2017 W222 S350d : diary from new

[gr1nch]

I'm thinking a diary of sorts could be interesting to anyone considering buying one of these beauties, new or used, in future. What do you think?

So I plan to:
* Post items of interest
* Answer any requests or questions I can

The car
2017 S350d AMG Line Premium Plus (SWB)
Lots of options selected, except purely rear seat ones taking it from about £70k list to £83k (and I didn't pay too close to that ). This is fully intended to be a driver's car!
Premium Plus
Driving Assistance pack
Burr walnut trim - brown
Infrared protective + noise insulating glass.
Garage door opener - integrated in rear view mirror
Head up Display
6 CD autochanger
Heated windscreen
Easy Adjust luxury front head restraints
Closing aid for doors
3 spoke wood/leather AMG sports multi function steering wheel
20" AMG multi spoke design alloy wheels
Burmester surround sound system
Exclusive nappa leather pack - Black
Keyless Go comfort pack
Front seat memory pack
Front seat comfort pack
Surround camera system
Model designation deletion
Electric panoramic glass sunroof
Comfort ventilated front seats

Configurator photo

Real photo (about 2 hours before the handover ceremony, it had been reading early hours, buy plenty of time for the dealership staff to wipe it clean )

Next post....First Impressions

--------------- v ---------------

For now here's some of my existing posts on the car.

In the early hours of 1st March 2017 the mass, organised car commissioning (pickup) by MB Grimsby at the country house hotel over the road at Laceby.
http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/general-discussion/220769-new-2017-reg-cars.html

At the detailers right after taking delivery of the car, which I arranged privately
http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/detailing/220780-new-car-detailers.html

At long last I'm a Mercedes owner!
http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/new-member-introductions/220781-long-last-im-mercedes-owner.html

Protecting the car from attacks, particularly Keyless Go
http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/general-discussion/220358-resources-protecting-your-car-attacks.html
Defense against attacks on Keyless Go cars - Mercedes-Benz Owners' Forums

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[Liquid silver]

I don't know what you paid but, I was offered one a couple of months ago with a similar spec and price for 58k hope you didn't pay any more. Oh how I wish I had taken them up on their offer.

 

[gr1nch]

I paid a few £k more but not much. If you could get a factory order with your preferred options making up a similar value spec (around £83k) for £58k that is very good! IMO based on a lot of CarWow'ing the W222, that's probably the lowest in the country!

This first 36 hours with my W222 has been a most wonderful experience. Honestly, I think any]/I] model, except perhaps the 4 cylinder hybrid (but maybe even that too!), would be a total joy to drive and own.

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[HB]

The 222 is just sensational. My uncle has just got one too, virtually identical to yours.

 

[Liquid silver]

I paid a few £k more but not much. If you could get a factory order with your preferred options making up a similar value spec (around £83k) for £58k that is very good! IMO based on a lot of CarWow'ing the W222, that's probably the lowest in the country!

This first 36 hours with my W222 has been a most wonderful experience. Honestly, I think any]/I] model, except perhaps the 4 cylinder hybrid (but maybe even that too!), would be a total joy to drive and own.

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My local dealer had 10 stock cars and were told to convert to cash. Cars were of various specs, lwb, swb, executive seats, premium plus etc. All cars were over 82k list with a 30% plus discount, all gone now unfortunately.

 

[gr1nch]

First Impressions
After the first full day I'm starting to feel comfortable driving. What took or is taking some time to get used to is:

* Buttons!
Lots of them. Had to dip into the PDF manual a couple of times to get the full scope of what set of buttons did.

* Length
Almost scraped the rear underneath of the car on a higher than average concrete kerb to grass when reversing last night in the hotel carpark in Louth. Even with the rear camera distance and height of objects is very deceptive. And the disparity of implied distance between the rear mirrors and the rear camera can be quite large. What looks inches in one, looks feet in the other

* Gear selector
I'm half-way getting used to the stalk gear selector: down Drive, up for Reverse. At least I'm not reaching for a nonexistent gear knob in the usual place on all my previous cars!

* Park
I accept it, but it's not easy holding 2+ tons with a light press of a small button on the stalk. If it was on a steep hill is be tempted to brick the wheels

* The ride
As you've guessed, its superb. On winding, flat, clear Lincolnshire farm roads the Airmatic suspension on Comfort gave a somewhat disconnected feel as a driver. My wife felt it was a bit too wafty, she felt the rolling a bit more than me, I guess because she did not have the steering wheel to hang on to! She asked for a different setting. I was happy to select Sport . Both independently for the suspension and gears. The two buttons are next to each other by the COMAND wheel, so just takes a second. The selections are shown in the LCD screen between the main dials.

* Speed and acceleration
I've put my foot down a few times and the car has surged forward very impressively. I'm not the best judge of this because I've never driven (or very seriously yearned for) a sports car - but this is clearly the fastest, strongest accelerating and most powerful car I've ever driven or owned. For the average saloon, estate, coupe owner like me - this enough. More than enough

* Looks
Having jumped in about 10 times so far, my breath is taken away each time I walk up to "her"

* Gender and naming
Well, how do you address such a car when taking about it? "It" seems a little anodyne and impersonal. So the gender neutral "it" has become a sexy career woman "she" . This is no femme fatale who looks flash, the kind you have an unstoppable lust for! She is dependable, complex, smooth, classy, fascinating lol. For the name, there can only be one, though it's not one that would spring to mind! She was shipped over from Zeebrugge to Killingholme on the Patricia.

Heading south.

Next post....Motorway Driving


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[MancMike]

* Park
I accept it, but it's not easy holding 2+ tons with a light press of a small button on the stalk. If it was on a steep hill is be tempted to brick the wheels

It's not the button that's holding the car, don't worry.


In addition to the parking pawl that locks the transmission, it's also still got a parking brake that engages the rear wheels, it's just done automatically when you put it in park and remove the key / get out.

 

[Mactech]

The S Class can make you really lazy!
If I came to a stop in mine with my foot on the brake then the only thing I had to do was open the door and get out
The car (or 'she') would switch off, go into park, put on the parking brake, close the door behind me and lock
I had soft close doors and made sure the key was in my pocket, but what is not to like about the 'down for go, up for back' stalk same as in the ML.

 

[MancMike]

The S Class can make you really lazy!
If I came to a stop in mine with my foot on the brake then the only thing I had to do was open the door and get out

Almost the same in the new B Class, but minus the keyless go. I could just come to a standstill, pull the key and hope out. It'd put it in park as soon as the key is pulled and apply the parking brake.

Assume it's the same with any with park being just a button.

 

[DrNick]

but what is not to like about the 'down for go, up for back' stalk same as in the ML.

On my new (to me) E class with this stalk thing, whilst changing lanes yesterday I managed to knock the stalk and put it into neutral. Lots of revving and the opposite of acceleration occurred. Disconcerting. Fortunately it doesn't let you put it in to reverse at 60 mph.

So that's what's not to like about the stalk!

 

[Mactech]

Then I suppose the same accusation could be made of any control on or near the steering wheel.....the cruise control springs to mind.....
Whatever size hands do you have?

 

[liamt]

I'm not sure how you've managed to do this. To take it out of gear surely you would have to have your foot on the brake. I believe this is how it is on my A Class.

 

[zipdip]

Great car get used to using the parking brake and not the one on the gear stalk,all you have to do is push the button it will release when you pull away,just using the stalk park button can after a time throw a fault up to the effect that the parking brake is not working,but it is up to you.

 

[MancMike]

No need to have foot on the brake. You only need a foot on the brake to take it out of park.

You can put it into neutral as you must be able to, the engine could have died (lack of fuel etc) and you'd whack it into neutral to coast further to safety without engine braking.

You can't put it into park or reverse, it'll just ignore you as there's no legitimate reason to do that, and it'll only possibly cause horrific damage. Neutral won't hurt a thing.

You can however put it into park at very low speeds (walking speed), at those speeds you might have had brake failure, or forgotten to put it into park and it's started to roll and are relying on, and instinctively hit park to grab the car. It's frightening but the pawl will skip a few times, engage, then you'll bounce off of the slack in the gear meshes in the diff, but it'll stop it, it's very violent and not something you'd want to do. At high speed, the pawl has no chance of stopping you anyway and it'd just snap hence it won't engage.


People have very little faith in the parking pawl because of that bouncy feeling when you put it in park and take your foot off the brake, you roll a couple inches then bounce. That's slack in the gears of the diff and flex in the shafts, not the pawl flexing. If it was just in park though without the parking brake and someone were to reverse into you, it could snap the pawl.

 

[gr1nch]

On my new (to me) E class with this stalk thing, whilst changing lanes yesterday I managed to knock the stalk and put it into neutral. Lots of revving and the opposite of acceleration occurred. Disconcerting. Fortunately it doesn't let you put it in to reverse at 60 mph.

So that's what's not to like about the stalk!

haha, same happened to today on the A1. Found myself revving thin air, in the fast lane, with the gear in neutral, having flicked the wrong stalk . While that is kind of fat fingering, what wasn't was trying to edge out of a drive doing a U-turn, flicking the Distronic stalk set to 70mph! Eek. Luckily the car realises you didn't mean that and doesn't do a 0-60 sprint.



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[MancMike]

Resuming cruise only works above 20mph. Resume 70 at 20 and it'll floor it. It's proportional to the difference.

 

[gr1nch]

Motorway Driving
Have just done two days motorway driving heading south, taking in the M1, M4, M23, M27, M25 and M20. It was an extremely stress-free and enjoyable drive. The features I ended up relying on the most were Distronic Plus and Lane Assist.

* Economy
For around 400 miles of primarily motorway driving I averaged around 40 mpg. Including a fair bit of town driving the mpg in the first 7 days since new, just under 30 mpg. This screenshot is from the Mercedes Me app showing today's motorway segment with about 10 miles of town driving.

* Distronic Plus, Speedtronic, Traffic Sign Assist, Lane Assist
Automatic speed limit recognition by onboard camera is incredibly useful. It means I always knew what the speed limit was and could set the Speedtronic speed promptly. This will save me fines, points and maybe help prevent me getting involved in accidents. The speed setting is nicely designed: a small tap changes the speed by 1 mph, a slightly longer tap by 5 mph. The speed, once set automatically, changes as the vehicle in front slows down or pulls away. Initially it feels very weird not braking yourself when you close in on a car, but the W222 is very reliable at doing it for you. However there seems to be no way to force the car to not exceed the current speed limit, ie to keep legal. This feature wouldn't suit everybody, but there are times I'd certainly like to enable it. The other main feature is the steering assist, where the car adjusts the steering wheel torque to keep itself inside its current lane, between the lines. Again it feels odd as the wheel moved under your grip, but it seems reliable enough and a handy feature to help eat up the miles.

* Blind Spot Assist
This is neat with an always on visual notification (a warning red triangle) blinking on the wing mirrors when a vehicle moves, either forwards or backwards, into their blind spots. Plus, when I had the indicators on, there'd be a warning beep as well. Handy.

* Cabin noise
I've no other Mercedes to compare it with, but the cabin noise is very low. The little there is, comes mainly from the tyres (mine are low profile on 21" rims) with not much from the wind. It is an absolute pleasure to hear music clearly from the sound system and to converse with your passengers easily, like you were in your front room

* Gearing
At a steady 70 mph on the flat the gear quickly settled in was 9th at just over 1,000 rpm. This seemed a bit low compared to other cars I've owned, but none had a 9 speed gearbox not were Mercedes !

Next post
...Options, Accessories & Media


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[Dippo]

It's probably time to change the car listed in your profile!

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Mercedes Me benefits....

I'll be interested to hear your take on the benefits of "Mercedes Me" once you're settled into the car.

Conceptually, I love the idea. I just haven't bothered with retrofitting it because I'm not sure what it would really give me apart from a bit of journey MPG and distance tracking, which I can get more or less free from other apps, and assistance to find the thing in a car park.

Great idea to publish the log.

 

[gr1nch]

I'll be interested to hear your take on the benefits of "Mercedes Me" once you're settled into the car.

Conceptually, I love the idea. I just haven't bothered with retrofitting it because I'm not sure what it would really give me apart from a bit of journey MPG and distance tracking, which I can get more or less free from other apps, and assistance to find the thing in a car park.

Great idea to publish the log.

Thanks Mike, I hope a few find it useful. I'll do Mercedes Me after this one.