SLS Upgrades

[Palmball]

Getting a bit excited now chaps....I'm heading out to Germany tomorrow evening to take my SLS to the AMG Performance Studio for some upgrades

The main one being....the new GT gearbox software I've checked and double checked with AMG that I'm definitely getting the proper GT spec gearbox because, on other forums, other owners (admittedly US based) have been told categorically that they cannot have GT software on their non-GT SLS. The only dealer supplied 'upgrade' available is a new software update which is apparently much better, but still no GT. However, it seems that only the Performance Studio in Affalterbach can do the GT software as they change the gearbox ECU (TCU?), code it to the car and effectively change the 'factory spec' of the car. I guess time will tell.

I had considered getting the GT ride control suspension and ceramic brakes too but at the best part of £25k for both of them, whilst being a relative bargain compared to a new GT, it was still too rich for me and in any case, the standard brakes and suspension aren't that bad!

I am however having the new gearlever (with embossed AMG logo and as fitted to the latest AMG's) and my steering wheel re-trimmed with new leather and alcantara (the current alcantara has lost it's fluffiness, despite the car only having done 6k miles ) - but this time I'm having porcelain stitching to match the rest of the black/porcelain two-tone interior.

It's a bit of Top Gear-style challenge really as I'm meant to be going on holiday very early Thursday AM. So, deciding it best to take the car to Germany whilst I'm away, I'm heading out there straight after work tomorrow (using the Hull to Rotterdam cruise ship ...having used that fine service before I do wonder if the SLS will even get on the ship??), driving to Stuttgart, catching the evening flight home and meeting the missus at Heathrow to catch our flight for our holiday. She will go insane if something goes wrong and I miss my flight from Stuttgart

[iluvmercs]

Palmball! You're not happy with an AMG unless it's visited their Performance Studio, are you?
As ever, please keep us updated

Darren

[orbtar]

Would be interested to see what they charge for these upgrades. I am not sure whether to keep mine and have the upgrades or to go for the new model. I am sure that you'll let us know how good the upgrades are when you return from your holiday.

[mickyveloce]

Good post . My father in law is in Germany now with his 2010 SLS . He`s visiting the AMG factory ( no cameras allowed!) and onto some friends in Bavaria .

In relation to the ferry , the car fits just fine . When he collected the car and drove it back to the UK , the ferry staff created an extra big space for him !

[Palmball]

mickyveloce said:

Good post . My father in law is in Germany now with his 2010 SLS . He`s visiting the AMG factory ( no cameras allowed!) and onto some friends in Bavaria .

In relation to the ferry , the car fits just fine . When he collected the car and drove it back to the UK , the ferry staff created an extra big space for him !

Funnily enough, I've just got on the ferry (without any problem) and was offered to have my own section 'out of the way of everyone else'! Haha, I've never been offered that before! I politely declined and slummed it with the masses

Looking forward to finlh getting to open the taps on it tomorrow

[Lagerlout]

Do me a massive favour mate? If you see an Allanite Grey Magno car of any description out there, please take some pics? I am speccing an SL63 and can't find any decents pics of the colour...

[Palmball]

orbtar said:

Would be interested to see what they charge for these upgrades. I am not sure whether to keep mine and have the upgrades or to go for the new model. I am sure that you'll let us know how good the upgrades are when you return from your holiday.

Gearbox upgrade is a steal...well, relatively speaking. €1,500+vat which, when you consider the only real reason to buy the new GT is for the 'box upgrades, it really is good value. And somewhat a surprise that AMG have even entertained doing it hence I felt the need to clarify on two or three occasions exactly what I was getting. If the gearbox is as good as Harris says it is then I'll be delighted as it really is the only serious dynamic flaw with the car.

My steering wheel retrim with the white stitching is costing just over €400+vat and the gear lever €300+vat - neither are 'cheap', but not ridiculous either go en the quality of the work from the Performance Studio is out of this world (some may remember that I had a C63 dashboard retrimmed entirely in leather by these guys and it was incredible well executed).


The other upgrades that I momentarily considered were a lot less reasonable, if not entirely unexpected:

£12k for the AMG ride control suspension, mainly because the interior needs to come out to get all the wiring in place

£13k for Ceramics, which I somewhat expected given they're £8k+ as an option from new

[Palmball]

Lagerlout said:

Do me a massive favour mate? If you see an Allanite Grey Magno car of any description out there, please take some pics? I am speccing an SL63 and can't find any decents pics of the colour...

I'll ask if they have one.

Magnolia...is that AMG speak for matt?

[Palmball]

I clearly meant Magno...bloody phone

[Lagerlout]

Yes, Allanite is matt Palladium Silver. Crystal Silver is matt Iridium.

What are the contact details for the Studio btw? I'm having terrible trouble with MB on just simple stuff like speccing the SL and I'm interested in some bespoke options.

I wonder if there's a gearbox update available for the SL as well. I don't understand the box, in AMG mode in auto, it changes superfast, but in manual mode, it's really slow? Very odd..

[ghibbett]

Hope all goes well today, Palmball. Please keep us updated on your adventure

[iluvmercs]

Lagerlout:

Here are some photos I snapped of a G55 and an SLS in that Matt Colour - it was the first SLS I saw, about a week after the release and the new owner taking on the 'Ring!







Darren

Edited by iluvmercs on Wednesday 24th April 17:31

[Lagerlout]

Many thanks, that's exactly what I was looking for!

[Palmball]

Good work Darren

And a good job because I came up with zilch today as they didn't have any of that particular colour. They had another shade of matt grey but it was a touch darker. Anyway, whilst I'm liking the look of these matt colours, I don't think they'd sit well with my OCD...I mean, I couldn't polish it and the fingerprints, think of the fingerprints!

But what a day! As soon as I got it out onto the smooth open roads of the continent, and then progressed to Germany where seeing the derestricted sign brings out the child in me (doesn't it anyone with a drop of petrol in their veins?), the car was in its element. The speed it rocks up to 190mph is impressive and on the way up there, it goes through 140-150-160 like most of my previous cars went through 110-120-130. It's so quick to those speeds that I managed to give it a blast up there on an empty stretch - I'd just not have the balls (or stupidity?) to try it when passing other cars! I actually think at the higher end it's more accelerative than my 997 Turbo was and my favourite bit was the sound of the full throttle up-change from 5th to 6th at around 150ish...very 'NASCAR'. Even the standard (non ceramic) brakes weren't found wanting on the couple of occasions that I really needed them!

When I got to AMG, there were about 30 French people there having a tour, with some of them apparently doing an AMG Driving Academy day but, despite the crowds, it was as cool a place as it always is....every AMG owner should make the trip out there at some point! Just keep your wallet and desires at home because when you see what they can do, you'll and up like me wasting all your money

I also sat in the A45 AMG that they had in the showroom. I do like the look of the new A and thought it drove nicely in non-AMG spec; so much so that I nearly got one for the missus until I realised I couldn't get on with the seats and driving position. The AMGs new seats are typically great AMG items and totally transforms what I thought was a poor driving position so I think I've just found the replacement for our E Coupe (which we got it in Jan so it's about due for replacement )

Good news is that my planned itinerary today worked a treat...I made it back to Heathrow and the missus is happy that she's not going on holiday by herself

Now I can look forward to picking up my rental Chevy Camaro SS in a few hours....... (OK, enough of the sniggers....it surely won't be that bad?!!?!)

[st4]

Andy,

when we met we spoke re the A45AMG. IMHO you should also consider the M135i and new Audi S3 RS3. What about an F type or SLK55. IMHO more interesting cars.

Or get another C er for the Mrs. Maybe even an estate, rumour has it there is no finer car...

Edited by st4 on Thursday 25th April 19:25

[Palmball]

Hi Steve....I'm in no doubt the 135i and the S3 are great cars, potentially better dynamically than the A45 will be (although that remains to be seen, previous form would suggest so). But, despite what the press would have you believe, a road car isn't just about ultimate dynamics (none of us would own a Merc if it was!).

The 135i is one of, if not the THE ugliest cars on sale today so, no matter how good it is to drive, I'd need some convincing to get over the aesthetics. A shame, as a like BMW's and how they drive/feel and we'd probably have one now if it looked more like the 135i coupe that we used to have. On another BMW related subject, we got to LA yesterday and amongst a whole plethora of other very fine cars (I love the obvious car culture in California...theres so much variation of unusual and/or just very nice cars out here ), I've just seen my first ever F12 M6 on the road - despite them being out at home for, what, 6 months, I've yet to see one in the UK! I thought it looked fantastic and visually more aggressive than the standard 6 series.

The S3, like most Audi design, just bores me. Again, it'll no doubt be 'A Very Good Car' and extremely well built (so would play to my OCD-like hatred of squeaks and rattles very well), but as far as excitement goes, I struggle to get more thrilled by it than I do with our washing machine.

So, whilst the A45 may end up technically inferior, it looks great and it's drive I'm sure will be perfectly fine (or even excellent in isolation). I don't mind saying that it wins on looks alone so unless its a dog to drive, it's a favourite.

As for a C-Class, I may as well keep the E coupe (as its the same thing but looks more stylish) and whilst my other half would love an F-Type or SLK55, they're too expensive and impractical, given we need something half useable to compliment the SLS!

[GrahamPM]

I'm kicking myself now, because I was in Germany two weeks ago in my Black Series, and only just twigged that I was only about 100kms from Affalterbach!
Good news is that I'll be back there next month, so an excuse to extend my visit my have just materialised!
Do you know if you can just turn-up to have a look around, like MB World at Brooklands or is it by appointment only?
Graham

[Palmball]

You need to book first as the tours are all personal, guided and worth it. They have a showroom with 4-5 AMG's and a few interesting technical displays but there's not much to keep you entertained for more than 20 minutes if you don't pre arrange a tour.

Best thing to do is email [e-mail] - you need to give them a valid AMG chassis number to be entitled to a tour. Keeps the riffraff out Actually, it's probably to manage volumes as they're hardly set up to do tours en-mass!

HTH

[mickyveloce]

absolutely correct . its a facility called the AMG private lounge .
as I mentioned earlier, my father in law was in Germany last week and went on the AMG factory tour which he described as outstanding .
jealous, me? oh yes.

[Palmball]

Hi all,

I picked the SLS up from AMG on Friday and thought I'd give an update on the gearbox upgrade. I'll kick off with saying that this has to be an absolutely essential upgrade to any SLS owner, as it monumentally improves the one poor aspect of the car. Specifically, if you know what an SLS gearbox is like you appreciate these improvements:


- It's much smoother in Comfort mode, particularly pulling away and manoeuvring where the take up is softer

- In Sport+ mode, it's a lot more aggressive, with larger throttle blips on the down changes and it bangs harder into gears on up changes - you can feel the gear changes more but in a satisfying way (i.e. not like an old SMG gearbox where you feel an actual delay)

- There is generally much more of a noticeable difference between the three C, S and S+ modes (before, I found little difference between S and S+)

- And then to the crux of it - whats it like in manual mode?

Well, up-changes are relatively instant and again, quite aggressive in feel. There is virtually no delay between pulling paddle and gearchange being completed so it's significantly and noticeably faster than before.

On down changes, the throttle blips are hilariously big - even at low revs it gives a massive throttle blip compared to standard. Again, even on the down change it performs relatively instantly compared to before with virtually all of the lag between paddle command and gearchange being eradicated.

- Another big improvement is that if you click 3 times (and the revs range allows it), it will perform 3 gear changes. Every time.


So, whats not so good?

Well, like all DCT's it does change sequentially so when you want more than one gearchange at a time, say dropping from 6th to 3rd, the fact that it's still not quite as quick as the best DCT's means numerous gearchanges are more perceptible. This is most noticeably in the auto modes where there is a delay if the car decides itself that it wants to change down a few gears. However, it's still much quicker than before and other than this, it's pretty much perfect. Well worth the €1,500+vat and as I said above, an essential upgrade for this car.



Whats not so good for me personally is that I've now sold it. Just one day after I got it back

I'd actually been contemplating this for quite a few weeks (even before I took it to Germany a month ago) due to some questions being thrown at me about the appropriateness of it for daily use. I either needed to buy another car and keep the SLS in the garage for weekends, or sell it and buy something that I can use without question everyday. I chose the latter, as I'm not one to have something sat doing nothing but depreciating for the majority of time. I like to properly use whatever car I have and in any case, I don't have the discipline to not use it if it was there!

I've downgraded to a new M6 which is.....considerably different! It's no SLS which means it just doesn't have the status, the image, the sound or direct 'connected' feel when driving it. I must have been the most unenthusiastic buyer of a new M6 that the BMW dealer had ever seen when I collected it but I've got to say, it's pleasantly surprised me in many other ways, not least the gearbox where BMW have again proven how to make a DCT work straight out the box....and thats despite being connected to a big, high power, high torque engine. The SLS wasn't to be any longer for me at this stage of my life - but as I'm only in my early-30's, I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity for one again in the future

I hope you have all found this useful and those of you with SLS's who choose to have the upgrade, enjoy it

Edited by Palmball on Monday 20th May 23:44