S-Class (W222/C217/A217) [Spyshots] Mercedes-Benz 2014 W222 S-Class (Spy pics & info)

[HUTSUTAo]

it is 24th of march now. So can we expect a full press release 2 more days?

When Audi reps visited our office during the week of the 2012 Los Angeles auto show, the chat got really interesting once the discussion turned to the 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class. “It’s going to be good,” one rep said. “We know it’s going to be really good.” The new 2014 Mercedes-Benz S-Class won’t officially debut until this May, but those Audi reps may start feeling anxious as Mercedes has pulled the wraps off the sedan’s interior, including extensive details on the creature comforts passengers can expect.

Read more: http://wot.motortrend.com/2014-mercedes-benz-s-class-interior-aims-to-please-most-of-your-senses-342739.html#ixzz2ORrMOXlz
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[mini_cooper4]

Yes and what are these 'better' suspension options? Do you have actual information about these systems or are you just speculating?

BTW...while my questions may sound antagonistic, I'm actually just asking out of interest. I have a certain trust in MB when it comes to suspension technology aimed at maximising comfort, and other manufacturers still haven't responded to ABC after over a decade.

Not better, I never said better, tho they might turn out to be just that.
I'm not sure when it will happen and when it will enter production but it's under development currently.
How close to the ABC it is... I don't know.
I was a kid when Sachs came presenting to us the ABC and still remember how impressed I was back then... now it just moved to another level

PS: It surely takes lots of time to develop such technologies. Hopefully the competitor's project becomes reality in the end

 

[Wolfgang]

Remembering what Wolfgang said a few years ago, ABC is not only expensive but takes up space and is heavy. He quoted this in reply to my question of WHY it's not used in cars i.e SLS AMG. @Wolfgang remember!? (I listen and never forget)

The SLS AMG offers a different adaptive sports suspension now:

http://www.germancarforum.com/commu...new-ride-control-suspension-on-sls-amg.39534/

 

[Bartek1234]

I do not know if you see it but these spy pictures are false.Look at this unnatural light reflection in the car.Certainly photoshop In addition to this not risk passing through the streets is not masked by car, so I think that is a fake, doing a Mercedes?

 

[silkeye]

my experiences concern the time after the guarantee period of 2 years:

got 3 A8s with air suspensiona and at all 3 i had to change the air-kompressor and at each A8 i needed to exchange one suspension strut. very expensive repairs i can tell you.

have 2 S-classes now and i changed on each car the air-kompressor and once a suspension strut.

needed to exchange several times the relais which is responsible for controlling the right air-pressure in the struts.

needed to check the cables, which burned through 2 times.

mercedes asked me to leave the car for 1-2 days the need to check the air loss on the struts.

(and i have to pay the observation time )

i can tell you this, air suspension is very complicated, and very expensive to repair. the garages are not very experienced with it and they normally dont repair, they exchange the suspected parts.
i m not sure how well this new system is reliable, but i m afraid not. i mean if merc really developed 30 years this ABC
and it turns unreliable like this, so how reliable is the new 10 years developped new technique.
i wanna drive my car and not wait to get it back from the garage. i had enuff experiences with the w210 and 211.
spend a lot of time in the garages, until a merc ingenieur came from stuttgart to check what my concerns are.
they offered me to exchange the car, which was uneconomic for me.

as for the driving comfort, i agree on mercedes air-suspension, the car is smooth and soft - on the audis not so, the car is even on comfort mode too hard (not my own opinion - my guests say so too).

as on the dynamic side - i can only speak for these 2 cars - nothing beats normal springs.
(i know that the merc and the audi a8 have dynamic or sport modes but these turn in my eyes the struts only harder and put the car lower) - its like: i m in control, i m in control, i im control, i m in ..... shit i m not!

with the adjustable suspension on the bmw 7s - i have not so much comfort as in the s-class, but at a fingertip i can change to sports mode where the car is really more dynamic and gives me the right feedback, not to mention the free choice to set the engine in sports mode or other modes-

it depends on you what u prefer, a car which is smooth, too smooth to give you feedback for a better controlling or
if you want to be always assure that you are in control of the car but you feel some corrugations.

in real this is like: you get out of the merc after 800 kms and you dont feel them really but you never really are aware of
the cars real situation.
or you go 800 kms with the beamer and are always in full control of the car and you still feel enuff relaxed.

i mean for the guest the first option is always the best but for the driver i think the second is better.

not to forget that the right choice of tires and air pressure on them makes a big difference on the driving feeling

 

[LaArtist]

^Are you talking about the Air Matic or the ABC?

They are 2 different things

 

[silkeye]

sorry i mean airmatic

no experiences on the abc

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

It soon won't be as other manufacturers are in development of a similar if not better suspension option

Mini, please go read your previous post. You clearly said 'better'. And again, you're not really providing any solid information. So I ask again, are you aware of certain suspension systems under development, by whom and what these systems entail or are you just speculating rival manufacturers are developing such systems because it would appear logical to deduce this?

Silkeye, out of interest what models were your airmatic equipped S-classes? W220's or w221's? Also which A8 was it?

 

[silkeye]

w221 and the a8 the 2010 models

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

Wow two w221 s'class with airmatic suspension issues. I assumed by now Mercedes would have resolved them. If it were costing them too much money in warranty claims surely they would ditch it? Were they very high Km's, since your cars were out of warranty?

A bit cheap of MB and Audi to offer only 2 year warranty's in Germany! 3 years is pretty much the industry standard here.

 

[lukeswiss]

Wow two w221 s'class with airmatic suspension issues. I assumed by now Mercedes would have resolved them. If it were costing them too much money in warranty claims surely they would ditch it? Were they very high Km's, since your cars were out of warranty?

A bit cheap of MB and Audi to offer only 2 year warranty's in Germany! 3 years is pretty much the industry standard here.

I was just discussing this today, Audi in Switzerland only offer 2 years, with an additional year available for purchase. Merc let you extend to 5 years I think.

 

[mini_cooper4]

Mini, please go read your previous post. You clearly said 'better'. And again, you're not really providing any solid information. So I ask again, are you aware of certain suspension systems under development, by whom and what these systems entail or are you just speculating rival manufacturers are developing such systems because it would appear logical to deduce this?

Silkeye, out of interest what models were your airmatic equipped S-classes? W220's or w221's? Also which A8 was it?

So let me quote myself... "It soon won't be as other manufacturers are in development of a similar if not better suspension option" Got it ?And no, I'm not speculating
But let's stop spamming.

 

[LaArtist]

Well ABC is about a decade and a half old, and none of the competition has done better.

So don't bet on it

 

[mini_cooper4]

Well ABC is about a decade and a half old, and none of the competition has done better.

So don't bet on it

I'm not much into gambling

 

[silkeye]

got now 300k on them but they made problems already with 150-180k kms...
u can buy guarantee, but the inspection in germany is very expensive on these cars escpecially when u go 90k a year
thats about 3-4 inspections (between 300 and 1000 per inspection) a year.. so in 3 year good n8- plus u have to pay
the guarantee, i think the extended guarantee is a guarantee where u have to pay a part of the repair costs

 

[Wolfgang]

^ Arnott makes replacement parts for the Airmatic.

https://www.arnottindustries.com/part_MERCEDES-BENZ_yid18.html

 

[Wolfgang]

S-Class AMG spotted near Signal Hill Capetown.

Pictures: © Tim Steigert 2013 for MB Passion


Right on Signal Hill above Cape Town in South Africa the new S-Class in AMG version was caught, apparently for speed tests.

Not only in Europe, but the new series of the S-Class is also tested in other climates, and will be shown for the first time publicly on 15 May 2013. Our pictures were taken on Signal Hill above Cape Town in South Africa - and show the AMG version of the new S-Class (222).

Even though our information so far is sparse: Mercedes-Benz will once again offer the flagship model in an 8-cylinder S 63 AMG, but also an S 65 AMG with 12-cylinder will return as well. The S 63 AMG (type 222.178) is powered by the M157 DE 55AL engine and its premiere will be held after the standard version of the S-Class, as usual.

The ECO / start / stop function will be offered, but is probably of little interest in the S63. The 7G-TRONIC PLUS will be installed from the start, with the 9-speed gearbox to follow later. The S 63 AMG will comply with Euro-5 emissions as expected.

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

LOL...Mini, I simply don't understand what you're getting at and what point you are trying to make beyond speculation as you certainly haven't provided any evidence or other forms of support to your claim that other manufacturers are working on similar IF NOT BETTER suspension systems. The questions I asked were pretty straight forward. Up until now I wasn't doubting your claim but was simply interested in knowing who (BMW or AUDI or other?) was working on what, and you appeared to have some information on the topic.

Without any evidence to support what you are saying, is akin to me saying Mercedes is working on a spaceship that will be similar to IF NOT BETTER than NASA's.

Anyhow end of topic on that. There's no point arguing.

That's very interesting Silkeye. I always assumed they would have had airmatic bulletproof by now. I wonder where manufacturers will draw the line on these 'innovations' and 'luxuries' that would simply become uneconomical to repair when the car is 5-6 years old. The lifecycle of these cars will become significantly shorter, unless people will be happy driving them around with numerous mechanical and electrical issues.

 

[bmwownage]

I do not think that was the case at all.

Merc was trying to bring back the angular, boxy designs of the golden era of w126 and w140 unto the modern world, post rounded designs era of w211 and tons of peanut headlight variants of C, E, and S.

The E was the first to embrace this new design, but Mercs approach clash with efforts from BMW and Audi which embraced organic lines.

Turns out, more people prefer organic designs so Merc made a total design direction correction.

But IF that boxy design was more popular than competition, we would now be seeing a very angular, boxy, vault like interior of the new S. An ultra modern W126 interior, if you would.

My point is, it was not intentional.

When was the last time they were "right"? 1990's, 1980's? problem is always, they have an idea which is OK, i mean the boxy shape of the E class really isn't a bad idea at all, the interior resembles some W124, maybe the execution wasn't quite there, they didn't go far enough i guess, and you have a car a bit mixed up that it doesn't really know what it is. IMO the pre FL E class looks pretty OK, you know, at least there is a point..the pontoon line thing worked better on the E-coupe than the sedan i think because they didn't exploit it enough. So you see whatever idea they had, and saw the competition doing better, they never hang on. Compared to Audi and BMW, it's a mess...you see Audi had their language and adopted some flame surfacing from BMW and it never changed; BMW despite the Bangle era, at least i don't think they full departed and exploited/cleaned up from Bangle's designs, instead of a "total design direction correction". There are lots, i mean MB used to have the LED fogs as DRL, don't know since when this changed to this strip of LED or something running on the top edge of the headlights. Of course the end product is OK, some people would think wow something new from MB again, but people who know better, would realise it might just be something inspired from others, and frustration thing is that it keeps happening. No denial that this car looks pretty good again despite i think some of the elements isn't too good, i think the front wheel arc, such a shape on a car as big as this, is a little silly looking~ it totally reminds me of the pre FL E46 wheelarc.

 

[Huckfeldt]

When was the last time they were "right"? 1990's, 1980's? problem is always, they have an idea which is OK, i mean the boxy shape of the E class really isn't a bad idea at all, the interior resembles some W124, maybe the execution wasn't quite there, they didn't go far enough i guess, and you have a car a bit mixed up that it doesn't really know what it is. IMO the pre FL E class looks pretty OK, you know, at least there is a point..the pontoon line thing worked better on the E-coupe than the sedan i think because they didn't exploit it enough. So you see whatever idea they had, and saw the competition doing better, they never hang on. Compared to Audi and BMW, it's a mess...you see Audi had their language and adopted some flame surfacing from BMW and it never changed; BMW despite the Bangle era, at least i don't think they full departed and exploited/cleaned up from Bangle's designs, instead of a "total design direction correction". There are lots, i mean MB used to have the LED fogs as DRL, don't know since when this changed to this strip of LED or something running on the top edge of the headlights. Of course the end product is OK, some people would think wow something new from MB again, but people who know better, would realise it might just be something inspired from others, and frustration thing is that it keeps happening. No denial that this car looks pretty good again despite i think some of the elements isn't too good, i think the front wheel arc, such a shape on a car as big as this, is a little silly looking~ it totally reminds me of the pre FL E46 wheelarc.

I am 100% sure that BMW also once screwed up.

I own both e46 and e90 and can totally tell the major screw up they did with the symmetrical interiors of e90, e60 and their generation.

In fact, I can forget that the e90, e60 ever existed.

E46 goes to F30, e39 goes to F10, it is like their spiritual successors already.