[S350L-E240]

Hello all,

This may come as a surprise but one of the finest luxury car in the Indian market in terms of comfort, value, status, power and refinement only got better. The upgrade comes without any additional features or cost, and being a SKD it offers you loads of standard features and lesser RTO tax which in my city doubles for a CBU.

If you remember Mercedes replaced a lot of it's engines in the S-Class few months back and India finally gets the new 4.7L upgraded engine in the S500 model cars, anyone buying the S500 please do ensure you ask for the new block unless ofcourse you prefer to negotiate a good deal for some of the old S500's which is not a bad car either and you could knock off a lot of money for the left over cars depending on how many are available.

Some tech specs of the engine are as follows, (old S500 in brackets)

V8 - 4663 cc (5461)
429 Bhp @ 5250 RPM (369 @ 6800)
700 Nm @ 1800 - 3200 RPM (505 @ 2800 - 4200)
0-100 5.0 (5.4)

Best is it uses only 9.4 L of fuel for 100 KMs in a combined cycle, which means 10 Km to a litre of fuel in idead conditions with a combination of urban and semi urban drives.

A lot more information on the engine

With that amount of torque it manages to take the S-Class from 0-100 in 5.0 seconds, but auto motor sport recently tested it and got 4.8 but of course that is using the premium fuel in the EU expect this time to go down for India. What I fail to understand is why Mercedes India has made no efforts at all to even announce that this engine is now available,

Please see the test data from Auto Motor & Sport (German issue Aug 2011) when they tested the new S500 against the new Audi A8 4.2 and you will realize the S500 is one fast car, being heavy and old now with less than 8 months left in it's lifecycle imagine what the next S-Class will do?

Some notes about the test, Audi is equipped with Quattro and the S-Class is only RWD, and if you notice after 80 the Mercedes pulls away like a beast, even 0-40 is similar making Quattro do little to help it get faster, and due to the water mark one cannot see the last few numbers and they are 0-180 / 0-200 & last one is 0-400 Meters!

Regards,

[Sahil]

Those are some impressive torque figures, an impressive jump compared to the outgoing engine.
MBIL should have made some noise in the media about this and rebadged it as the S550 to get extra glare.
A year down the line when the new S is launched, this current gen S500 with this updated engine will be a steal to buy at a hefty discount.

What updated features does it get?

[S350L-E240]

Sahil,

No features added as the S500 already comes with everything as standard and the only thing missing is Distronic which they will not add until the system is laser based.

Regards,

Originally Posted by Sahil

Those are some impressive torque figures, an impressive jump compared to the outgoing engine.
MBIL should have made some noise in the media about this and rebadged it as the S550 to get extra glare.
A year down the line when the new S is launched, this current gen S500 with this updated engine will be a steal to buy at a hefty discount.

What updated features does it get?

[S350L-E240]

The range again has been expanded by an extremely low priced variant the S300L, the price for which is 7,758,667 Ex-Showroom Ahmedabad. This is almost 10 lac cheaper than the lowest S-Class the S350 and this will massively pull the S-Class ahead of an already winning segment.

I knew this model was coming but always was under the impression it was going to be Short Wheel base, but looks like change of plans at the last minute or perhaps an error in price list? Can someone shed more information on what features are missing on this compared to the other models?

Next will be the S-Class Grand Edition / Final Edition, wait for this space!!

Can someone shed light on what engine is this? It's not available anywhere in the world as far as I know and I checked UK / Germany / USA and it is not mentioned so could someone shed better light? And if this is only India spec then am I assuming the volumes are good enough now to have it's own engine variant for our country?

Regards,

P.S Found the engine info from Hong Kong site, It's a 3.0L block of the M272 engine 231 PS (170 kW; 228 hp)@6000, 300 Nm@2400-5000. (Source Hongkong Site / Wikipedia) Not bad takes the car from 0-100 in 8.2 seconds.

Also could a mod please edit the topic and include the S300? Thanks in advance.

[rrsteer]

Originally Posted by S350L-E240

this will massively pull the S-Class ahead of an already winning segment.

S350L-E240 any idea why Mercedes was not reporting individual sales figures for the S class through most part of this year? I assumed that it was because their flagship sedan took a beating from A8 and they did not want the number to say anything further.

[S350L-E240]

Rrsteer,

No clue but if you see recently the numbers from the 3 germans are quite slow and mostly they are only giving total sales for a month its been a while all are reporting individual numbers and I can assure you the s class has mostly been leading the segment but in few months the 7 has given it a tough fight but as it stands in terms of sales volume the A8 has not managed to pull a lot as much as it should have and the S has a huge advantage of being assembled here so almost every gizmo is standard and they also offer the S500 assembled here.

What's amazing is if in its final year if the car can sell so well imagine what the W222 will do from March 2013.

Current overall market postions are

1. S-class
2. BMW 7
3. A8
4. Jag xj
5. Panamera

Regards,

[Sahil]

Good move by MBIL on getting the S300. I like that they have finally pulled up their socks with the on slaught of launches.

Eager to see what BMW does to counter. They ought to begin assembling the 7 here. Maybe they will launch a 730iL to counter this? Or better still assemble the cars here, drop the 730Ld price to 77 and get a 735Ld or 740Ld. Unfortunately both those not exist, hope India is the first to get these! Wishful thinking

[scooby05]

Can anyone here, help and tell me a fair price for a S500- '06 in good condition, one of the first imports of the new S class by mbil CBU.
I am getting tempted to buy this just for the fun of once again owning these barges!

[S350L-E240]

Hello,

2007 S500 was recently sold at 59, also there is a 2010 S for sale was about 70 but will check if it still is available and update you,

But you are looking at 50-60 depending on the condition and running,

Regards,

Originally Posted by scooby05

Can anyone here, help and tell me a fair price for a S500- '06 in good condition, one of the first imports of the new S class by mbil CBU.
I am getting tempted to buy this just for the fun of once again owning these barges!

[scooby05]

Originally Posted by S350L-E240

Hello,

2007 S500 was recently sold at 59, also there is a 2010 S for sale was about 70 but will check if it still is available and update you,

But you are looking at 50-60 depending on the condition and running,

Regards,

I think 50+ is too much for a 6 year old 500. A new one today would be 1.10 with all the discounts. I would not value her more than 40/42.

[ppr]

Hi
How has the reliability of these cars from late 2011 / early 2012 been? Have they been more reliable than the cars from the previous decade?

How is the S500 in particular? If I buy a 3 year old S500 in good condition, will there be a lot of maintenance issues in the next 3 years or so? What will the service costs be like?

[ppr]

Originally Posted by ppr

Hi
How has the reliability of these cars from late 2011 / early 2012 been? Have they been more reliable than the cars from the previous decade?

How is the S500 in particular? If I buy a 3 year old S500 in good condition, will there be a lot of maintenance issues in the next 3 years or so? What will the service costs be like?

Any of the Merc gurus on the forum have an opinion on this? Would appreciate it.

Thanks