New member - 2006 W221 S600

[ChrisPDuck]

Hi all

I signed up yesterday in order to contribute to a thread about the Harman Kardon audio, so now I should do a proper introduction.

I bought my 2006 S600 in April. It's my first Mercedes. It ticked all the boxes for what I'd been looking for in a W221, with the added bonus that it has the M275 V12 with twin turbos! It's a fabulous car, and a credit to the previous two owners who managed to get it from 2006 to 2022 in such marvellous condition. It's in Tanzanite blue with the Sahara beige and black interior. My previous car had an all black interior and I really wanted something lighter this time. It has just about every option available, except Distronic Plus, which for some reason wasn't available with Parktronic in 2006, and I agree with the original owner that Parktronic is the more useful option if you have to chose between the two. I remember thinking after driving it home that it's exactly the spec and colour combination that I'd have chosen had I had £112k to spend on a new car in 2006.

Since April I've done various jobs:

• I fitted a tracker.
• I fitted a CarPlay adapter to bring the ICE up to date. It uses the original display, to keep the interior totally original, and works very nicely. So Google Maps or Apple Maps now provide my navigation, and Spotify my music.
• I fitted an add-on amplifier between the factory amplifier and the factory speakers, to address the only thing that let the car down in my opinion. This way I keep all the original COMMAND functions, but the sound quality gets a huge upgrade.
• I replaced the voltage regulator on the alternator, to fix a battery drain and intermittent charging problem. That was quite a job, as the alternator is buried deep - I had to jack the engine off its engine mounts to access the lower mounting bolts.
• I replaced the two rear tyres (ContiSportContact 5 MO).
• I've added some luxury carpets in a totally impractical beige colour, but I like the look (and I do own a Bissell carpet cleaner!).
• After adding CarPlay I had no need of the factory handset in the armrest, so I made a tray for my iPhone that uses the same mounting clip, but incorporates a wireless charging puck. It doesn't charge the phone very well, so I suspect the USB supply from the CarPlay unit isn't providing much current.
• I changed the engine oil and filter. It'll be going in for an MOT soon, and I'll get the garage to change the transmission oil and filter, to save me having to crawl around underneath.
• And the best bit so far - I drove it to Le Mans for the Le Mans Classic. £300 in petrol, but for the long run from Nottingham to Newhaven on the early morning open roads we actually averaged 28mpg! My best ever! The slightly higher speed on the French side (80mph versus 70mph) meant that we couldn't sustain that economy for the whole trip. Since April I'm averaging 18-19mpg - much as I love to waft around in the car, I'm afraid I find the loud pedal irresistible at times, and that doesn't help with fuel economy!

All the best
Chris

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Very nice.

Some interesting points in here, like that phone puck mod.

Thanks for sharing

 

[C43AMG]

That has an amazing spec. Those rear tables where an absolute fortune, I have a 500 which i picked up from the factory Jan 2008, just coming up to 180,000 miles. Obsidian black with the same interior as yours + the AMG Kit + 20" wheels
I have Distronic + which was a must for me. How many miles has th 600 done ? Was it a chauffeur's car /as the spec looks looks very much a chauffeur spec. Me being a ex chauffeur ( retired 2020 )
Great write up, more photo's please.

 

[Sweetooth]

Hi and welcome

 

[ChrisPDuck]

That has an amazing spec. Those rear tables where an absolute fortune, I have a 500 which i picked up from the factory Jan 2008, just coming up to 180,000 miles. Obsidian black with the same interior as yours + the AMG Kit + 20" wheels
I have Distronic + which was a must for me. How many miles has th 600 done ? Was it a chauffeur's car /as the spec looks looks very much a chauffeur spec. Me being a ex chauffeur ( retired 2020 )
Great write up, more photo's please.

Indeed - those tables were listed at £620 each in the contemporary price list. Crazy. I think I might have passed on those had it been me buying the car from new. They're not tray tables, just shiny wooden tables, which things tend to slide off of if the car isn't level. I doubt they're much use for anything on the move.

I'm not sure about the first owner, so it could have been a chauffeur's car, but a lot of the spec was standard on the 600. But certainly quite a few of the paid-for options seem to be aimed at the rear seat passengers though: heated and cooled rear seats with memory, blinds in the back, panoramic roof, air con in the back, rear phone handset, rear entertainment screens.

The car has done just under 90,000 miles.

 

[C43AMG]

On the 500 the rear air con and side blinds where an option. I ha had designo Piano Black wood also an option with the all leather interior which came with Alcantara headlining and pillars.

 

[SmartAmg]

Welcome, Chris, lovely motor you've got there.

 

[ChrisPDuck]

Thanks folks.

I've remembered another job that I did:

• I changed the front two wheel speed sensors. I was getting occasional ABS/ESP errors. My code reader was telling me that the two rear sensors and the front left sensor were giving faulty readings, but I remembered reading that the front right is the one that's trusted most (for something - can't remember what). I figured that maybe the front right was giving a non-zero reading when stationary, and the other three were reported as bad because they were all showing zero. So I changed both the front ones, thinking that would either leave me with just the rear two reporting a fault, or none reporting a fault. Thankfully it was the latter.

I do still have a couple of fault codes that I haven't yet been able to fix. 2084 and 20B7 are the air pressure sensors downstream of the air cleaner, right and left banks respectively. I replaced the one on the right bank, but both codes are still present. So I guess it's an ECU somewhere, or perhaps I dislodged a common connector somewhere when I dismantled so much to get to the alternator. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

 

[PaulG]

Welcome to the forum Chris.

 

[Smart320]

Welcome, lovely motor , love the interior colour

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Do you really not have any names for the first two owners ? From the service history, invoices, or whatever?

Money has to be on a chauffeur driven first owner at least.

 

[ChrisPDuck]

Do you really not have any names for the first two owners ? From the service history, invoices, or whatever?

Money has to be on a chauffeur driven first owner at least.

View attachment 131517

Haha - well yes, I do have a name for the first owner, and from what I can tell it would appear that he wasn't short of a bob or two. But that's obvious from the purchase price. So it may well be that he was chauffeured around in this car, and the options would support that I agree, but it's also possible that he just enjoyed driving it himself. I had not heard of him before I bought the car. That's as much as I'm saying.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Is it a SWB S600 ? I got that impression from the rear seat photo. If so, that points towards owner driver. If it's LWB then more likely chauffeured.

Always interesting to work out who owned a low mileage six figure car initially. That King of a country bigger than the UK, one of the scions of a massive earthmoving equipment family, the self-made owner of a big tech firm... Nice that they laid out all that cash so that we can pay so much less a decade later.

 

[ChrisPDuck]

Is it a SWB S600 ? I got that impression from the rear seat photo. If so, that points towards owner driver. If it's LWB then more likely chauffeured.

Always interesting to work out who owned a low mileage six figure car initially. That King of a country bigger than the UK, one of the scions of a massive earthmoving equipment family, the self-made owner of a big tech firm... Nice that they laid out all that cash so that we can pay so much less a decade later.

Yes, I agree. During my search for a W221 I did go and see an S500 that used to belong to the King of Thailand - it still had the pennant mount in the front wing, which I believe was a Mercedes factory option. Nice car, and I so nearly went for it. And I see that Andrew Lloyd Webber's S600 is still being advertised on Autotrader. But that one's been on at the same price since April when I bought mine, so I guess provenance will only get you so far.

Mine's a LWB - that photo doesn't show the leg room very well, I think due to the low vantage point. In fact I think the S600 was only available as a LWB in this country. Oddly mine does have the 'L' on the boot lid though, which I don't believe was standard for the S600s - the previous owner thought maybe the first owner had specified it as an option. Or maybe, being an early W221, Mercedes UK hadn't yet settled on dropping the 'L'.

 

[PaulG]

Yes, I agree. During my search for a W221 I did go and see an S500 that used to belong to the King of Thailand - it still had the pennant mount in the front wing, which I believe was a Mercedes factory option. Nice car, and I so nearly went for it. And I see that Andrew Lloyd Webber's S600 is still being advertised on Autotrader. But that one's been on at the same price since April when I bought mine, so I guess provenance will only get you so far.

Mine's a LWB - that photo doesn't show the leg room very well, I think due to the low vantage point. In fact I think the S600 was only available as a LWB in this country. Oddly mine does have the 'L' on the boot lid though, which I don't believe was standard for the S600s - the previous owner thought maybe the first owner had specified it as an option. Or maybe, being an early W221, Mercedes UK hadn't yet settled on dropping the 'L'.
View attachment 131525

That's a nice interior. Any exterior photos?

 

[ChrisPDuck]

That's a nice interior. Any exterior photos?

I have a few that I took soon after I bought the car. I must get round to taking some in a better setting than the Ikea car park! These were taken before I removed the generic V12 badges that someone had added to the C-pillars.

I find the front view of this model to be a little, what's the word, bland? But the side profile I feel is understated and elegant, while the rear three-quarter profile has a subtle muscle car look to it. I like the way the big rear wheels fill those bulging arches.

 

[SmartAmg]

Personally I don't think the front looks "Bland" at all, think it looks great, but personal taste, and all that.

 

[ChrisPDuck]

Agreed - how dull would the world be if we all liked* the same things?

My purchase came about from a desire to own a mad powerful petrol car before it becomes impossible to run one. It'll be a lot harder by the end of this decade I reckon. I'd also been looking at Dodge Challengers for a while, but while I've been waiting for the right one (SRT8 spec) their prices seem to have virtually doubled in the last couple of years. With hindsight, I'm happier with my S600 than I think I would have been with a Challenger, but you have to admit there's a lot more 'drama' about the front of one of those!

*EDIT: That was the wrong wording. It's not that I don't like the front of the W221. Perhaps I should have said "how dull would the world be if we all perceived things the same way".

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

Yes, I agree. During my search for a W221 I did go and see an S500 that used to belong to the King of Thailand - it still had the pennant mount in the front wing, which I believe was a Mercedes factory option. Nice car, and I so nearly went for it. And I see that Andrew Lloyd Webber's S600 is still being advertised on Autotrader. But that one's been on at the same price since April when I bought mine, so I guess provenance will only get you so far.

Mine's a LWB - that photo doesn't show the leg room very well, I think due to the low vantage point. In fact I think the S600 was only available as a LWB in this country. Oddly mine does have the 'L' on the boot lid though, which I don't believe was standard for the S600s - the previous owner thought maybe the first owner had specified it as an option. Or maybe, being an early W221, Mercedes UK hadn't yet settled on dropping the 'L'.
View attachment 131525

Lovely interior. I bought the "King of Siam" off the Embassy and ran it for 30,000 miles. Cost me about £3k in depreciation but was worth every penny.

There are SWB S600's and S500's in the UK but they are very rare. I found a low mileage Tanzanite SWB S600 for a friend who loves it to bits.

I'm pretty sure that the Lloyd Weber S600 has been for sale for more than three years now. Seller wants more than people will pay for an S600 with a six figure mileage.

https://forums.mbclub.co.uk/threads...-for-sale-£10-950-1-owner-for-9-years.239651/

 

[zipdip]

Welcome aboard Chris thats a great car the w221 is one of the best designs in my opinion,I hope you get a lot of details of work carried out over the years,it will help to see where the next big bill is coming from.