USED Mercedes-Benz S-Class Saloon (06 - )

My car

This is second review my s320sdi is eighteen months old i have had a lot of bother with it, 6ooo miles on the clock 2000 going back and forth to the garage, the car is still the same, the mercedes dealer wants nothing to do with it, my next car will be a B.M.W

My car

Five months and 12000mls since I gave this car a 5 star review and now .....oh my god!!!!!!!!

Rattles galore, steering creaks clatter and bangs, gear box clunks and it keeps "coughing and chugging" sometimes when you start it.

Doesn't need the sat nav to the main dealer its been so many times!!!!!

But I still love the 35 to 38 mpg!!!!!

My car

My S63 AMG four-door is so fast and the handling is so great that 10 days later I brought another four S320s.

My car

Be prepared for a deluge of annoyances and pointless features symptomatic of the modern trend for complication! While the engineering and quality are improved no end, actually living with the car can at times be genuinely irritating.

Aside from COMAND, which is the crowbarred-in nuisance we now expect from the Germans, the single most aggravating thing is the car's seven-speed box. It holds onto the wrong gear, snatches/thumps when you hesitate (eg. at busy roundabouts), and searches endlessly on a trailing throttle.

My old S-Class allowed you to select comfort suspension and a sports box, giving you the ideal combination of responsive throttle but pliant ride. The new one links the two settings, meaning if you want fast reactions to your right foot you also have to have to have firm suspension. So it stops feeling like a luxury car.

It's also too big. The previous model shrunk when you drove it and was a cinch to chuck down small lanes. Because of the trend for high flanks, the new one can feel unwieldy and that rising bonnet and flared arches mean it's trickier to negotiate narrow streets.

Overall the new S rides superbly - it's better than any other car at any price - and is reasonably quiet, but it's turned into a computer with integrated armchairs. Heaven only knows who'll buy these things ten years from now when they technology they contain is seriously out of date and all going wrong.