**A 20,000 Mile Review: My Experience with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class**

I recently had the opportunity to review my Mercedes-Benz S-Class over a period of 20,000 miles. As I reflect on my experience with this vehicle, I am still amazed at how well it has performed. From its comfortable ride to its impressive performance capabilities, the S-Class has exceeded my expectations in every way.

One of the standout features of the S-Class is its rear seat comfort and amenities. While I didn't opt for the rear seat entertainment package, I was impressed by the level of comfort and legroom available in the rear seats. Even passengers who are 6 foot 6 or 7 inches tall will find ample space to stretch out. The seats themselves are equipped with massaging features, which were a welcome respite on long drives.

I also took advantage of the S-Class's advanced technology features, including Distronic Plus and a large center console with two captain's chairs. This allowed me to work comfortably on the go, making it an ideal vehicle for road trips or daily commutes. The center console tray tables proved to be a thoughtful touch, providing a convenient workspace for passengers.

As I put the S-Class through its paces, I was impressed by its ability to handle challenging driving conditions. From the snow-covered racetrack to the scenic back roads of the Malibu canyons, this vehicle has proven itself to be capable and reliable. Even on long road trips, such as my 35-hour journey across the country from Michigan to California, the S-Class remained comfortable and composed.

While I've been extremely satisfied with the S-Class, I have encountered a few minor issues over the past 20,000 miles. The cooled seats on the driver's side no longer function properly, due to a problem with the fans inside the seat. Additionally, there was an airbag warning light that popped up briefly, but fortunately did not result in any major issues. These issues are easily repairable, however.

Despite these minor issues, I have been thoroughly impressed with the S-Class's reliability and dependability. The vehicle has been incredibly low maintenance, with only a few routine oil changes required over the past 20,000 miles. In fact, I've found that the brake pads on my previous vehicle lasted an impressive 20,000 miles under aggressive driving conditions – a testament to the quality of this vehicle.

As I prepare to hand over the keys to the S-Class and take delivery of the E63 AMG, I must admit that I'll be sad to see it go. The amount of experiences and trips I've been able to enjoy in this car has been truly unbelievable. If you're considering an S-Class for yourself, I highly recommend it – it's a comfort and driving experience like no other.

**Technical Specifications**

The Mercedes-Benz S-Class is available in various configurations, including the S 550, S 560, and S 580 models. The S 550 features a 3.0-liter V6 engine producing 359 horsepower, while the S 560 boasts a 4.0-liter V8 engine with 603 horsepower. The top-of-the-line S 580 is powered by a 4.0-liter V8 engine producing 621 horsepower.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, my experience with the Mercedes-Benz S-Class has been nothing short of exceptional. From its comfortable ride to its impressive performance capabilities, this vehicle has exceeded my expectations in every way. While minor issues have arisen over the past 20,000 miles, they are easily repairable and do not detract from the overall driving experience. If you're considering an S-Class for yourself, I highly recommend it – it's a comfort and driving experience like no other.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enI've owned this 2016 Mercedes s550 for the last 20,000 miles it's been incredibly fun to drive the ultimate comfortable daily driver and bulletproof reliable I've done a lot of things in the s-class over the past twenty thousand miles so I thought I'd share my experience I took delivery of the car during the middle of a massive snowstorm in January 2016 I was at a party in downtown Detroit I drove my m5 there which was rear-wheel drive and needless to say not the best vehicle for the snow it took a while for them to clean the car up but the dealership graciously drove it all the way to downtown Detroit dropped the car off and let me drive it home I was instantly blown away by how capable the s550 4matic was in the snow and just how isolated the interior was from the treacherous conditions on the outside more on the snow stuff later my experience with the s550 actually started a few months prior when I reviewed one in California a direct quote from the review was I haven't lusted after a car like this in such a long time in fact the only problem I have with the Mercedes s550 is that at the end of the review I have to give it back I want one well thankfully enough I was blessed a couple months later to be oval to buy one okay for those who want to get extremely technical I did not buy this car I lease it 12,000 miles a year 120 kms RP comes out to fourteen hundred and fifty dollars a month which is a lot of money but compared to a Tesla Model S it's actually cheaper it is however more expensive than a similarly equipped BMW 7-series and a Jaguar XJ L so what possessed me to get this car in the words of my dad why did you get an old man's car now that's true the average age of an s-class owner probably is quite a bit older than I was 21 when I got this car will it start off with my needs so at the time I had a rear-wheel drive BMW m5 e39 and I had a muffler delete Lamborghini Guyardo a really loud raw car and a manual rear-wheel drive car horrible for Michigan winters so I needed something that was all-wheel-drive I also wanted something that was very comfortable that was isolated from the environment Mercedes s-class seemed to fit that bill after reviewing one night instantly fell in love with it and I started looking at other cars in the category there is of course the xjl the tesla model s p90d and the BMW 7-series the seven series never really did it for me I don't really like the interior as much as the s-class nor do I like the exterior the xjl was appealing because of the price difference the lease deals on those were way way cheaper than the Mercedes s-class the Model S obviously appealing for many reasons a lot faster than the s-class its all-electric it's better for the environment the downsides were the lease prices for a car of similar MSRP to the s-class were astronomically different $2,300 a month for a p90d loan then you factor in I was in college I was in an apartment they didn't have charging stations so there was no place to charge it and in Michigan the place that doesn't really like Tesla's for whatever reason charging it on the go would be more difficult as well but the biggest reason why I chose this s-class was the absolutely stunning interior with over 300 LEDs in the interior plush leather seats and an incredibly soothing driving experience I was sold on the car the focal point of the interior of course is the dual twelve point three inch screens of course you have a larger center screen for the Tesla but something about the way these were laid out and flow into the center - area really piqued my interest now in this review I'm an attempt to talk about the key features of the s-class that they promote that I use and the ones that they promote that I don't use and that are kind of useless the twelve point three inch screens are one of those that of course you use everyday the graphics are beautiful all of the animations they spent so much time getting this just right it's also incredibly easy to use the only difficult aspect of the infotainment system and the screens is the air conditioning for whatever reason to access the climate control settings on the screen you click a button labeled menu there's got no other indication that it has anything to do with the air conditioning other than the fact that it is called menu that brings up the temperature you can change where the air is distributed and you also have air ionization and air purification ionization I have it on all the time honestly I don't think it does much whatsoever but the purification and the air fragrance I use quite a bit the air freshener I turn on all the time it makes the cabin smell very nice and it comes in an interesting cologne style jar in the glove compartment I've got free side mood I feel so free right now let's go over some of the features that I don't use and then go over the ones that I use every day the first is voice amplification if you have a driver and you want to communicate with them and you're in the back seats or you're driving and you just want to talk to your friends the voice amplification system helps with that now I'm paying attention to the road I'm facing forward and I'm talking forward I'm not going to communicate with my passenger by going like this so clearly my voice is gonna be muffled because I'm talking in the completely wrong direction well Mercedes has figured that out they have a microphone that captures my voice and then it plays it through the rear speakers when the voice amplification is on so that the passengers and the back can hear it better the issue is it sounds very robotic and electronic and echoey so much so that it is honestly completely useless so I never use it if you're new to the channel and you've enjoyed what you see so far hit that subscribe button turn the notification bell on and join the fastest growing car community on YouTube the massaging seats is a feature that I use and also don't use predominantly I use it when somebody who's never been in my car gets in and I want to show off the fact that it has massaging seats there's six different settings from activating massage classic massage mobilizing massage hot stone rock massage active workout but my biggest gripe is they don't do all that much now it's a catch-22 if you make the massage setting really really intense so that you can feel it it's going to wear out this beautiful leather really really quickly but if it's not intense enough then what's the point I can barely feel it when I turn it on yes there's different settings for intensity I have it all the way maxed out and I pretty much have to press myself back into the seat which defeats the point of having a relaxing massage in order to feel it actually touching my back it basically is just some random things moving around there that I guess is a little bit exciting the first few times and then after that there's really not that much of a point everyone who rides in the car thinks it's hilarious yes and loves it but once he owned the car for a while it's a little bit more of a gimmick that's part of the reason why in the e63 AMG that I just ordered I got the performance seats which don't come with the availability of massaging seats because I don't really need them and I don't plan on using them that being said if I've been stuck in traffic for a long time I'm stressed out I will turn it on just to make some sort of a difference it also helps with making sure you don't fall asleep at the wheel if you've been driving for a very long time because well it's got some movement on your back the parallel parking feature is also something I rarely use now it works it works really well the issue is it likes to get your wheels way too close to the curb sometimes it uses the wheel itself and the tire as kind of a marker when it's backing up the issue is I have lower profile tires now on voor Steiner wheels that look so much better than the standard 19's that I had on the Sport Package variant of the s550 I don't want to curb them it's not worth using a Trixie feature that backs up scratches the hell out of the wheels but oh yeah it parked itself are usually just parallel parked myself I have a video on how to do that so if you don't know how to parallel park it really isn't all that tricky if you know the step Wi-Fi was something I was super excited about as a feature of the s-class until I found out how much it costs for one hundred and twenty thousand dollar car you'd think why don't you just throw in Wi-Fi service for free but unfortunately you have to get embraced and then you have to get the embrace entertainment to get Wi-Fi now it's not an astronomical price it's $28 a month but that is an extra expense and it's 28 packs of mm so right there I kind of decided that I no longer needed it although Wi-Fi is nice especially if I'm out filming at a remote location I have no cell service I need to look something up having Wi-Fi is great connecting to your laptop and sitting in basically a mobile office onto the features that I use every single day and that make this car so special active Lane keep assist and active cruise control aka Distronic plus I use this every day and it makes the driving experience of the s-class all that much better you turn it on by pulling back on the stock right below the turning indicator right now Distronic plus is set to 45 miles an hour which is the speed limit it's able to guide itself in the lines and now I'm not hitting the brakes whatsoever slow the car down to a complete stop when you're in traffic if you're going under 25 miles an hour and it's able to actually steer itself with the car in front of you if it decides to go around a sharp bend it can do that as well honestly the self-driving feature is about as good as it gets it's in the range of the Tesla Model S the only thing it does that slightly frustrates me is every 10 seconds you do have to put your hands on the steering wheel but if you give it a little bit of a nudge it kicks back into normal Distronic plus and drives itself all the while this was extremely vital and so nice to have when I drove all the way from Michigan to California and honestly when I sit in traffic every day going to location for car reviews and random vlogs I use Distronic plus and it makes it such a nice experience another feature I use all the time and passengers love as well is the automatic side bolsters when I go around a turn the opposite side bolster inflates to keep you in the middle of the seat it's those little tiny features that Mercedes adds that come together into such a amazing package honestly the first time somebody gets in this car and I go around a turn and the bolster inflates I go home my god now it's not a new feature they had this on the e60 BMW m5 but still it's a nice touch the s550 comes standard with a Burmaster audio system I listen to music every day it's not like the s550 has a beautiful exhaust note although when I straight piped it it certainly wasn't interesting but there is an upgrade the burr mr. high-end audio system comes with 24 speakers and 1500 and 40 watts of auditory bliss but more important than that are the illuminating rotating tweeters that come out of the a-pillars as you turn the car on there's also an incredible aluminum speaker in the center here and extra speakers throughout that look so so nice now is it worth it well on the e63 I decided to opt for that package I didn't originally think it was the standard Burmester audio system is absolutely incredible for somebody who's used to a normal car sound system this sounds like about as high-end as it possibly can get the scary part is it actually does get better but for a standard system Burmaster oh they killed it let's go over some of the performance figures of car shall we under the hood is a 4.7 liter twin turbocharged v8 making 449 horsepower and 516 pound-feet of torque despite the fact that it weighs 4700 pounds which hilariously enough is about the same as a Hellcat it's able to do 0 to 60 in 4.7 seconds which for a car of this mass and the purpose a chauffeur-driven vehicle or something that's incredibly comfortable on the way to your work 4.7 seconds is plenty fast and it's got brilliant traction off the line thanks to its all-wheel-drive system now there's two settings for the transmission as well as the throttle response we can put it in sport here I rarely do that but if I'm driving on back roads it's nice to have that little extra throttle response and the ability to drop down gears when you touch on the throttle pedal just a little bit now it has two-way adjustable dampers Sport and comfort I'm almost always on comfort mode because well it's a comfortable car but on backroads yet again if you put it in a sport mode it lessens body roll a lot and with the right tires not the All Seasons that it came with I'm now running Michelin Pilot Sport 4s is the amount of grip is staggering and it's able to hang with a lot faster cars than you would believe it would now I've completely shredded the brake pads I've got to get the brake pads fixed because of the aggressive driving I'm pretty sure I've driven this car more aggressively than any other s-class owner out there if somebody else has driven their s-class more aggressively let me know I'd like to meet up with you there are paddles mounted behind the steering wheel they're pretty much useless as the response time is slow at best now I've gotten my best 0 to 60 times by putting it into manual one so that the car launches from first gear instead of its standard second gear but after that it automatically up shifts on its own the rest of the controls on the steering wheel are easy to use some people think the steering wheel looks like a clown face maybe that's why they redesigned it on the new generation of the s-class not the new generation but the refresh so to speak I actually love the way it looks and I love the little touches like the hand stitching on the airbag and the nice wood trim on the top and bottom with some aluminum accents and leather where you actually grip the wheel we've got a home button to bring up all the features in the center screen here you can access your fuel economy how many miles you've driven you can even switch the speedo 2 kilometer if you wanted to do that for whatever reason finding the traction control offsetting is a seriously daunting task it's a labyrinth maze kind of thing that took me a long time to figure out I actually found it out thanks to a subscriber so special thanks to that subscriber for helping me figure out how to turn traction control off in this car now with traction control off because of this all-wheel drive system you actually can't really break traction on purpose in the dry or even in the wet it really takes a snowy or icy surface to start spinning this car around to do donuts burnout stuff like that however when you are in the snow this thing handles incredibly well with traction control on I was able to go through feet of fresh powder snow with no problem at all even in icy conditions the car was very stable I mean obviously not on ridiculous off-road that might require a truck or a Jeep or something of that nature but even three feet of snow on a normal Road this car is able to plow right through it now with traction control off you're able to pull the most beautiful all-wheel drive burnouts that extra power of having the front wheels allows you to slide it in such a pretty manner I've drifted this thing a ton of times in the snow and it is a downright blast more fun than any rear wheel drive car I've ever driven I even laughed this car around a racetrack in the snow and it was able to do pretty well the only limiting factors really is the braking but that's the same with any car you basically need studded tires for that the back seat of the s-class is likely the best place to be we've got two Sun roofs one here and one over there as well as controllable shades for both sides I can even control the shade for the other side but my GoPro is there so I'd rather not smash into it we've got a rear shade back here but this is as base as it gets for the rear of the vehicle I could have reclining seats massaging seats heated and cooled seats there's also an option for a large center console here so you have two captains chairs that looks absolutely brilliant tray tables come up so it's a full working station now that's more for people who want to be chauffeured around the reason I didn't get all that stuff is I didn't think I'd be in the rear of the car all that much turns out I was right and I saved a bunch of money by not getting the rear seat entertainment package do I wish I had it sometimes absolutely it'd be nice to have cool screens and it'd be nice to entertain people in the back but not a necessary option unless you've ridden in a phantom or a Maybach the rear legroom will absolutely blow you away no matter how tall you are I haven't had a single person sit in the car and I've had people sit in the car that are six foot six six foot seven say huh it's not really all that much leg room back here you have plenty even if you are a basketball player all right let's hop back in the front shall we so what have I done in the s-class over the last twenty thousand miles well some of which I can't say but I've taken it to the drag strip I ran a 13-point one second quarter mile I've taken it on a snowy racetrack I've driven it entirely across the country from Michigan to California I've driven it on incredible back roads in the Malibu canyons and I've driven it in lots and lots and lots of traffic when I moved from Michigan to California I thought screw flying why don't I take an incredible journey across the country in the s-class it's got Distronic plus it has a massaging seats it's comfortable why don't I try that the journey was amazing I took a friend with me he's got a YouTube channel life with Ty and we had a downright blab and part of the reason why we survived the 35 hour drive was because the s-class was so comfortable and because of that Distronic plus you just pull back and take your hands off the wheel of crews so has anything gone wrong something has to have gone wrong in 20,000 miles right well if I'd made this video a couple weeks ago I would have said no so let's go over that I got maintenance included in my lease so other than taking it in at 10,000 miles and I'm about to take it in for 20,000 miles the oil change included in my lease I have done absolutely nothing to the car and nothing has gone wrong this has been the most reliable vehicle I have ever owned I just chewed through the brake pads I need to get those fixed before I eat through the rotors like I did on my other car what a mistake that was but they lasted 20,000 miles of insanely aggressive driving these will last you a lot longer than that I promise chances of you tracking and abusing an s550 are probably pretty low but if you do you are a champion other things that have gone wrong in the month well the cooled seats on the driver's side unfortunately no longer work there's little fans inside the seats I think the fans have broken in the upper portion because the lower portion works it still cools my butt but it doesn't cool my back got to get that fixed there's also a light that pops up that says airbag warning so far it hasn't done anything too sketchy although I haven't crashed knock on wood thank God but I'm gonna get that fixed as well when I take it in for service however other than that no little electronic issues no hiccups nothing it has been incredibly reliable and dependable to drive every single day so with that I love this s550 more than I ever would have imagined the amount of experiences and trips that I've been able to do because of this car have been unbelievable and worth it in itself it's the most comfortable car I've ever owned its isolation from the exterior environment is a remarkable feat to mercedes-benz I just wanted to say thank you for creating such an incredible vehicle this is not a paid promotion in fact I don't really know anyone at mercedes-benz corporate whatsoever I should probably change that but they did such a good job with this car I feel like I need to share it with the world I'm gonna be sad when I get rid of this car once I take delivery of the e63 AMG I'm going to be getting rid of this it's been an amazing amazing experience owning this vehicle if you're on the fence about owning an s-class do it it's an incredible vehicle well I hope you guys enjoyed this video like always please browse the channel and subscribe I look forward to seeing you next video you\n"