Considering an S63 coupe, am I mad?

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sgregory124

sgregory124

MB Enthusiast
Joined
Sep 11, 2004
Messages
1,244
Location
Derbyshire
Car
E63S
Afternoon all.

I've recently been considering replacement options for my C63S. As much as I love the car, i'm rapidly approaching 3 years of ownership and that little voice in the back of my head is 'suggesting' things ;)

Top of my (current) list is an S63 coupe, i've liked them ever since sitting in one at the FoS years ago and fell in love with the opulence as well as the road presence. Fast forward to today and I see that prices are now surprisingly affordable for me, but i'm a little concerned that I know very little about them.

So some questions I have are:

- I'd love a 4.0TT car, purely because of the increase in power, but see that prices of those are still considerably higher, is there a noticeable performance difference between one of those and the 5.5TT? Presumably a remap could unlock a little something extra from the latter engine?
- Did they come with CCB's? I ask because I'd rather a car with steel brakes (for cost reasons!)
- Servicing wise, do they cost considerably more to look after than my C63S? (recently purchased a second 'runabout' car so mileage for any S that I bought would likely be sub 10k per year)
- In terms of spec, I am assuming (perhaps wrongly) that they all came with most boxes ticked? One car I saw for sale recently seemed to have a lot of equipment (including the heated/cooled/massage seats etc)
- Are there any big 'gotcha' items that might catch me out?

Thanks in advance for any advice, words of warning or ways to convince the wife this is actually a good idea :D

Simon
 
sgregory124 said:
Afternoon all.

I've recently been considering replacement options for my C63S. As much as I love the car, i'm rapidly approaching 3 years of ownership and that little voice in the back of my head is 'suggesting' things ;)

Top of my (current) list is an S63 coupe, i've liked them ever since sitting in one at the FoS years ago and fell in love with the opulence as well as the road presence. Fast forward to today and I see that prices are now surprisingly affordable for me, but i'm a little concerned that I know very little about them.

So some questions I have are:

- I'd love a 4.0TT car, purely because of the increase in power, but see that prices of those are still considerably higher, is there a noticeable performance difference between one of those and the 5.5TT? Presumably a remap could unlock a little something extra from the latter engine?
- Did they come with CCB's? I ask because I'd rather a car with steel brakes (for cost reasons!)
- Servicing wise, do they cost considerably more to look after than my C63S? (recently purchased a second 'runabout' car so mileage for any S that I bought would likely be sub 10k per year)
- In terms of spec, I am assuming (perhaps wrongly) that they all came with most boxes ticked? One car I saw for sale recently seemed to have a lot of equipment (including the heated/cooled/massage seats etc)
- Are there any big 'gotcha' items that might catch me out?

Thanks in advance for any advice, words of warning or ways to convince the wife this is actually a good idea :D

Simon
Click to expand...
To answer your questions:

1. Borge the M157 and M177 are very easily tuned so yes if you want even more power then you could liberate it easily with either engine.

2. CCBs are an option, and you won’t find it difficult o find cars with Steve brakes if that’s your preference (mine too BTW).

3. Scheduled maintenance won’t be dissimilar but some dealers may charge more, the S-Class tax is like the AMG tax. Repairs could be much pricier though, but that is to a large part luck of the draw.

4. As standard they’re well appointed, and some will have plenty of options, others won’t you’ll have to review each car to be sure.

Good luck with whatever you decide 👍🏻
 
Bobby Dazzler said:
To answer your questions:

1. Borge the M157 and M177 are very easily tuned so yes if you want even more power then you could liberate it easily with either engine.

2. CCBs are an option, and you won’t find it difficult o find cars with Steve brakes if that’s your preference (mine too BTW).

3. Scheduled maintenance won’t be dissimilar but some dealers may charge more, the S-Class tax is like the AMG tax. Repairs could be much pricier though, but that is to a large part luck of the draw.

4. As standard they’re well appointed, and some will have plenty of options, others won’t you’ll have to review each car to be sure.

Good luck with whatever you decide 👍🏻
Click to expand...
Thanks for that. Kind of what I had thought. I think I just need to balance my desire for one, with the potential increased costs of ownership. With my C63 it was easy, because it was my first proper performance car for years and was very much a bucket list purchase - but an S would be more like gilding that particular lilly, than an outright change.

Food for thought. I guess I need to go and look at/drive some now - which i'm not quite in a position to do just yet, but that gives me some thinking time at the very least :)
 
The 4.0tt had the 9-speed box, 5.5tt 7-speed. Having driven both I don't think there's much difference in on-road performance, though as they weren't driven back-to-back that's not conclusive.

The biggest options on the 4.0s (carbon brakes aside) are probably exclusive nappa (£3,500), magic pan roof (£4,000, but normal pan roof std ), high-end Burmester (£5,000), wheels (c£2,000) and HUD (£1,000). Trim options, of which there are plenty, are a personal choice.
 
AMGeed said:
Performance wise, the stock 4lt is a full second quicker to 60 than the 5.5lt. That will be very noticable.
Click to expand...
What’s the power difference between the two? That’s a huge difference on an already quick car!
 
Will said:
What’s the power difference between the two? That’s a huge difference on an already quick car!
Click to expand...
The M177 is 603bhp with 4wheel drive and the M157 is 550bhp stock.
I think its the all wheel drive and the ability to put all the power down that makes the difference.
 
As far as I'm aware 4Matic wasn't available in the UK, though I'm happy to be corrected.

MB quoted 585bhp for the 5.5, 612bhp for the 4.0 and 0-100km/hr in 4.2 secs for both of them. 900nm torque for both, though at slightly lower revs on the 5.5.
 
tonysmb said:
As far as I'm aware 4Matic wasn't available in the UK, though I'm happy to be corrected.

MB quoted 585bhp for the 5.5, 612bhp for the 4.0 and 0-100km/hr in 4.2 secs for both of them. 900nm torque for both, though at slightly lower revs on the 5.5.
Click to expand...
Sorry, that's not correct. Also I quoted the W212 in E63 guise, not the S model.

4matic is only available on the W213 in the UK. It was never an option on UK W212's
585 is the quoted output for the E63S. The "lesser" E63 is quoted at 550bhp.
The 4.0lt 0-60 time is 3.4 seconds. The 5.5 is 4.2 seconds.
The torque figures are
W212 E63 720Nm
W212 E63S 800Nm
W213 E63S 850Nm

W213 specs
 
I believe that the W177 is rated at 612 PS and the M157 is rated at 585 PS in the S 63, but I’d have to double check to be sure.
 
AMGeed said:
@daveenty is the guy to ask. He has the latest 4.0tt S63 coupe and I think he is well happy with it.
Click to expand...

I'll have owned it for four years this October. Where did that time go? o_O

To the OP: -

Mine is the 4.0 litre M177 powered car. As my previous one was a W213 E63s I was already familiar with them so knew how they put their power down, which seems to be a lot more linear than the 5.5 litre M157 which preceded it. To me it just makes the car that much smoother.

Carbon brakes, as mentioned above, were an option and a box I didn't tick on my order as I don't do the sort of driving to justify them. Mine tends to be occasional weekend use only nowadays so, whilst appreciating the fact that they keep the wheels relatively dust free, I have plenty of time to clean them anyway. :)

No noticeable difference in servicing costs so far, the last B service was £564.66 in 2021 and the last A was £435.59, these figures are comparable to the E63s I owned previously.

As regards to being caught out with stuff then no, not really but it is a big thing with lots of expensive bits on it and, should anything let go then it could be expensive to repair. Having said that, it's not like running a small hatchback so the costs would be appropriate.

As I mentioned, I've had mine well over three years now, I bought it as a sort of retirement present to myself but then, due to a set of circumstances beyond my control, it didn't seem to get used very often. It's currently only got around 7,200 miles on it though I will be trying to get a few more on it this year, I just seem to constantly have a lot to do. When it does get out and about though it's a pleasure to drive, so relaxing and comfortable, it just eats miles up effortlessly. It can also turn quite aggressive with the simple turn of a switch though I'm not convinced that it needed the "pops and bangs" map on S+ with which it came. It can certainly pick it's feet up though and is definitely no slouch for a 2+tonne car.

It will be down at Benz on the Green next weekend, so that's another 500+ miles to clock. If you're going then please come and have a chat, I can go through it all in a bit more detail that way.

Is it the best car I've owned? I'm not 100% but I'd certainly put it up there as probably.
 
daveenty said:
I'll have owned it for four years this October. Where did that time go? o_O

To the OP: -

Mine is the 4.0 litre M177 powered car. As my previous one was a W213 E63s I was already familiar with them so knew how they put their power down, which seems to be a lot more linear than the 5.5 litre M157 which preceded it. To me it just makes the car that much smoother.

Carbon brakes, as mentioned above, were an option and a box I didn't tick on my order as I don't do the sort of driving to justify them. Mine tends to be occasional weekend use only nowadays so, whilst appreciating the fact that they keep the wheels relatively dust free, I have plenty of time to clean them anyway. :)

No noticeable difference in servicing costs so far, the last B service was £564.66 in 2021 and the last A was £435.59, these figures are comparable to the E63s I owned previously.

As regards to being caught out with stuff then no, not really but it is a big thing with lots of expensive bits on it and, should anything let go then it could be expensive to repair. Having said that, it's not like running a small hatchback so the costs would be appropriate.

As I mentioned, I've had mine well over three years now, I bought it as a sort of retirement present to myself but then, due to a set of circumstances beyond my control, it didn't seem to get used very often. It's currently only got around 7,200 miles on it though I will be trying to get a few more on it this year, I just seem to constantly have a lot to do. When it does get out and about though it's a pleasure to drive, so relaxing and comfortable, it just eats miles up effortlessly. It can also turn quite aggressive with the simple turn of a switch though I'm not convinced that it needed the "pops and bangs" map on S+ with which it came. It can certainly pick it's feet up though and is definitely no slouch for a 2+tonne car.

It will be down at Benz on the Green next weekend, so that's another 500+ miles to clock. If you're going then please come and have a chat, I can go through it all in a bit more detail that way.

Is it the best car I've owned? I'm not 100% but I'd certainly put it up there as probably.
Click to expand...
Thanks for that - very informative.

Sounds like i'd be more at home in the 4.0 car, given my current car has the same engine (albeit in a lower state of tune), nice to know that S+ has the pops and bangs - i'm very partial to them myself, but I imagine that in an S-class they sound completely incongruous to passers by given the type of car. The servicing was the big question mark for me, those numbers sound very similar to what I pay now, if anything they look cheaper - i'm assuming they're indy figures? Thinking about it, i'd probably use a combination of main dealer (service plan) and indy (everything else) as I do now and has worked out very well.

As I mentioned and as you point out, unexpected repairs would be the only 'bogey' - but like all used cars, its a roll of the dice if you get a good'un I guess!

For me it would probably be the last 'roll of the dice' in terms of outright performance/GT car, as i'll be moving to Ireland in the next 5-7 years, which will mean i'll end up with an SUV out of necessity just to cope with the roads in the Republic :rolleyes: So I want to go out in style :cool:

Unfortunately, sods law dictates that i'm working on the day of BOTG, otherwise I might well have ventured down - thanks for the offer though.

One final question, I see you're from the North West, I don't suppose you attended the AMG Private Lounge event at Stockport Mercedes last year did you? I'm sure I saw someone with a dark blue (or possibly black) S soupe there.....
 
I had a 2014 6.3 5.5 CL which was mapped to 687bhp & 780lb/ft by MSL (Birmingham ). No complaints, had it on a MB service plan. £53 a month. Took it on various European trips did not miss a beat, especiallay on the Autbahn Never driven the S-Coupe, i know Dave loves it and his recommendation is a good guide. I also would recommend the 5.5 engine, the facelift model.
 
sgregory124 said:
The servicing was the big question mark for me, those numbers sound very similar to what I pay now, if anything they look cheaper - i'm assuming they're indy figures?
Click to expand...

Nope, they're main dealer. Whitefield and Stockport, both LSH Auto owned

sgregory124 said:
One final question, I see you're from the North West, I don't suppose you attended the AMG Private Lounge event at Stockport Mercedes last year did you? I'm sure I saw someone with a dark blue (or possibly black) S soupe there.....
Click to expand...

Yes, that would have been mine. It's Anthracite Blue, which appears dark grey or even black in certain light, though has a nice blueish sparkle when the sun catches it.

I'll be there again this year too. :D
 
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