Repair-It

Finally drove the local S550.

Exterior
Relatively clean. A few very small dents, some small paint blemishes and some small scratches. Overall, more than acceptable and a lot better than the G37X I looked at. The headlights look like new, and I'm sure that has something to do with the accident in 2015. So that's really a pro. I saw no evidence of accident damage other than the above average headlights. Wheels had some curb rash so really I would say the exterior was not in outstanding condition but more than acceptable. The way the doors close is kind of unbelievable. It is this super solid like almost air pressure sound. All of of the keyless go door handles work properly. No power trunk. Space saver spare is on a 19" wheel. Of course it is.

Interior
I spent more time driving than anything else but from what I could tell the interior was basically like new. Apparently the previous owner (who passed - his estranged daughter was selling the car) used seat covers on the seats. Everything was pretty much like new. This is good but since many of them look very nice I'm not willing to pay much of a premium for this.

The drive
This was the #1 reason for looking at the car. This is a 4Matic car so going in I figured that a RWD one would be a bit quicker and lighter. The car is quiet. It's solid. The steering wheel is.....thin. It had nice wood on the top and bottom at least. The driving position was really good. The seat was comfortable (though it was not as exceptional as I expected). The overall position and visibility was really nice. Throttle was very gentle. I am sure I could get used to it but pretty lazy throttle action. More just the amount of throttle vs torque. I wouldn't say it had any kind of throttle delay. Actually, probably the single most impressive thing about the car is the way it launches from a complete stop. I put it to the floor and it instantly and seamlessly jumped off the line with a very surprising amount of snap. However, after that I was a little underwhelmed. I need more power/weight than this.

Once driving, I had a few more observations. Again, very quiet. The steering feel was pretty enjoyable. Obviously it's not fast ratio but the on center was very good and had no slop. I would say better steering than my E55 for sure. The brake feel was also a high point. It had better brake feel than my E55. The performance itself felt kind of lame but the feel was very good.

I ran out of steam writing this so I'll just link my Mercedes forum post that more succinctly summarizes my thoughts.
https://mbworld.org/forums/w211-amg/827 ... daily.html

And the pictures: https://1drv.ms/u/s!An5lt1BKvFKdqft4p9W ... A?e=9cVIVO

I called the previous owner of my E55 who, when I bought it, had an 09 S550 4Matic. I remembered this. So I wanted to see if he still had the car and if he liked it still and just whatever else he could tell me about owning one.

Notes from Bob:
He's had it for 6 years and still owns it. I asked about his quick overall thoughts and he replied with "Good car, would buy again in a heartbeat." Again it is a 2009 S550 4Matic (W221) with about 138k. He bought it around 2014 with 85k and paid $22k. Runs great. Drives great.

As far as maintenance, nothing major, some HVAC stuff that didn't break the bank. Valve or something in dash. Starter. Wear items like some suspension items. Ball joints, tie rods, basic stuff. Brakes occasionally. Don't take calipers apart. It's like 2 piece. Harder than doing brakes on the E55.

I asked specifically about the mounts and he said yeah a RWD car would have been easier for sure. AWD mounts were like a 12 hour job for him due to 1/4" of clearance that caused all the issues. Front driveshaft in the way. We talked more about the mounts. He said the early mounts were a problem and Mercedes updated the design. For whatever reason, the previous owner never took advantage so they went early and he finally fixed them under his ownership around 120k.

I asked about major stuff like Airmatic. No issues.

Then I shifted to performance. He says he has no problem with the performance. Daughter lives in MD. Almost 25 mpg at 75.

To validate, I asked about the E55. I said, any regrets selling it? Nope. He said "What am I gonna do what that car, drive it down the street and get a fuckin' ice cream with it?" I could riff on this all day but his point is well taken. I am using his E55 way more than he ever did and the current owner of my V is using it way more than I had in many years. That's just a thing.

We talked more about performance like Comfort vs Sport mode. He confirmed that there is only one button and the choices are Comfort or Sport. It's combined suspension and transmission. In Comfort, starts out in 2nd or 3rd (mine does 2nd). Cushy ride. Sport is stiffer.

I said I was considering a RWD car. I wanted to avoid maintenance hassles of the AWD car for example. He didn't think the AWD was a problem. In his opinion, mounts are "do it once and forget it." Plus the 4Matic is outstanding in the snow and I am sure a heavy, long wheelbase car like this with AWD probably is outstanding in the snow. He added that he sees zero maintenance cost to AWD.

I asked about corrosion and he claims his is pretty clean. This is good news really. This is actually his wife's daily driver and he drives his truck (like a 2020 GMC 2500HD or something).

In conclusion:
- He thought his had plenty of performance. He runs 93.
- Totally reasonable to own and would buy again.
- This confirms my hypothesis that an M273 Airmatic car is something I can easily handle owning from a maintenance/repairs perspective.
- Corrosion resistance anecdotally sounds pretty good and considering where he lives and the fact that the car absolutely sees all seasons, that's reassuring.
- If I really want to make an offer on this local one I may want to get the dealer service history to solidify my decision. If she hasn't sold it.

Silver car VIN: https://www.vindecoderz.com/EN/check-lo ... X87A116691

Black New Britain car VIN: https://www.vindecoderz.com/EN/check-lo ... X27A089018

https://www.newcartestdrive.com/reviews ... z-s-class/

https://carbuzz.com/cars/mercedes-benz/ ... s550-sedan

I've run into my second AMG package car. Here is the package:

amg sport package
$5,630
AMG front/rear bumpers & side skirts, AMG 19" 5-spoke aluminum wheels, high performance tires, dual chrome exhaust

Not mandatory but it does perk up the curb appeal of these. Plus it pairs well with my real AMG.

Well I bought the local silver one. Marathon day. Got cash, met her, made offer, offer was accepted, brought car home, went to DMV, got plates. Whew.

She accepted my $12k cash-in-hand offer. Maybe I'll type out the story some day for posterity. I think I pulled off a reasonably shrewd Ed Bolian move. Probably the most aggressive negotiating I've ever done. This is now the lowest mileage vehicle in my fleet at 79k. Surprisingly it is NOT the lowest mileage vehicle I've ever owned. That would be the Fleetwood and Ranger which were in the lower 70s.

This was part of an estate sale basically but the daughter of the man who died was fairly shrewd as well. In fact the car has auction paint pen writing on the windshield....but the story on the guy who died is totally wild and awesome.

Here is the current KBB situation on this car, in Very Good condition.
Essentially I chose mechanical solidify over options. Which is probably the right move. And I think this price is pretty good. All aboard the Orlando Express. Going to use this to drive to Disney in Feb. Nice. Actually that will save big on airfare which is outrageous right now. Like $3k for Southwest.

Renamed the thread to S550 hunt. It sure went in a few different directions!

But yeah I would quickly rate the car this way:
Exterior
Clean but has a few scuffs here and there, paint chips, etc. It's silver so it easily looks above average from 20 feet. Really it's very nice but isn't in "like new" condition when you study it up close. Wheels have some oxidation and/or curb rash but are acceptable overall. I'm good with this. But because it was in a front end collision in 2015, the front end is above average. The headlights look brand new instead of all oxidizing or sand sprayed. Again this is good.

The front passenger door has a VERY obvious respray below the body crease. I think we saw this in pictures. It shows up with high contrast with my LED flashlight. So something probably got scraped and they fixed it. Unfortunately you can actually feel the paint line. I guess this is the "worst" part about the whole exterior. It's fine.

Interior
Extremely good. Maybe mint? Previous owner used seat covers and he had it since 2009 with like 58k. Everything works.

Powertrain
Seems good. Trans has been serviced so there should be no cause for concern. Engine mounts seem better than the black car though as I drive the car more I may detect subtle things. We'll see. I don't think the car has any major leaks. Knock on fancy wood. That was the point with this car. Pay a little extra and get something....in nicer condition. No codes, no pending codes, AND no DTC for like 14k miles. Take that, BMW. I did smell coolant near the radiator last week when we first looked at it. Could be radiator, water pump, not sure. Parts are quite reasonable so I'm not too worried. Rockauto radiators vary from $100 to $200. Yeah. Coolant was fine when I checked it today. But it DID have a stored code for low coolant so at some point it WAS low. I used this to my advantage during negotiation.

The M273 is a nice engine and really does feel like a larger LH2 Northstar. It has torque at the low end, middle and top. It's not a terribly exciting engine and the car is unbelievably quiet but for the mission I think it succeeds very nicely. Specs are 382 hp @ 6,000 RPM and 391 lb-ft @ 2,800 RPM (on premium of course) but most likely a round 400 hp is fair when you consider the way Germans rate engines typically though it's not as ridiculous for naturally aspirated.

From a reliability standpoint, I believe both the engine and trans have received various repairs based on the service history that covers most or all of the trouble spots. This is very good news. Once sorted I believe this is a very reliable combo, as long as you keep up on 40k trans fluid replacement (ALL of it though).

Chassis
Quite nice. Steering is great. Nice on center, nice off center. Car handles crisply in sport mode (more nimble than you'd think) and feels taut without feeling harsh. In Comfort mode it's pillowy which is impressive. Turning radius is impressive. Unlike my E55, Comfort and Sport is all you get and it's combined trans/engine/shocks. Because simplicity? Brakes are evidently new and the brake pedal actually feels really good. Best brake pedal in my fleet, easily. I did scan all 39 modules (could have like 59) and the ONLY current code in the ENTIRE car was for low washer fluid. Which is low. So that's clearly a good sign.

Misc
Again car is missing basically all the fancy options so it "just" has the base stuff. Fortunately that's still a lot of stuff. But like no power trunk, no night vision, no rear camera, no fancy rear seat A/C and power reclining seats, no power sunshades on the rear doors (at least my E55 had manual ones - this has none at all, sigh), no AMG package, no fancy wheels. It has the boring 18s. I am OK with this. Cheaper tires and nicer ride. And less chance of wheel damage on our garbage winter roads.

Notable stuff that it does have includes:
- 4 corner Parktronic parking assist. Seems to work really nicely and tells you how close things are at all 4 corners with a lot of increments.
- Soft close doors
- Power trunk pull down. Sweet! Fleetwood replacement achieved.
- Keyless go. All 4 handles work and unlike my E55 which uses microswitches these are fancy and capacitive like (much) newer cars. The power side mirrors fold in when it locks like (much) newer cars. This is a theme with this car.
- Heated and ventilated front seats (but no heated and ventilated rear seats - how will I cope?)
- Power rear window sunshade. My E55 has this so it's less of a novelty now but I do enjoy them. Great in the summer.
- Some kind of fancy 600W H/K audio but the jury is out on how good this is. FM didn't particularly impress me FWIW.
- The center speedo in the cluster is a full color LCD display. This is where night vision is impressive. But it can still display all kinds of stuff that my E55 only manages with a crude multi-color dot matrix VFD display. It works but this is quite a bit more sophisticated. Including displaying the front Parktronic display when needed.
- The low beams curve with the steering input.
- Unlike my E55 the trans calibration is pretty sluggish and it tends to keep RPMs low. Honestly I am fine with this. My E55 always wants to wind out the engine even if I am only using seemingly a little throttle. The STS has great shift points and this feels more like the STS than my E55. It has the 7 speed automatic.
- Rear seat legroom is quite impressive. 124.8" wheelbase after all.
- It doesn't seem that much longer than my STS visually.
- 23.8 gallon gas tank!! If this pulls down 25 on the open highway that is some crazy cruising range!

Now I need to figure out the aux-in situation. Unfortunately the same owner who seemed pretty good about maintenance was probably not needing aux-in....

https://www.benzworld.org/threads/07-s5 ... x.2811378/

#13 · Jul 7, 2017

Arlind86 said:
The question is where do the connectors or wires connect to?
I have been hearing that is possible without needing the ipod media which my car has but where does the AUX B6 782 3121 or B6 782 3118 cable connect to in the back? Which pins?

These two wiring harnesses go to the COMAND rear connector. I could write pin numbers here but it is much better to find the WIS documents with all related information. Google for az82.60-p-0022sx and az82.60-p-0021sx. If you cannot find these documents, I could print them for you.

Came with 2 sets of keys which is nice.

Did a short bonding session.

First I took the family around the neighborhood. It seemed to get favorable reviews for comfort and smoothness. While I was driving around the block I realized the headlight aim was WAY out. Like one was way too high and one was way too low. Perfect. It was extra confusing though because the active lighting does a lot of stuff. Well maybe just a couple things.

1) Low beams follow the curve of the road. This just works and it's pretty cool. I think this is available on lesser cars even of a similar era but it's the first time for me.

2) Separate cornering lamps that illuminate depending how sharp you are turning. They don't just turn on and off they actually fade in and out. So fancy.

Additional lighting things: You can manually turn the headlights on and pull the knob to get fog lights just like my E55. However I am pleased to report that these headlights are actually pretty decent. They are bi-xenon so on high beam it removes the cutoff from the low beam and turns on the pair of high beams. So, there's a lot of light.

Anyway got the headlights squared away, mostly. Maybe a touch too high now? It took some fiddling. Oh also it has auto leveling (as does my E55) though perhaps because it's an S-class I can see it working more. Like if you are hard on the brakes or throttle and the car squats or dives, you can see the leveling keep up in real time. That's something. This is pretty standard stuff on European cars even of the era but it's a first for me.

Once I got the headlights squared away I decided to drive in a sporting manner down that local road I like. It was dark and wet so I didn't go nuts. But results are good. This car does a fine job handling some curvy roads. The steering is really nice and the body is controlled. It's smooth. The engine is actually quite strong at part throttle. I'm not sure I ever revved it above like 3500 on my whole drive. So while I didn't try some 0-60s, in daily use I think I am not worried at all about power delivery. Good news.

After the road I tried the nav. It does actually have a voice activation feature. It is crude and makes you spell the road BUT it lets you enter an address while driving. Really, I have to say, the whole COMAND system is well designed for the purposes of keeping your hands on the wheel or at least your right hand on the center console. You never have to lift your right arm really. The controls all fall to hand. It's pretty good honestly. If this is Mercedes responding to iDrive, works for me. I think this system was much better received than what BMW did initially.

It also has traffic somehow. It must be FM. But it works, just like on a Garmin I guess. I wonder how old the maps are though. Nice system overall.

After that I pulled the infamous Daft Punk from my E55 and threw it in a spare changer spot (there are other CDs and they are very relaxing and also I saw Yo Yo Ma in there....).

So first the good. The system really cranks. It sounds pretty good though still not as balanced as my STS. But this is quite good.
The bad. There is a rattle from the rear shelf on certain notes and at higher volumes. I don't know if it is a blown sub, or something else rattling. I saw someone complain about the subwoofers making the seatbelt pretensioners rattle. I guess I will have to look into if there is an easy fix. Because other than the rattle I was quite satisfied with it. Thankfully.

Some pics.

So if I ever need a conductor plate again, putting this here to remind myself that I do NOT need to spend $1000 plus programming to repair it.

https://circuitboardmedics.com/mercedes ... cm-repair/

These guys do a reman service that requires NO programing for only $400. That's more like it. 1 year warranty. But it has to be a speed sensor issue. Codes for something else I guess require another solution.

Other info: http://www.mercedesmedic.com/must-read- ... tor-plate/

There are three conductor plates for the Mercedes-Benz 7-Speed 722.9 automatic transmission. The conductor plates are designated as models:

VGS 1 – Requires Replacement of Valve Body and Conductor Plate
VGS 2
VGS 3

The early 722.9 transmission (MY 2004-2007) identified as VGS1 on top of the TCU required that you replace both the valve body and conductor plate.

In newer units, second generation (VGS2) and third generation (VGS3) can be repaired by replacing the conductor plate and TCU unit only. The new TCU unit needs to be virgin and be married to the vehicle using SCN coding.

These transmission problems may start developing as early as 50,000 miles.

Yeah mine had a reman conductor plate (0002702600) in August of 2013 with 60k so there you go.

Oh look, a right to repair issue.

Unfortunately, Mercedes-Benz declined to sell replacement valve bodies to independent repair shops claiming that these components were related to the security of the vehicle. Yet they will sell complete transmissions. Mercedes-Benz claims that they will not sell the valve body because it could aid in automobile theft. In reality, all that was happening is that dealer had the unfair advantage of being the only one who can repair these cars, while independent repair shops were limited at being able to fix these cars.

Here's something that really sucks.

The problem is usually the speed sensors located in the conductor plate. The conductor plate bolts on top fo the vavle body located inside the transmission. If you scan your Mercedes-Benz with a diagnostic scanner you may get several error codes that point you to speed sensor faults. You can not replace the speed sensors themselves and therfore you need to replace the whole conductor plate. Luckily, the transmission does not need to be removed in order for you to replace the conductor plate.

Speed sensor. That is exactly what causes all the conductor plate failures on the 5G in my E55. I have a brand new conductor plate sitting on a shelf (that I don't need) for that car. But the thing that sucks is, it's bad enough that the 5G requires conductor plate replacement. Fortunately that plate is only $160. Problem is, the design of the 7G integrates way more shit on the plate (plus requiring valve body replacement on the early ones) AND it also includes the TCM. Yet it's still just a speed sensor issue. That's pretty awful.

More pics. Starting with my super old-ass tires. 3 of them are 2009 and the other one is 2011. That's.....bad.

And now to post what everyone has been waiting for. This is about where I thought it would end up. I knew it didn't hit the 6 figure level. Must have been some hard times back in 2007 for this person.

As a refresher, P2 includes P1 which is:

Front driver seat and Front passenger seat: : heated, ventilated, climate controlled
Audio system with AM/FM/satellite radio

And P2 is:

Front and rear radar parking distance sensors
Smart card/smart key; includes central locking ; includes ignition starter
Card key power locks

Again based on the cars I found I think everything had P2 at a minimum which is why I refer to this car as the "Base model." It isn't truly the base model but as you can see it doesn't have too much going for options. However the standard features list is quite impressive. As you would expect. The iPod adapter is nice because I can add BT aux-in easily (as long as it doesn't suck). And I guess the premium leather is Nappa like my E55. I did see some S550s that didn't even have that. It is the softest leather I've ever felt so there's that.