C63 test drive... any advice?
Discussion
Going to test drive a C63 next saturday.
I hope to get as long behind the wheel as possible, my main concern is traction in the wet, its going to be used as the practical family run about car driven mostly by SWMBO, so I need to make sure it not going to try and kill her at every roundabout... (no, shes not interested in test driving it, as long as its black thats all that matters)!
Anyone got one? Driven one... anything I should out look for? or pay close attention to? Any Niggles or problems...
Any general experiences with the C63 would be interesting to hear about...
Thanks
Lee
I hope to get as long behind the wheel as possible, my main concern is traction in the wet, its going to be used as the practical family run about car driven mostly by SWMBO, so I need to make sure it not going to try and kill her at every roundabout... (no, shes not interested in test driving it, as long as its black thats all that matters)!
Anyone got one? Driven one... anything I should out look for? or pay close attention to? Any Niggles or problems...
Any general experiences with the C63 would be interesting to hear about...
Thanks
Lee
Lee i dont think the car will try and kill her unless she plays with the ESP button which has three settings on it. Full ESP, Sport ESP and MENTALIST lol
My only observation is that the car does have a throttle memory so if you drive it hard and you use the full range of the gears the throttle response will be sharper. This does make pulling away gently slightly jerky at times.
You can apparently wipe this memory very easily by switching the ignition on and depressing the throttle fully but i haven't done it yet.
Of course there is also the Comfort mode C for the gearbox and this makes the car slightly move civil to drive and shortens the gear changes.
My only observation regarding the ride and handling is that the car is slightly more flighty on the 19's.
I had the local dealers C63 for a week and its running 18's and was definatively less flightly.
HTH
My only observation is that the car does have a throttle memory so if you drive it hard and you use the full range of the gears the throttle response will be sharper. This does make pulling away gently slightly jerky at times.
You can apparently wipe this memory very easily by switching the ignition on and depressing the throttle fully but i haven't done it yet.
Of course there is also the Comfort mode C for the gearbox and this makes the car slightly move civil to drive and shortens the gear changes.
My only observation regarding the ride and handling is that the car is slightly more flighty on the 19's.
I had the local dealers C63 for a week and its running 18's and was definatively less flightly.
HTH
My car doesn't have the LSD so can't honestly say to be fair and havent run it in fully yet although it wont be long now.
Drove the Demo fairly enthusiastically and i wouldnt say it was missed. The car has an electronic LSD via the ESP and it seemed to cope perfectly well.
A track day i guess would be the proof of the pudding although my concern with the Performance Pack was the sports suspension, IMO the car is just right as it is and i am using mine as a semi daily driver so didnt want it any firmer.
Drove the Demo fairly enthusiastically and i wouldnt say it was missed. The car has an electronic LSD via the ESP and it seemed to cope perfectly well.
A track day i guess would be the proof of the pudding although my concern with the Performance Pack was the sports suspension, IMO the car is just right as it is and i am using mine as a semi daily driver so didnt want it any firmer.
I have driven a CLK63 Cab at Mercedes Benz World at Brooklands, we were encouraged to drive it with and without the traction control and see what happened.
With the ESP off, on the wet portions of the circuit, anything other than the gentlest, lightest of throttles caused it to spin up the rears immediately.
With ESP on it would still swap ends on you when you did the simulated "pulling out of a side turning in front of a lorry" exercise in the wet and just hoofed it - well it did for me, but I was seeing how much it would take. Mrs on the other hand, did the same thing, same exercise, but when it started to come round on here came off the throttle a little and it sorted itself out with a bit of opposite lock (of the instinctive, untrained, unpracticed kind).
With ESP on it would also do twenty or thrity mile an hour laps of the wet roundabout all day. Without the ESP, fun, but very difficult if you have not done something like that before in something that heavy..
With the ESP on, Mrs did five or six high speed laps of their handling circuit with the instructor encouraging her, and, to be frank, she went much quicker than me, but I wasn't getting the encouragement! I had no idea at that stage just how much you could lean on the electronics. UNBELIEVABLE.
If you're not sure, I'd say a £150 for an hour with a professional lunatic at Brooklands is money well spent. Even if you don't end up buying one, its good fun and they're not your tyres!!
With the ESP off, on the wet portions of the circuit, anything other than the gentlest, lightest of throttles caused it to spin up the rears immediately.
With ESP on it would still swap ends on you when you did the simulated "pulling out of a side turning in front of a lorry" exercise in the wet and just hoofed it - well it did for me, but I was seeing how much it would take. Mrs on the other hand, did the same thing, same exercise, but when it started to come round on here came off the throttle a little and it sorted itself out with a bit of opposite lock (of the instinctive, untrained, unpracticed kind).
With ESP on it would also do twenty or thrity mile an hour laps of the wet roundabout all day. Without the ESP, fun, but very difficult if you have not done something like that before in something that heavy..
With the ESP on, Mrs did five or six high speed laps of their handling circuit with the instructor encouraging her, and, to be frank, she went much quicker than me, but I wasn't getting the encouragement! I had no idea at that stage just how much you could lean on the electronics. UNBELIEVABLE.
If you're not sure, I'd say a £150 for an hour with a professional lunatic at Brooklands is money well spent. Even if you don't end up buying one, its good fun and they're not your tyres!!
Rochester TVR said:
...its going to be used as the practical family run about car driven mostly by SWMBO, so I need to make sure it not going to try and kill her at every roundabout... (no, shes not interested in test driving it, as long as its black thats all that matters)!
We have a Mitsubishi Colt for that - cost £7K for a 5dr inc a/c.(Traction in the wet seems fine, but then its 1.1L 3cyl engine isn't going to terrify anyone - it's willing though
).I hardly drive my Merc now - I have to walk around it now again and knock all the cobwebs off.
Ive email a PH member that works at MB World, to get a bit more information on what they offer for perspective owners.
Ive done a few track days, but they were always in my own car, so never pushed beyond my comfort zone, so it'll be interesting to see what the C63 can do.
Ideally I'd like to drive on road and track back to back in examples with and without the performance pack, but I doubt ill be lucky enough to find one place to arrange this...
In regards to the LSD - the reason im concered is that having previously owned a BMW 335i which also does not come with an LSD I would always get frustrated in how easily the inside rear span up on exiting corners (and that only had 307hp)
So apart from the LSD - are there other options that are worth (or not worth it), things like the stereo... how is the standard one to live with?
Is there anything about the car you dont like? Did you test drive the M3 Saloon or RS4, if so, what swayed you to the Merc?
Ive done a few track days, but they were always in my own car, so never pushed beyond my comfort zone, so it'll be interesting to see what the C63 can do.
Ideally I'd like to drive on road and track back to back in examples with and without the performance pack, but I doubt ill be lucky enough to find one place to arrange this...
In regards to the LSD - the reason im concered is that having previously owned a BMW 335i which also does not come with an LSD I would always get frustrated in how easily the inside rear span up on exiting corners (and that only had 307hp)
So apart from the LSD - are there other options that are worth (or not worth it), things like the stereo... how is the standard one to live with?
Is there anything about the car you dont like? Did you test drive the M3 Saloon or RS4, if so, what swayed you to the Merc?
Edited by Rochester TVR on Thursday 17th July 21:35
I ordered a C63 today (Calcite white), should be with me in September
The key option I wanted was the Performance Pack (the early cars didn't have this) not just for the LSD, but also the uprated brakes/suspension to cope with all that power (not to mention a snazzy alcantara wheel) and seems fairly good value for £3000. Mercs tend to be hard on their brakes (my old CL65 + S600 managed to warp their fronts after not much use) so any upgrade possible is important to me.
It seems odd than people order their C63s fully loaded with £thousands of Surround/Harmon Kardon stuff when you've got a grunting big V8 under the bonnet and the best music you can hear is with the windows down.. and don't order the bits to make the car stop/start better. Each to their own I guess.
FWIW, I went for Performance Pack, COMAND (a must on Mercs), Parktronic, 19" rims, and that's pretty much it
I didn't order the Drivers Pack (£2000) as the Performance Pack comes with a delimit already, but the Drivers Pack comes with some track day event, which might be a laugh.
If you have questions about how to deal with dealers/discounts, drop me a message.. I learned a fair bit recently about the C63 pricing
The key option I wanted was the Performance Pack (the early cars didn't have this) not just for the LSD, but also the uprated brakes/suspension to cope with all that power (not to mention a snazzy alcantara wheel) and seems fairly good value for £3000. Mercs tend to be hard on their brakes (my old CL65 + S600 managed to warp their fronts after not much use) so any upgrade possible is important to me.
It seems odd than people order their C63s fully loaded with £thousands of Surround/Harmon Kardon stuff when you've got a grunting big V8 under the bonnet and the best music you can hear is with the windows down.. and don't order the bits to make the car stop/start better. Each to their own I guess.
FWIW, I went for Performance Pack, COMAND (a must on Mercs), Parktronic, 19" rims, and that's pretty much it
I didn't order the Drivers Pack (£2000) as the Performance Pack comes with a delimit already, but the Drivers Pack comes with some track day event, which might be a laugh.
If you have questions about how to deal with dealers/discounts, drop me a message.. I learned a fair bit recently about the C63 pricing
Edited by GT2man-2 on Friday 18th July 00:47
When I was at MB World, which was a couple of months ago, the C63s had only just arrived and weren't available and the CLS63 which I had wanted to drive was unavailable - probably worth making sure that the C will actually be there when you want it.
The other thing that I thought worth mentioning, thinking about it, is that the ESP is never fully off. If you want proof of that, watch the cars on the wet roundabout - you can see they've got the ESP off because they're sliding around but you can see individiual wheels being grabbed by the brakes...
(the restaurant is ordinary by the way, given the pricing, but if you are eating there at lunch time, worth pre-booking and getting one of the few tables with a clear view of the tracks).
The other thing that I thought worth mentioning, thinking about it, is that the ESP is never fully off. If you want proof of that, watch the cars on the wet roundabout - you can see they've got the ESP off because they're sliding around but you can see individiual wheels being grabbed by the brakes...
(the restaurant is ordinary by the way, given the pricing, but if you are eating there at lunch time, worth pre-booking and getting one of the few tables with a clear view of the tracks).
Bob Turner said:
The other thing that I thought worth mentioning, thinking about it, is that the ESP is never fully off. If you want proof of that, watch the cars on the wet roundabout - you can see they've got the ESP off because they're sliding around but you can see individiual wheels being grabbed by the brakes...
Firstly the ESP OFF is more lax than in previous Mercs (but you're right, still there).. but you can still go into DYNO mode which turns absolutely everything off.Copy + pasted from another forum
To start, the key must be removed from the ignition.
Insert the key and turn to position 1.
Immediately press and hold the trip odometer reset button until the instrument cluster beeps. There is no visual message, only an audio beep. Be patient, this takes around 40 seconds.
Press the lower menu button (it looks like two sheets of paper, the one with the writing in the background behind the blank one)
Press the up arrow button.
Press the "+" sign to disable the Traction System (turn "ON" test mode)
Start the engine, the traction system is now disabled.
To return to normal, remove the key and restart the engine. The traction control warning should no longer be in the cluster. If it is, shut the engine off and remove the key again. Then insert the key and turn to position 1. Note that the DYNO test screen is displayed immediately. Push the "-" button to enable the traction system (turn "OFF" test mode)
Note : When you first turn the key to position 1, ESP DYNO Test screen pops up, then after 1-2 seconds it may disappear while faults are displayed. If you weren't fast enough in pressing the "-" button before codes were displayed, just wait until all codes cycle by, then the ESP DYNO Test screen will reappear.
To start, the key must be removed from the ignition.
Insert the key and turn to position 1.
Immediately press and hold the trip odometer reset button until the instrument cluster beeps. There is no visual message, only an audio beep. Be patient, this takes around 40 seconds.
Press the lower menu button (it looks like two sheets of paper, the one with the writing in the background behind the blank one)
Press the up arrow button.
Press the "+" sign to disable the Traction System (turn "ON" test mode)
Start the engine, the traction system is now disabled.
To return to normal, remove the key and restart the engine. The traction control warning should no longer be in the cluster. If it is, shut the engine off and remove the key again. Then insert the key and turn to position 1. Note that the DYNO test screen is displayed immediately. Push the "-" button to enable the traction system (turn "OFF" test mode)
Note : When you first turn the key to position 1, ESP DYNO Test screen pops up, then after 1-2 seconds it may disappear while faults are displayed. If you weren't fast enough in pressing the "-" button before codes were displayed, just wait until all codes cycle by, then the ESP DYNO Test screen will reappear.
GT2man-2 said:
Copy + pasted from another forum
To start, the key must be removed from the ignition.
Insert the key and turn to position 1.
Immediately press and hold the trip odometer reset button until the instrument cluster beeps. There is no visual message, only an audio beep. Be patient, this takes around 40 seconds.
Press the lower menu button (it looks like two sheets of paper, the one with the writing in the background behind the blank one)
Press the up arrow button.
Press the "+" sign to disable the Traction System (turn "ON" test mode)
Start the engine, the traction system is now disabled.
To return to normal, remove the key and restart the engine. The traction control warning should no longer be in the cluster. If it is, shut the engine off and remove the key again. Then insert the key and turn to position 1. Note that the DYNO test screen is displayed immediately. Push the "-" button to enable the traction system (turn "OFF" test mode)
Note : When you first turn the key to position 1, ESP DYNO Test screen pops up, then after 1-2 seconds it may disappear while faults are displayed. If you weren't fast enough in pressing the "-" button before codes were displayed, just wait until all codes cycle by, then the ESP DYNO Test screen will reappear.
Is this for the C63 or other AMG models?To start, the key must be removed from the ignition.
Insert the key and turn to position 1.
Immediately press and hold the trip odometer reset button until the instrument cluster beeps. There is no visual message, only an audio beep. Be patient, this takes around 40 seconds.
Press the lower menu button (it looks like two sheets of paper, the one with the writing in the background behind the blank one)
Press the up arrow button.
Press the "+" sign to disable the Traction System (turn "ON" test mode)
Start the engine, the traction system is now disabled.
To return to normal, remove the key and restart the engine. The traction control warning should no longer be in the cluster. If it is, shut the engine off and remove the key again. Then insert the key and turn to position 1. Note that the DYNO test screen is displayed immediately. Push the "-" button to enable the traction system (turn "OFF" test mode)
Note : When you first turn the key to position 1, ESP DYNO Test screen pops up, then after 1-2 seconds it may disappear while faults are displayed. If you weren't fast enough in pressing the "-" button before codes were displayed, just wait until all codes cycle by, then the ESP DYNO Test screen will reappear.
I thought the C63 ESP OFF mode was truely off, i.e off enough for Clarkson to wreck a set of rear tyres in 19 miles or so.
Also a friend of mine just had his C63 dyno'd and the operator didn't go through the procedure you mentioned. He just did the standard ESP OFF and the car dyno'd perfectly?
P.S
Rochester TVR
I think the H/K Audio Upgrade and the Ipod integration is worth the money albeit i agree you will have the windows down and sunroof open at every opportunity so you can listen to the engine, its just that i find motorways can be a little bit boring and traffic too.
Edited by 2 5HAN on Friday 18th July 11:46
The dyno mode proceedure is a little different in my late 04 C Class:
Turn key to pos 1
Scroll though pages until total mileage is displayed
Press trip reset button 3 times in quick succession
Display switches to engineering mode
Scroll through pages for Dyno mode page and select it.
I could be wrong about this, but I think it only stays in Dyno mode for 15mins.
(One of the other pages has the oil level on it - turn the key to pos 2 and it'll give you the oil level in litres. Useful as many of these cars have no dipstick).
Turn key to pos 1
Scroll though pages until total mileage is displayed
Press trip reset button 3 times in quick succession
Display switches to engineering mode
Scroll through pages for Dyno mode page and select it.
I could be wrong about this, but I think it only stays in Dyno mode for 15mins.
(One of the other pages has the oil level on it - turn the key to pos 2 and it'll give you the oil level in litres. Useful as many of these cars have no dipstick).
GT2man-2 said:
2 5HAN said:
Is this for the C63 or other AMG models?
I think it's for all C-classes (and perhaps all modern Mercs)I thought the ESP put itself back on when you hit the brakes ? Whereas in DYNO mode, you're on your own !
Out of interest, what did it return on the dyno ?
Re the BHP, the car came back at 478bhp which apparently is not unusual as all of the cars he has done have been over manufacturers claimed figures so far, good news for owners hey!
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