Key considerations
- Available for £20,000
- 4.7-litre V8 petrol twin-turbo, rear-wheel drive
- Few cars offer a stronger combination of speed and luxury
- Infotainment and electronics can be skittish (as they can in many other cars)
- They wear their miles beautifully so a £20k example will look like a £60k one
- Not perfect, but arguably the best S-Class since the W140
Modern saloons have increasingly been gathering for safety at the top end of manufacturers’ ranges. That might annoy those longing for a return of the good old days when common-man fare like the Cortina and Marina could be had in four-door format, but the good thing about this narrowing saloon niche is that the cars that are left in it are by and large superb motor vehicles that, despite their lack of a fifth door or Gulliverian SUV stance, will cope with most realistic demands you might make of them. They have an important role as standard-bearers for the marque so you know that a lot has gone into their development and build.
Jaguar’s XJ is gone now, but Audi, BMW, Lexus are still battling in this admittedly much-reduced market. The car they’ve all benchmarked and aspired to beat at one time or another has been the Mercedes S-Class, a car with the simplest but also hardest of aims: to be the best automobile in the world. For the first few generations most would say that it achieved that goal, but as a consequence of either cost-cutting or complacency and of course as a result of more effort being put in by the opposition the once-clear boundaries between the S-Class and the rest did become somewhat blurry.
Launched in 2013 for sales beginning in 2014, the sixth-generation W222 S-Class was a massively important car for Mercedes-Benz. Not necessarily from a sales perspective, as luxury saloons represent a tiny part of the market nowadays, but as a corporate statement of intent.
To bring more range identity to Mercedes’ products, the new S-Class shared design elements with the W213 E-Class and even the W205 C-Class, but it was leagues ahead of those junior models, not just on tangible stuff like equipment and powertrains but also in what it stood for. The tank-like W140 of the '90s is often described as the last ’proper’ S Class. The W220 and W221 that followed it from 1997 to 2013 were tech-packed but, some said, less comprehensively engineered than the 140, making them very expensive to run when things went wrong – which they did. The reputation not just of the S-Class but of Mercedes generally took a big nose-dive during the time of those two models. It was the job of the W222 to repair the reputation they damaged.
The growth of hybridisation and electrification has brought a bewildering level of choice to the market. The S-Class range, once a bastion of a small, sternly-defined range of petrol engines, has not escaped this trend. Most of the W221’s engines were carried over to the W222, but that was just the start. It could be had with up to twelve engines, from a 2.0-litre four to a 6.0-litre twin-turbo V12, via a collection of diesels, petrols and hybrids.
Somewhere in that lot was what used to be regarded as the obvious S-Class choice, the S500. That’s the model we’ll be focusing on here in our buying guide. Historically, the S500 had a naturally aspirated 5.0-litre petrol V8, but boot badges aren’t an accurate guide of displacement these days. Sure enough, the W222 S500 had a 4.7-litre V8, a direct injection engine derived from the old port-injection M273, but the presence of two turbochargers was a handy compensation for the missing 300cc, endowing the S500 with a four-second 0-62mph time and effortless thrunge courtesy of 516lb ft at 1,800rpm.
We’re concentrating on the saloon here and not the coupe or cabriolet simply because the saloon has surely established itself as the archetypal S-Class. The W221’s bulging wheelarches were deleted on the W222, whose ‘dropping line’ body style was inspired by Mercedes cars from the '30s. The W222’s grille was larger than the W221’s but that didn’t stop it achieving a lower drag coefficient of 0.24. In fact, the W222 was the most aerodynamically efficient S-Class ever.
It was also the first car in the world to replace all conventional light bulbs, inside and out, with a total of almost 500 LEDs, 300 of them in the ambiently-lit cabin. On top of that it was the first car to be able to detect bumps in the road via the stereo cameras of Road Surface Scan and reset the suspension to deal with it via Magic Body Control, a Mercedes first that made its debut as an option on the eight-cylinder W222s.
There was a W222 facelift in 2017 which replaced the S500’s 4.7 V8 with a 3.0 straight-six turbo. If you wanted a V8 from that point your choice was the S560 with its 4.0 twin-turbo M176 engine. The transmissions also changed at this time from 7G-Tronic to 9G-Tronic. Is the 2014-17 S500 a risky purchase, especially at the sub-£20k prices you can pick them up for, or could it be the perfect choice for an upper-class taxi business? Let’s take a pleasantly relaxed view on that from inside the surreal bubble of detachment that is the W222 S-Class.
SPECIFICATION | Mercedes-Benz W222 S500 4.7 (2014-17)
Engine: 4,663cc V8 32v twin-turbocharged petrol
Transmission: 7-speed auto, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 449@5,250-5,500rpm
Torque (lb ft): 516@1,800-3,500rpm
0-62mph (secs): 4.8
Top speed (mph): 155
Weight (kg): 1,995
MPG (official combined): 32.8
CO2 (g/km): 199
Wheels (in): 18
Tyres: 245/50
On sale: 2014 - 2017
Price now: from £20,000
Note for reference: car weight and power data is hard to pin down with absolute certainty. For consistency, we use the same source for all our guides. We hope the data we use is right more often than it’s wrong. Our advice is to treat it as relative rather than definitive.
ENGINE & GEARBOX
First, a confession. We’re focusing on the S500 here, but in all honesty the ULEZ-compliant 255hp 3.0 V6 turbodiesel in the S350 CDi had more than enough torque and performance for most with a 6.8-second 0-62mph time, 50mpg cruising potential and 600-mile range. On the motorway the diesel engine is all but silent, disqualifying the usual reason for hating this type of powerplant. However, while we’re not aware of anyone hating petrol-engined cars, an active dislike for diesel power definitely does exist, plus they can suffer from the same EGR/DPF/seized glowplug problems as any other diesel, so we’re sticking with our straight (i.e. not the plug-in hybrid) S500 plan here.
It’s early days yet, but there are plenty of signs to suggest that the M278 unit in the S500 could go down in history as one of the last great Benz petrol engines, especially as electrification means there aren’t going to be many more Mercedes cars competing for a place on that list. They’re wonderfully refined and powerful, and long-lasting too if you keep up the maintenance, but they’re not faultless. High-mile M278s can suffer from problems with the timing chain tensioners and check valves, typified by a rattle on startup. Mercedes put out a service bulletin on that, replacing the faulty components and installing a check valve in the oil supply bores. If a car you’re thinking of buying missed out on that, independent M-B specialists know about it and will be well-placed to help you out with it. Carbon buildup is also a possibility with direct injection engines like this one so it pays to give the car a good thramping every now and then.
Oil lines on cars made between August 2018 and April 2019 were found to have been made from inferior materials. There was an S500 recall to sort out potentially leaky turbo oil feed pipes. Some cars have had an issue with the wiring harness sending a bogus camshaft signal to the start-stop system, causing the engine to cut out and requiring the driver to come to a complete stop and to put the transmission into Park before going for a restart. In almost every case start-stop problems were down to a weak auxiliary battery. There were over a hundred electric motors and associated modules in the W222 so it would be unrealisic not to expect trouble at some point with one or more of them.
Some seven-speed gearboxes had valve body and conductor plate problems. This trans was also known for occasionally hard shifts between second and third gears, up or down, but a software update seems to have sorted that out. A vibration through the wheel at low revs (1,000-2,000rpm) suggested wear to the engine mounts.
CHASSIS
We mentioned in the Overview about the Magic Body Control that was an option on 8-cylinder S-Class models. The next step on from the Active Body Control hydraulic suspension, MBC could detect upcoming speed humps and the like and hoist the suspension to turn them into flat bits of road. All S-Classes had continuously operating adaptive damping (ADS PLUS) and an enhanced version of the AIRMATIC air suspension, something that hadn’t enjoyed a spotless reputation for reliability on other Mercs but which seems to have improved on the W222. It needed to, as the cost of putting faults right on the ABC system was scary and you can be sure it will be at least as bad on the MBC if it goes wrong.
From a dynamic, throw-it-into-corners point of view, the lightly-steering Merc wasn’t as on point as an Audi A8 but its peaceful ride and feeling of solidity generated a very relaxed state of mind on long journeys. You couldn’t get the W222 S-Class with 4MATIC all-wheel drive in the UK, but as you might expect the S500 had a mega-suite of safety tech including Distronic radar assist to help you keep a safe distance from the car in front. It was a pity that the Distronic control units on S-Classes made in the second quarter of 2019 were prone to failure, triggering a knock-on failure of the active brake assist feature.
We’re fairly sure that all W222s started off with Continental runflat tyres which weren’t universally well-liked. Owners who have possibly risked voiding their warranties by switching to Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 non-runflat tyres have been very complimentary about them. They cost between £312 and £387 each from an outlet like Blackcircles. Bridgestone Turanza Serenity Plus also get good reviews from users but these don’t appear to be available in the UK. W222 wheels have a reputation for cracking on poor roads.
BODYWORK
Car designers need to watch their step when penning large cars like the S-Class. They need to affirm the buyer’s sense of self-worth while not giving offence to the peasant classes to which most of us belong. They need to communicate a sense of strength and power alongside a sense of elegance and visual appeal. Throw in the expectations that come with such an iconic model and you begin to see how tough the S-Class designer’s task is.
With all that in mind, it’s easy to admire the balanced look of the W222. If you wanted to make more of a statement, an AMG Line car with sharper wheels will do the job, but the normal car in regular wheelbase format walked a clever line between stair-domination and subtlety. It was imposing but also inoffensive. You wouldn’t expect to come out of a posh restaurant to find it had been keyed.
The slope of the rear was classy. It did compress the back window somewhat, reducing the field of view, but the surround-view device took most of the fear out of tight manoeuvres and fully automatic parking was also available, although that system turned its nose up at spaces that were on the small side of generous. Sunroofs on early cars sometimes had trouble opening properly, only going up on one side and not the other. Some roof panels have actually flown off, generating a recall. The automatic adaptive lights were tremendously effective on country roads.
INTERIOR
Climb into a W222 in 2024, a full decade after it was launched, and you’re likely to be at least as awestruck by the undated look of the cabin design as by the obvious quality of the materials and construction. The two backlit screens in front of the driver effectively turned into one super-impressive widescreen unit at night. Screen resolution, even on the usually blobby rear-view screen, was crisp and sharp, partly because there were no fingerprints on them: everything was controlled by buttons or by the lovely centre console dial, unlike the current W223 which has gone down the touchscreen route.
The car was connected to the internet via the Comand system but there have been uncommon instances of shutdown, blank screen and navigation difficulties. In fairness, you could say the same thing about many other cars. Although it’s also fair to say that BMW’s iDrive operating system was much easier to use than the Benz’s.
Other aspects of the cabin, like the column-mounted gear selector, made you wonder why all cars weren’t like that. The script on the part-wood steering wheel was perhaps a bit too Miami but the wide ‘dynamic’ seats took good care of any shape of human by gripping your body with adjustable bolsters and automatically inflating the opposite bolster to support you through a corner. The massaging and heated front seats could also generate a ‘hot stone’ treatment effect to replicate the placement of hot rocks on common trouble areas for the human back. Fab.
Heat could be pumped not just through the seats and the steering wheel rim (which was slightly offset to the left in RHD cars) but also into the front and rear armrests. Not sure if you could toast bread on those armrests, but if you gave it long enough it might work. Sometimes the leather on the centre console armrests would get baggy. The leather on the dash top was, more often than not, not leather at all but a convincing impersonation of it.
One thing you need to be aware of when buying a used W222 is the variability of specs you’ll find on the used market. Some cars will have everything you could dream of and more, but others will be missing stuff that you might think would have been standard on a car of this value. It all depended on the needs of the first buyer. Clearly even the most pov-spec S-Class is going to be more luxurious than the vast majority of other road traffic, so you’re unlikely to feel short-changed on equipment. Some buyers might actively want a low-spec S-Class in the hopes that it might reduce the bork factor.
Unless you got the long-wheelbase model with nearly a foot of additional space between the front and rear seats you might consider the legroom in the back of the standard car to be adequate rather than excellent. The rear executive seat package, a £4k option, included reclining chairs and gave you a real first-class air feeling. The 510-litre boot with underfloor storage was plenty big enough for a family’s chattels, although the space was badly compromised when the between-seats fridge was fitted.
One of the S-Class firsts in the W222 was the reading out loud of your text messages and emails. That’s probably something you’d want to disable on day one. It was nice to be able to feed your choice of scents through the climate control system though. Elsewhere, the Burmester sound system was incredible. Unusually, the woofers in the sound system were located in a 40-litre space by the firewall. This space acted as a resonance chamber to add fullness to the sound. It also freed up more stowage space in the doors where the speakers would normally go.
Along with seemingly just about every other car built in the latter part of the 21st century there were problems with airbags, specifically with some parts of them flying off when the bag was triggered. In other cases the main power supply could be disrupted by airbag ignition, disabling other potentially useful safety systems like the automatic door release mechanism. That should have been put right on any used cars you might find by a recall that was issued in July 2017.
Rear seatbelt extenders didn’t always retract as they were supposed to, exposing occupants to a risk of injury in the event of an accident, and front passenger seatbelt pretensioners couldn’t always be relied upon to operate correctly. Both were subject to recall action. Software issues affected the Call emergency call system on cars built between 2018 and 2020.
PH VERDICT
The W222 was a big step in the right direction for M-B. It did a fantastic job of insulating you from the outside world, which is a major asset if you do most of your driving in cities. It has quite rightly acquired a band of admirers, something that doesn’t seem to have happened to quite the same extent with its successor, the 2020-on W223 S-Class. The external styling of the W222 is arguably more elegant than the W223’s, and many might come to the same conclusion about its interior, the W223’s being dominated by a Tesla-style tablet and oblong driver instrumentation screen. For many, the W222’s softer dash and vent design will be easier on the eye than the W223’s more brutalist look.
It’s no easier to nominate the ‘best’ S-Class than it is to pick the best sportsperson of all time. There are just too many variables. However, if you were to put the W222 right up there in the top three, or even the top two (the other one being the W140) you wouldn’t get much of an argument from us. Sure, it isn’t perfect. It’s hamstrung by the same faults that affect so many other cars nowadays, but when it’s going well in a W222 it’s going very well indeed. If you’re worried, buy an approved used car and keep the warranty going.
Going down that route will obviously be more expensive in the short term but might pay off if you intend to keep the car for a long time. If you’re more of a risk-taker, the most affordable W222 on PH Classifieds at the time of writing in September 2024 was a 2015 S400L with the 3.5 V6 hybrid powertrain. The 221,000 miles on the clock explained the price of £12,990 but if someone told you it had done 22,000 miles you wouldn’t argue.
Our guide is about 4.7 litre S500s though, so let’s not get distracted. You’ll need at least £20k to bag one of those. At that money, it will have around 100,000 miles on it but unless it’s been horribly abused few will suspect it’s done anywhere near that. The cheapest S500 on PH as we went to press was this 64,000-mile AMG Line car at £1 short of £23,000. For a couple of grand more here’s a 34,000-mile AMG Line with a pano roof and no apparent signs of wear. For another £4,500 you could match that mileage with this car but you’d be knocking two years off its age.
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