go to a fuel station I tend to turn off cruise control.

E634Me

Yeah, I've not yet noticed it go into 4 cylinder mode while on cruise control, same for coast mode.

Crossed over the 1500 km mark this morning, but didn't get to do any race starts today. Only had a couple unrestricted spots on the Autobahn today on the drive to Salzburg and generally had traffic. But in one short stretch we did get to open it up. Zipped up to 240 km/h (150 mi/h) before I had to get on the binders. It was still pulling really hard at that point with four people in the car and a trunk full of luggage. Felt absolutely planted and comfortable, did not feel like we were doing a buck fifty.

Also, to clarify an earlier comment about the CC brakes. I meant their initial bite was harder when cold than I expected, but to be clear, they were not grabby. The braking was smooth, just clamped on harder when cold than I thought they might given what I'd read elsewhere. When braking down from 150 mi/h or 130 mi/h as I did several times today they hauled you down well and smoothly. I could have gotten on the binders a lot harder, but was of course trying to be safe and also keep the ride comfortable for the family.

Also drove it on some secondary roads that wound around through the countryside. Handled very nice and enjoyed playing with the different modes. Super impressed by the car.