Hey guys,

Well I'll be graduating school soon and I've got a great job lined up so I'm thinking about buying a new car in a year or so. I'll rock the LS atleast till then (190K miles and going strong), and will probably keep it longer. But I've started thinking about what car I want to buy next, it will be the first car I will pay for fully myself and since I'm so attached to my LS, I have to give myself time to see myself with a different car. Ofcourse I love the new GS, and I love the new LS.. but I've been thinking about.. an E55.. :eek2: I know, I can't believe I'm saying it myself.. but that car is truly a beast.

Let's get some 0-60 numbers for some perspective:

6.1s BMW 330i 2006
6.0s G35 2003
5.8s GS430 2004
5.7s GS430 2006
5.4s BMW M3 2003
4.8s Aston Martin Vanquish SV12
4.7s Aston Martin DB9
4.6s 360 Modena
4.6s BMW M6 2005
4.5s E55 AMG (2005)

All I have to say to that is :eek2: The E55 is truly a beast. I also love the styling of the car, and the interior is sleek and refined. What do you guys think? I could pick up an 04 or so in a year comparable to the price of what a new LS would cost. Its one slick machine. Don't know much about reliability, but I know its a blast to drive. It will be really hard to purchase outside of the Lexus family...

Suneet, I studied the wrong major :( I should have went for EECS instead of stupid MCB. Damn it!

E55 is just sick, but I heard reliability isnt that great.
-Linn

Oh yeah, the E55 is definitely a beast. My cousin has one with some performance tweaks...gets pretty fun when we go on straight-aways and go up against Ferraris, the looks on their faces is priceless when we pull away :D

The E55 is one of the only other cars I test drove before buying my GS. It is indeed a "beast", both in a positive sense regarding performance and a negative sense regarding the feel of the car. It lacks a lot of the luxury refinement and features standard on much less expensive Lexus cars, and I honestly think it looks pretty plain.

You can make any car fast, but you certainly can't make any car reliable, trouble-free, and simply well put-together.

I used to like the E55 looks wise but now it looks quite dated IMO. I'd rather have a M5.

I'd rock it.

The new E63 looks better to me and it beat the M5 in a few
comparos :thumbup:

Only word of caution is MB's quality has been downright scary
lately.

The new E63 looks better to me and it beat the M5 in a few
comparos :thumbup:

Only word of caution is MB's quality has been downright scary
lately.

I still have 4 of the 55 Kompressor cars and one of them is my wife's '06 E55. I have recently owned 2 Lexus so I can speak with some degree of fact vs perception. The E 55 is a beast but when driven normally like my wife does it is a smooth and fairly docile car. One poster stated that the car was not as luxrious as it should be. I will have to admit from an eye candy point of view that the Lexus interiors are much more pretty but I found that the plastics and the switch gear in the Lexus looked and felt cheap in comparison to the MB's. For my taste the seats in the E55 are extremely comfortable and much more supportive. Her car has the drive dynamic seats with the massage function and they are phenominal. The real beauty of the car is its stealth appearance; kind of low keyed a true wolf in sheep's clothing. One weekend when I was driving her car a new GTO pulled up to me at a stop light and it was obvious that he wanted to play and naturally I had to take him up on his challenge. Long story short there is now a GTO in the area without doors. When we got to the next light he rolled down his window and said "What the hell is that thing".

Now for the age old reliability issue. I have had almost zero defects with any of the 55 cars. I did have the infamous superchrger chirp on the S class which was taken care of by the dealer. The SL has been defect free even with the performance enhancements , the CL has been flawless and the E class still remains defect free. Perhaps I have been lucky but from my personal experience the MB's have been as reliable as the Lexus
that I owned.
For the poster who recommende that you get the E63, I have driven the new AMG and to be quite honest I did not see that much difference other than it does not have the brute torque that the 55 engines have. From what I know the 63 will outperform the 55 at speeds in excess of 100 to 110 but who drives at those speeds on the highway?

I still have 4 of the 55 Kompressor cars and one of them is my wife's '06 E55. I have recently owned 2 Lexus so I can speak with some degree of fact vs perception. The E 55 is a beast but when driven normally like my wife does it is a smooth and fairly docile car. One poster stated that the car was not as luxrious as it should be. I will have to admit from an eye candy point of view that the Lexus interiors are much more pretty but I found that the plastics and the switch gear in the Lexus looked and felt cheap in comparison to the MB's. For my taste the seats in the E55 are extremely comfortable and much more supportive. Her car has the drive dynamic seats with the massage function and they are phenominal. The real beauty of the car is its stealth appearance; kind of low keyed a true wolf in sheep's clothing. One weekend when I was driving her car a new GTO pulled up to me at a stop light and it was obvious that he wanted to play and naturally I had to take him up on his challenge. Long story short there is now a GTO in the area without doors. When we got to the next light he rolled down his window and said "What the hell is that thing".

Now for the age old reliability issue. I have had almost zero defects with any of the 55 cars. I did have the infamous superchrger chirp on the S class which was taken care of by the dealer. The SL has been defect free even with the performance enhancements , the CL has been flawless and the E class still remains defect free. Perhaps I have been lucky but from my personal experience the MB's have been as reliable as the Lexus
that I owned.
For the poster who recommende that you get the E63, I have driven the new AMG and to be quite honest I did not see that much difference other than it does not have the brute torque that the 55 engines have. From what I know the 63 will outperform the 55 at speeds in excess of 100 to 110 but who drives at those speeds on the highway?

Great write-up, that's some good input there :thumbup:

Hopefully these pics will persuade you to get one :D


My friend took these pics from the MB World Rose Bowl Meet that happened in March of this yr.

so friggin' nice :thumbup:

http://iiilgsrlll.com/Gallery/albums/rosebowlmeet_030406/IMG_0385.sized.jpg

http://iiilgsrlll.com/Gallery/albums/rosebowlmeet_030406/IMG_0390.sized.jpg

http://iiilgsrlll.com/Gallery/albums/rosebowlmeet_030406/IMG_0428.sized.jpg

http://iiilgsrlll.com/Gallery/albums/rosebowlmeet_030406/IMG_0432.sized.jpg

http://iiilgsrlll.com/Gallery/albums/rosebowlmeet_030406/IMG_0463.sized.jpg

For the poster who recommende that you get the E63, I have driven the new AMG and to be quite honest I did not see that much difference other than it does not have the brute torque that the 55 engines have. From what I know the 63 will outperform the 55 at speeds in excess of 100 to 110 but who drives at those speeds on the highway?

The car mags seemed to like the refinement of the E63. Did you
not feel that it was a better street car than the E55?

About the reliability issue you have probably been very lucky which is
great. They are excellent cars when they are working well. :thumbup:

My friend's E class was so unreliable and developed so many expensive to
fix and hard to find electronic problems that he got rid of the car and said
he'd never buy MB again. I've also seen a few Benzes just die in the middle
of the road. :sad: You can also check out Consumer Reports for which
cars have been good and bad and E class has been bad for at least 5
years. I will try to get the most recent copy and put up the info on the
E class here.

. . . My friend's E class was so unreliable and developed so many expensive to
fix and hard to find electronic problems that he got rid of the car and said
he'd never buy MB again. I've also seen a few Benzes just die in the middle
of the road. :sad: You can also check out Consumer Reports for which
cars have been good and bad and E class has been bad for at least 5
years. I will try to get the most recent copy and put up the info on the
E class here.
http://sr1.clublexus.com/forums/showthread.php?t=247903&highlight=consumer+reports ;) :)

One poster stated that the car was not as luxrious as it should be. I will have to admit from an eye candy point of view that the Lexus interiors are much more pretty but I found that the plastics and the switch gear in the Lexus looked and felt cheap in comparison to the MB's.

Your review and comparison were excellent--unbiased and well-written. Since I'm the poster you referred to, I will pull out this quote and disagree with it. I found the interior materials on the Benz to be cheaper-feeling than I thought an $80K+ car should have. In a related but separate issue, I also found the E-class interior cluttered and poorly designed from a human factors point of view. With the GS, all the controls simply seemed to be placed in logical spots with easy-to-understand functionality. I got the impression test driving the E55 that it would take quite a bit of time to learn the function and location of all the arcane controls.

In a related but separate issue, I also found the E-class interior cluttered and poorly designed from a human factors point of view. With the GS, all the controls simply seemed to be placed in logical spots with easy-to-understand functionality. I got the impression test driving the E55 that it would take quite a bit of time to learn the function and location of all the arcane controls.

To me it doesn't matter if it takes a while to learn the controls as much as whether the controls, once learned, work efficiently. iDrive for example fails on both counts (slow to learn, doesn't work efficiently) but from what I hear, on 6 and 7 series at least the voice recognition is very comprehensive and well implemented to offset the iDrive weakness.

Not having owned an E55, I don't know if the controls would remain inefficient and difficult once learned. No one I know who has or had a Benz seems to have struggled to learn the controls or thought they were awkward.

Your review and comparison were excellent--unbiased and well-written. Since I'm the poster you referred to, I will pull out this quote and disagree with it. I found the interior materials on the Benz to be cheaper-feeling than I thought an $80K+ car should have. In a related but separate issue, I also found the E-class interior cluttered and poorly designed from a human factors point of view. With the GS, all the controls simply seemed to be placed in logical spots with easy-to-understand functionality. I got the impression test driving the E55 that it would take quite a bit of time to learn the function and location of all the arcane controls.
If by a "bit of time" you mean 5 minutes. Then yeah, I agree. ;)

Here's an E55 drifting..... LOL. Looks to be a pretty versatile platform. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_lQR3E_wwo&NR

The car mags seemed to like the refinement of the E63. Did you
not feel that it was a better street car than the E55?

About the reliability issue you have probably been very lucky which is
great. They are excellent cars when they are working well. :thumbup:

My friend's E class was so unreliable and developed so many expensive to
fix and hard to find electronic problems that he got rid of the car and said
he'd never buy MB again. I've also seen a few Benzes just die in the middle
of the road. :sad: You can also check out Consumer Reports for which
cars have been good and bad and E class has been bad for at least 5
years. I will try to get the most recent copy and put up the info on the
E class here.

I did not feel that much difference in the handling of the 63 vs the 55. What I did notice was the 63 power delivery was much more linear than the 55. The 55 puts you back in the seat where as the 63 seems to build the power more slowly. It's all about the torque that makes the 55 feel like that.

Here's an E55 drifting..... LOL. Looks to be a pretty versatile platform. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_lQR3E_wwo&NR
That's a W202 C43 AMG, not E55.

I agree that Lexus interiors are much prettier than MB, or BMW for that matter, and that Lexus controls are hands down the best and easiest to learn, however the new generation Lexus ES, IS and GS are using terribly cheap materials, they are poorly and flimzy built, and quite frankly the new LS didnt impress me either. When I was at the Taste of Lexus event, there was an LS460 on the floor, and it had the passenger B-pillar interior panel fall off. The GS450h that I test drove felt like its dash was falling apart. The GS is now missing those plush leather door inserts, and the new GS seats feel cheap compared to the 2nd gen. All in all I believe that out of the current Lexus lineup, the SC430 has the best built interior, surpassing even the LS460, and just about any other car on the road.

When it comes to MB however, I always felt that their interiors were terrible, besides for the S class, which is nicely built, however still suffering from poorly designed controls. The C and E classes have ugly interior, seemingly cheap materials, however surprisingly enough they somehow feel solid and never suffer from any squeaks or rattles.

Me personally, I happen to be very anal when it comes to interiors and controls, and I couldn't live with E class no matter how good its engine is. I couldn't live with the new GS either. I'm just hoping that Acura stops being stubborn and drops a V8/V10 into the new RL, so it can be my next car. Now the RL is a perfect example of how modern interior should be built.

My friend has an e55 with APU mods. Yes it's very fast. Broke down once already and he has 35k on clock.
I miss his brabus E-v12 more though.

we use to own a sl500 and a cl500 both were crap, the door panels were loose and coming apart. in our sl we had ac problems, the hydraulic pump for the convertible went out, we also had a gas line leak :eek2: :eek2:. In the cl, the coolant system went out, etc, etc...

if i had to go euro again i would go bmw over mb, and most likely lease rather then own so i can avoid the long term problems

Thanks for all the replies. The relaibility seems to still be an issue. Some people claim tohave great experiences, but then CR says otherwise. The car does seem like a truly versatile platform. In regards to the plain looks comment, I have to disagree. I think the car looks extremely aggressive, and the person who had the point about the stealthy appearance is absolutely dead on, and I love that about the car.


Hey Seize, how did they lower that modified E55? I thought it had air suspension and there wasn't an easy way to lower it.

I'll have to test drive the new GS as well as the production model LS. I feel like if I were to buy another Lexus, I wouldn't worry about it at all. It feels like a safe investment and a car that I would keep for 10+ years atleast. After all I'm still rockin my 94 LS :) Thats what I'm most worried about with the E55. But I really want to own some Ferrari's with people sitting in the back. :D

Hey Seize, how did they lower that modified E55? I thought it had air suspension and there wasn't an easy way to lower it.


I don't know what type of suspension is on the white one. I'm pretty sure the E55 has some sort of air suspension. My cousin has a module that adjusts the ride height and can be controlled from inside the car.

my cousin's dropped E55

http://www.clublexus.com/gallery/data/500/porkys552.jpg

The air suspension can be lowered via StarDiagnosis or some other module by Brabus, Kleemann, etc.

I hate E55 AMGs

























because I don't have one :sad:

your cousins black E55 looks killer Seize.:eek2: