I love the car! 3300km put on it in 3 months, took it to a track day and hit 259kmh and place the breaks almost on fire, drove through highways for hours above 180kmh and hit 280kmh before taking off the foot because you suddenly realize that this is probably too much for a public road...

It is more comfortable than my previous cheaper cars. On City drive and B roads it's good enough. Yes it could be more comfortable given that, for instance, BMW and Porsche do it, but it is good enough in comfort mode.

The only grievance I have is the tire road noise. Even with acoustic package the noise is high for a mile eater that this car is. But then again, I am driving it at 160/180 kmh average...

But the engine sound, response, looks and driving pleasure are over the top and overcome the negative aspects

 

I am still not sure because of so much marketing stuff but I believe they are not using Airmatic but a modified ABC suspension. Either way, I granted that the fact they had to place a more stiff ride and higher camber values that trash tires to get this handling and performance doesn't bode well for the engineering department.

 

I learned with my previous car, a C63, that tire noise predominates with these cars. For that reason I skipped the acoustic package to save a bit of weight. I must say that the car is quieter than the C63 so I'm happy. I just crank up the 3D Burmester a couple of notches.

 

Couple of things, if your car came with Pirelli's, you got hosed, get some Michelin Pilots or Potenza All-season if you're still seeing sub 40F temps.

Second, tire pressures from the VPC come 15-20psi over what they need to be. Tires at delivery are pumped up for MAX load, which leads to a comically rough and loud ride. Air them down to levels on the tire sticker under the gas cap for a much more compliant ride.

Third, if you have the sports buckets you have 1/3-1/2 as much padding, therefore any rough aspects of the ride are amplified due to the relative lack of insulation between you and the road.

I'm currently on Potenza RE980AS All-Seasons for the winter inflated to the correct pressure for normal driving and it's like riding on a cloud in comfort mode, not far from my wife's '18 Fullsize Range. In temps above 40, the Pilots that came on it are close at the right pressures. At the MAX LOAD pressure they came with it felt like driving on pebbles all the time. And I skipped the sport seats, so the 9400 miles I've put on the car have been smooth and comfortable...unless I pop it into S+ or Race, where it turns into a car that beats my old SLS in almost every area besides cool doors.

 

No kidding. Our fronts were over 50psi at pickup...

 

No ABC on any AWD cars, AMG or not. The only AMG’s with ABC currently are the 65 models.
The E has Airmatic...

 

I may be splitting hairs but its called "Air Body Control".... which could be called ABC 2.0 LOL.

 

yeah, i got the 50% flip coin and got the Pirelli. great tires with a lot of grip but very hard. when i rip them off i will switch to Michelin and see if gets better road noise.

i received them with 45/37 psi. I know that this leads to more tire noise but i prefer running on higher tire pressure and lower the chance of breaking a rim on a pothole...
on the track day, in the pit stops, my car was serviced by a Pirelli team and they recommended keeping them higher but less than what the VPC and brand states. for running on the track they placed them at 2.8/2.2 bar (41/32 psi) and thank God they done that because i got the front tires to 75ºC...

yeah, i have the comfort seats.

for what i read they changed something in the springs and shocks on the Air Body Control suspension, so it is more close to ABC than Airmatic

 

True. Mercedes is master in creating confusion with these acronyms. Still just good ol’ Airmatic pumped up to the max

 

A tank on concrete no doubt LOL

 

Chipping in on my one year thoughts. No particular order.

-Seats: I have the performance seats, got them for the looks. No complaints.

-Ride: unnecessarily harsh. Does not need to be this harsh on Comfort mode.

-Doors: Doors do not stay open with any sort of incline despite 2 changes on the hinges. Poor engineering for the cost of this car.

-Engine: awesome, had it chipped right after purchasing it so I cannot really compare with stock performance. Really do hate the "lag" on normal driving. When you have to floor it, the car lags like molasses. Just to be fair I am comparing it to electric cars (which is the future).
-Tires/Transmission: the car skips when cold. Not sure if this is the tires or the transmission not keeping up. Never had this in previous cars. Kind of like applying moderate acceleration on rear wheel cars and having the wheels spin slightly. With this car I am not really acclerating hard when this happens.

-Electronics- ok. These dinosaur companies will eventually be forced to go to the Tesla/Apple model. God knows why they can't update the software even at the dealership (god forgive over the air updates). I would love to have the Track pace app and other new changes. My wife's Tesla has new features automatically updated every few months with no charge or fees.

-External: Front end- awesome. Side- ok. Rear- ugly

Overall for my purposes I really love this car as a package. I think I've only seen one in the wild since owning this car, so kind of nice to be unique. My two cents worth.

 

ABC (Active Body Control) is only used on RWD S-class cars, where it's now called Magic Body Control. It's very different from Airmatic/Air Body Control systems like on our cars.

ABC is hydraulic and is fully active. Damping at each corner is constantly varied to deal with static factors (number of passengers, height settings, driver selection of handling characteristics, etc.) as well as dynamics (road surface and imperfections). You can think of it like noise-canceling headphones. As a wheel starts to respond to a dump or dip, servos apply an opposing force. Older ABC responds to bumps as they happen, while Magic Body Control responds to upcoming bumps by scanning the road ahead. It's a very complicated system, is very expensive to maintain but works amazingly well at making cars like the S65 exceedingly comfortable but reasonably well handling. The lack of body roll in an S65 is hard to believe for a car so big and heavy and the effect on ride comfort over real-world roads is obvious.

Other than complexity, the big negative for ABC/MBC is inability to support AWD. It was developed before AWD became so important and never upgraded. That's why most performance-tuned S-classes and our cars use the pneumatic Airmatic systems. Airmatic is only semi-active. It changes damping in stages, not continuously, and only for fairly static factors. That's why we can control firmness and change the car's level (or have the car do it automatically for certain reasons). It also manages body roll by using fairly simple and static means, like responding to yaw sensors. But it doesn't allow the continuously variable damping with millisecond latency needed to make roads seem unflawed.

An AWD fully active suspension would be an amazing advancement.

 

I have exactly the same review of the car !

 

The delay on the throttle on that car does suck. My e450 has no delay. I’ll bet my e450 would beat the e63 amg the first 60 feet unless race start was used.

 

yeah, have to agree that in comfort mode the lag is quite noticeable and unexpected for a performance car like this. seems like AMG is going Porsche's way by placing some buttons/knobs to quickly have more power on demand. don't like it to floor the gas pedal and have to wait what it seems more than a second for the power to quick in when entering the counter lane for passing another car.

 

I will bump it to S+ in advance if I know I'll be passing someone in a hurry. Early on in the car had a moment on a highway where I went to pass and expected the normal power I was used to but because the car was in comfort mode it took forever to kick down. Made the pass a little closer than I would have liked.

So I either go to S+ in advance or manually shift down.

 

In the same boat, but I usually just have it on individual mode with all the settings on comfort except the power.

 

So finally picked up the E63S and no buyers remorse.

Tires are Michelin Pilot 4S which I suspect will need to swapped out in winter. 42/41 front to rear. Tire noise yes but comfortable in comfort. I got standard seats as wife complained about the performance seats.

build quality vs C63S is day and night. No squeaks and rattling in this car.

One regret is is no HUD. Otherwise awesome all rounder car.

 

In regards to the lag, are you in eco mode? I feel the pedal response itself to be mild but I believe that to be by design in comfort mode. With eco off and a firm foot plant I don’t feel the lag you are speaking of.

13 months in and I love my E63S sedan. Ride being a little too harsh is the biggest issue but to be expected. I don’t feel the ride is too harsh but the roads in Philly too poorly maintained.

 

Are you serious??? So the 2018 electronics are different depending on when the car was made? When you say like a 2017 you mean not the display but the actual electronics because the 2017 had the iPad like display and the 2018 has the dual monitors. what exactly is the difference that you know of just speed? Does the early model have all the same features?

 

We are talking W213, so these two builds are based on that model, not the W212. Officially the W213 E63s was only introduced as a MY18 in the US but was actually build as a 2017 in Europe, using the MY17 electronics. The late MY18 (manufactured in the later parts of late 2017 are physically identical of course but the internal software and hardware versions differ. So certain features were not available or less capable, as mentioned before (fewer interior LED lighting options - dual color/scenes, driving dynamics screen data, no CarPlay control via steering wheel/touchpad and some other stuff)

 

All season tires on a performance car like the E63S? It's a joke, right?

All season tires should be banned imnsho.

 

Wow, great information. I can't believe this is the first I am hearing of this. I am looking for a pre-owned 2018 and I would be pissed if I got the older electronics. Do you know when it switched to the newer electronics? So the launch edition has the old electronics...WTF?

LF

 

Some time before Oct 2017. My car had the new electronics. Some who's cars were built a six weeks to a couple months earlier did not get the updates.

However, there was at least one change that my car did not get that came along a month or so later. I only have one 12 VDC outlet in the car, the rear one. My car has CF center console and did get the wireless charging, which in the DOG at the time was not an option. The 12 VDC jack in the center console was moved to make that happen. In later cars it was relocated to somewhere near the left knee of the front passenger. It's nowhere to be found in my car.

 

Yep I’d say anything before a early sept build is the old electronics. My car was built sept 10 2017 and had the new electronics cars built in August or before of that year were the eu 2017 electronics.