Warning: W220 S65 Content

"Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment" (evanmcm)
06/04/2014 at 21:57 • Filed to: S65, W220, 2006, AMG, V12, Biturbo, Mercedes, Benz, S-Class, Sedan

Don't mind me...just over here appreciating these under-appreciated machines.

Love these cars.

DISCUSSION (31)

Big Bubba Ray > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 21:59

These are my favorite generation of the S Class. So understated.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > Big Bubba Ray
06/04/2014 at 22:00

I'd put it right up there with the E39 as one of the prettiest sedans ever made. They're just perfect.

Big Bubba Ray > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 22:05

Oh ya, couldn't agree more.

Diesel > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 22:07

I don't understand the E39 love. I would drive one gladly but I don't get how it's beautiful. Personally I would rather have an E60.

chuck07 > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 22:17

This is sitting in my dream garage right next to a SL65.

chuck07 > Big Bubba Ray
06/04/2014 at 22:20

The w140 is my favorite. Some bias(I have one) some assumptions (people complain about w220 quality). They are both nice cars though.

Jarrad E Truog > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 22:31

Thats a missile. Stupid amounts of torque and hp.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > Diesel
06/04/2014 at 22:31

I really do like a good E39 (Sport package, proper wheels), but I also love the E60...also one of the prettiest sedans (I think) ever. Extremely purposeful and aggressive. Nothing else looks like it. It's funny because you can get an E60 M5 or a W220 S65 for about the same price...

sm70- why not Duesenberg? > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 22:34

Agreed. I love this generation S-class , and they are way underrated.

Funny story about a W220 S65, actually. My dad an I were in visiting a local classic car dealer who he knows, and the guy had a white 2003 S65 AMG with a tan interior and less than 30k miles (he actually has another similar one in now, but it's an S55 with a grayer interior). My dad tried to justify it to himself, but there was just no way in hell. A week or so later, my dad got an email from a friend of his and fellow car guy, of much more substantial means than ourselves. He had read that morning in Car & Driver or some such that classic cars where becoming a better investment than stocks. So he drove down to this dealer, and bought ten classic cars, just like that. He also picked up the S65. He has invited us down sometime this summer to view/drive his "collection", so hopefully I'll have that to report on soon!

Diesel > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 22:35

I think an E60 is my next car purchase. Unless I get an older Insight or a motorcycle first

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > chuck07
06/04/2014 at 22:36

Definitely. The W140 is pretty old-looking to me but they are great cars. Had a friend when I was younger whose dad had one...S500. That thing was a bank vault on wheels.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > Diesel
06/04/2014 at 22:41

Dooo it. They're great cars...tons of tech, but still fun to drive, pretty fast if you get anything other than the smallest engine choice, and great looks. Also fairly reliable so long as you take care of it.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > sm70- why not Duesenberg?
06/04/2014 at 22:44

If you do, would love to hear about it! They are excellent cars, and from what I hear once you drive a Merc biturbo V12, nothing else is quite as good after.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > Jarrad E Truog
06/04/2014 at 22:44

More or less the product of a cruise missile and a luxury hotel having sex...and then it grew wheels. My type of car.

Diesel > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 22:49

I want a V10 bad.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 22:53

Just a quick reminder of how quick these are:

And just remember that the Tiptronic 997 Turbos were quicker than the manuals because they can hold boost in between shifts. They were seriously, seriously fast cars. And it just got walked by a stock S65. Blows your mind.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > Diesel
06/04/2014 at 22:55

Just do it...you know you want to. Nothing like 10 cylinders and 507 hp of 8250 rpm furry in a 4 door sedan that can out-handle a sports car.

Arben72 > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/04/2014 at 23:29

These would walk murcielagos... They're insane machines.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > Arben72
06/04/2014 at 23:48

Yes sir...a pre-facelift one for sure. There's a video of it happening on youtube somewhere I believe. When you think that you can pick one up now for less than 25k...how can you not.

Arben72 > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/05/2014 at 00:11

To bad maintenance is high on these. Personally I'd go with an e60 m5 in that price range, but no doubt I wouldn't consider one of these if I was in the market for a cheapish insane super-sedan.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/05/2014 at 02:54

So fast! 738 foot pounds of torque!Even though I know from experience how expensive these are to work on and how much of a pain in the ass they are to work on, the want is strong. I would de-badge it and go hunting for Italians.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
06/05/2014 at 11:57

Have you worked on some? I feel like really the worst thing is the ABC...but by '06 it seems they had it mostly sorted out. The brakes are also massively expensive, but there's a company called Racing Brake that makes 2 piece rotors that are lighter and stronger than the factory AMG rotors and are half the price (even less for the rears)...then the coil packs can occasionally be a bitch if I remember. Those three things seem to be the problem areas. I remember these things are quicker in a straight line than an F430.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/05/2014 at 21:51

Yeah, I work on AMG V12's somewhat frequently. I'm actually currently replacing the heads on a C216 CL65 because someone ran e85 through it and the valves/valve seats got messed up, low compression and misfires. I posted a bunch of pics on it a couple weeks ago. Doing front brakes on it too for $3500. But yeah, those are some of the biggest and most common issues. ABC still has some issues, but nothing like they were. Most of them can be fixed by a flush and filter, but that's over $500 too.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
06/05/2014 at 22:23

Ohhhh wow that's painful. I can only imagine the bill on that, must be about equal to a base CLA 250. I'd love to see the pics, I must've missed that. It's funny, those heads are supposed to be absolutely terrible in terms of flow and breathing, do they appear that way to you?

Flush/filter definitely seems to help lots of problems now, although yeah it's definitely still expensive. One thing I'm happy about is that I know a good indy mechanic and I can fix pretty much anything myself so if I ever picked one of these up, the maintenance wouldn't scare me too much.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/05/2014 at 23:55

http://oppositelock.jalopnik.com/topless-pics-s…

I think the bill is about 25k, but I could be wrong. The heads look mediocre, I wanted to port them so badly but I don't have a flow bench nor would the customer pay for that, and there's no way the dealership would be ok with it. On a flow scale where rover v8 heads are the worst and current Mercedes F1 heads are the best, I would say these are 3-4 spots better than the rovers. I think the biggest killer is having only 3 valves. But you could easily take 4-5mm out of every exhaust port. And there are some weird machined spots that would cause crazy bad swirling. But the intake side is pretty good. Though valves with cut-down stems would help I'm sure. But even with those issues you can't really fault them too much considering the power they make. Truth be told, I was hoping the car would fall off the lift and be totaled out so that the engine would magically find its way into a future project of mine, maybe 123 wagon?

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
06/06/2014 at 00:00

Sounds about right, was thinking somewhere in there. Painful to say the least.

Wow, that's pretty bad...but it sounds like there's hope if someone wanted to do it. Been trying to float this idea to some people on the forums who are doing work to theirs, I feel that there's potentially a ton of power to be had this way. 3v is definitely a killer, not really sure why they decided back in the mid-2000s that 3 valves and 2 plugs was the way to go.

You know...cars fall off lifts all the time.... ;) That would be about the only way to get an M275 easily, considering they're what....85k from the factory?

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/06/2014 at 02:21

Well, the m275 is pretty much an evolution of the m137, so technically it started production in the 90's around the same time as the m112/113. Can't really blame people for not wanting to work the heads considering how expensive they are. There's a lot more to be gained from turbo upgrades, increasing boost and optimizing engine software. I think I had the engine priced out at 75k if I'm not mistaken. But I have heard whisperings of a new v12 being developed. Modern, 4 valve, DOHC, DI, all that. Maybe even loosely based on the m278? Who knows? Those of us in dealer-land don't usually get the juicy inside information until we read about it in an article.

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > AMGtech - now with more recalls!
06/06/2014 at 13:37

Good point. I forget that the M137 was the basis...which seemed kind of sad since the M120 was such a great engine. I guess maybe it didn't take so well to boost.

I've also been hearing rumors of this new 48 valve V12 for a while now but nothing has surfaced...I was hoping that for this round of the "big 3" cars they'd have one ready...but I guess not. Hopefully it actually happens before they decide to ditch V12s altogether and just stick with hybrid V8s. A V12 based off the M278 would be insane, power levels could be enormous and it would get decent mileage. An AMG version would surely cause the earth to rotate backwards.

AMGtech - now with more recalls! > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
06/06/2014 at 15:13

And the awesome m119 was replaced by the antiquated m112/113. Those are very reliable and smooth, but they went backwards with technology on all of their engines at the time except for the m111. I think I will ask about a new v12 when I go to class in a couple weeks.

Kean Namdar > Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment
07/19/2015 at 06:05

The S65 in this vid is mine now. Bought it last year in September. Here’s a upstart vid of it in my garage :).

The car is a monster! :)

Evan, Pope Of Jalopnik by Self-Appointment > Kean Namdar
07/22/2015 at 00:31

Thanks so much for this, how do you like it? I’m hoping to pick up either one of these or a CL65 before the year is over, depending on how things go for me. Found a rather nice blue CL that I hope is for sale in another few weeks. I’ve wanted one of these since it was announced they were going to do this. How do you like the handling on a daily basis? And how has the reliability been? Sounds great in that video.