Just thought I'd post by means of introduction. I just traded in my 2015 BMW M4 for this CPO 2018 E63 AMG S. After 10+ years of M3/4s and buying another "fun" car (2016 911 GTS) a couple of years back, it was time to move to something more practical as my daily. I wanted a mid sized V8 and didn't want to wait around for the new M5, pay up for a Panamera or deal with the CTS-Vs iffy interior. The car will serve as my new daily driver and was perfect in terms of what I wanted. I am particularly happy I found a fully loaded one without two options I really, really hate - the illuminated star and the acoustic comfort package. Yeah its expensive for a daily but you can't take it all with you and it does the job so well. Will be installing a f/r dash cam (I wish manufacturers would start building this in) and pretty much nothing else in terms of mods. My car has the matte grey paint and this is my first matte painted car. Does anyone here have any experience with matte grey and does it really need to be babied or is it just don't buff/polish it? This is my 75% of the time car and I'm going to be driving it year round, in the rain whatever. I've always felt you buy these things to drive and not to sit around depreciating without being used. Finally, I' m toying with the idea of getting PPF done to the front and the side rocker panels. Xpel stealth works well enough with matte finished cars. Does anyone know a good installer in the Houston area?

 

Congrats and welcome aboard. Take a look at Dr Bealey's - they have all the cleaning supplies for matte paint.

 

Done. Would you recommend PPF on matte paint or does the nature of the finish make it less likely to show chips? Usually I don't bother - getting the front clip resprayed on my 911 would cost me 20% of what PPF would and Dr Color Chip is easy to use. With matte paint, I can see that approach being an issue.

 

That's what they told me when I picked up the car in Germany. Wash the car and dry it. No waxing or polish. Said it's super easy to take care of.

So far that's been true. I was careful to find a good soap that doesn't have any shine additives and I also purchased a CR Spotless water de-ionizer and filter system to help keep spots off the car. Seems to be working.

It does rain in southern California and the car got wet and a bit of road grime on it, but the Selenite Grey Magno doesn't show dirt that bad. You can see the grime of course if you look at it, but it doesn't contrast as much as with some other colors I've had.

I did also get a foam cannon, which is kind of fun, but a plain old two bucket system would work just as well I'm sure.

BTW, tried to pick up some touchup paint yesterday at the dealer and they said they don't make it for the Selenite Grey Magno. The parts guy said I would need to respray the whole front end for a pin head sized chip (like 0.7 mm by 1 mm). I asked if I could just get some Selenite Grey touch up paint, It's the same color, just doesn't have the matte clear coat. The parts guy said we don't have Selenite Grey. I was like WTF? He said the parts area has different paint color codes than what's on the sales side and they needed a VIN number to match the paint.

So, I went back out to the sales area and talked to one of the guys, who couldn't believe what he was hearing either. He found me a VIN number for one of the cars on the lot with Selenite Grey and I took that back to the parts department and was able to get the paint ($38 BTW). Will apply a toothpick tip sized bit of that to the chipped area and worst case it's got to look better than bare aluminum and blend fairly well with the rest of the hood. Sucks having a little chip in the hood, but on the bright side, the rock that took out my windshield could have bounced off the hood first doing a lot more damage, or it could have dropped on the Pano roof. All in all, I'm feeling pretty lucky and the paint held up pretty well considering all the friggin trucks I got stuck behind on the cross country drive.

 

Congrats! Great choice. I'm new to AMG and MB in general, too, but I'm wayyy past pleasantly surprised... elated comes closer.

I'm amazed you found a 2018 CPO. May I ask, what was the mileage and circumstances?

 

That makes two of us. Its a one owner car built in Nov 2017 with 2500 miles traded in for an AMG GTR. The carfax literally had 2 items on it - the original sale and the trade in. The dealership only sells new cars or CPOs. I've been looking for one for a while (didn't really want to pay up for fully new) but this one was the perfect spec and now has a warranty thru Dec 2022 and was located 20 miles from my house. I called the dealer and got to go see the car and drive it even though somebody else had a deposit on it. I thought that was that but the dealer called me back saying the other gentleman felt the car was too "sporty" (coming from a M4 and a 911 this makes me laugh) and ended up in a G63 instead! Luck I guess.

 

Nice car! Can you post some more pictures in different lights?

 

 

Thought I'd share the first pass attempt at fixing the chip in my paint on the hood.

Here's a close up and a wider view of the chip, which is down to the metal of the hood. Next are a close up and wider view of the chip with two light applications of the touch up pain in the chip. Not perfect by any means, but a big improvement I think.

 

That honestly does't look so bad. The matte paint definitely helps hide scratches and chips and from everything I read, its a pretty tough durable finish. I decided to have the front of the car and the rockers done up with Suntek's matte ppf. Houston has some weird stuff flying around the highways. One of my buddies was hit by a mattress on 288S that totaled his Q5 (not that ppf would have helped much here). I already love my e63 and will probably keep it as my daily for at least 3 years. The ppf seems to be a small price to pay for that.

 

That's why I plan to do PPF ASAP.

 

Got the front and rockers done up in Suntek matte today. I honestly can't even tell there's ppf on there unless I look for edges in the corners from a few inches away. I was really impressed with the work and would totally recommend Cavallo Auto Salon if you're in Houston for all your ppf/coating/restoration/detailing needs. Great service and prepare yourself for a massive surprise when you see where they work out of (I don't want to spoil it here). I also found a touch up paint pen in the Mercedes matte grey (for small chips/imperfections) on Amazon that I'll give a try for a tiny chip I noticed under the detailers lights on the top of the A pillar.

After a week with the car I've got to ask myself why I waited this long to try out an AMG in the first place. I love the way the car looks, sounds and accelerates. The interior is a particular highlight - I would have preferred the use of leather on the lower dash but its fantastic otherwise. Coming from over a decade in M3/4s and owning a 991.1 GTS as my other car, I don't even get all the complaints people have with the ride. It's certainly the best riding car (in comfort) that I've ever owned. My negatives so far have to be the steering which feels slightly heavy and numb (again probably a function of what I'm used to), the infotainment system which is average (my 3.5 year old M4's iDrive felt more responsive and better integrated with the car) and the lack of more than one individual mode on the dynamic settings. As a daily driver, I could not be happier with this car! Its so fast and comfortable that it feels like a private jet at times.

 

I came from an E550 before the E63S. I find the ride quality in Comfort to be much stiffer than what I previously experienced. Do you feel a marked difference in the ride when switching to Sport?

 

I can notice a difference in spring rates between comfort and sport. Its definitely harsher but not massively so imo. I'm probably too used to driving sports cars to call the E63s ride "harsh". Is it as good as the few times I've ridden in a full on luxury car? Definitely not. Theres a decent amount of road noise and you feel the surface imperfections pretty clearly but I still think it does a decent job maintaining a balance between lowering body roll on a heavy car and providing a solid, if somewhat communicative ride. Comfort mode is slightly better damped than my old M4 was but has much less body roll because of the airmatic.

 

Thank you for your response. I think that some of the harshness that I am feeling is coming from the Pirrelli tires on my vehicle. I'm getting them changed out next week for Michelin PS4s. Hopefully, the ride characteristics will change a bit.

 

 

Yeah, the P0s are sh*te. I paid up to ensure my 911 was on PS4s as soon as it got to the 10k mark. I don't know if I can ever do justice to this on a typed out internet text thing ... the Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires are pretty much the best tires you can ever get on a street legal road car. They're so much quieter and grippier than the P0s that its worth every penny of the ~1.5k it will cost to re tire every wheel in your car. When I traded my old M4 in, my 2 month old PS4s added real money to the trade in just because they're that amazing and the SA told me as much.