Mercedes-AMG C63 2024 review: V8 out, 4-cylinder plug-in hybrid in for new BMW M3 and Audi RS4 rival
This is the new Mercedes AMG c63s and if you’ve been anywhere near social media in the last few weeks you’ll know that this car no longer has a twin turbo V8 in fact it’s a turbocharged 4 cylinder but if you listen to the post it gets even worse
Because this car also has an electric motor on the rear axle yeah it’s a hybrid a hybrid C63 and straight away we’ve opened the door to a very small room and pushed inside a very large elephant you can hear the Passion of the teeth from four city blocks among the
C63 faithful it can’t possibly be a real C63 they say with a turbocharged 4 cylinder hybrid drive line but are they right I mean this car has the potential to be a copout and a compromise but then you drive it but before we get to that let’s look at what
You get and what it costs the C63 SE performance costs $187,900 but you’re not just buying the AMG Drive Line in fact this this thing is loaded with Nappa leather a panoramic sunroof huge display screens full connectivity heated and powered front seats augmented reality satnav 20-in Alloys and selectable Drive modes
There’s also in true Mercedes fashion a stack of optional packages to add carbon fiber inside outside and everywhere else as well as a sports seat option check the written review at cars gu.com for the full story The Big design change of course is the philosophical one from a
Hot rod to a modern performance car courtesy of that techie hybrid Drive Line beyond that though the whole C63 demeanor has been tone down to make the car a little less shouty the exterior add-ons include a subtle Bonnet scoop and big wheels and tires but there’s
Also an extra 10 mm in the wheelbase and a wider track the interior works really well for something with as much going on as this thing has yes the steering wheel now has four horizontal bars to accommodate the huge number of functions but the twin screens are large easy to
Use and the head-up display is as good as any out there the front seats are hugely supportive without feeling too hard and the Interior Space overall reflects the fact that the C-Class is now easily as big as an E-class of just a few years ago the packaging downside
To the hybrid layout is that the batteries and Management Systems have to live somewhere in this case that somewhere is under the boot floor reducing boot space by about a third over any other C-Class sedan now before we go for a drive let me fill you in on
Some of the technical bits of this because it is a pretty Tech heavy car that’s the turbocharger it’s driven by the exhaust gas and also an electric motor that’s the reduce lag the engine’s 2 L it makes 350 KW of power and when the electric motor on the back axle is
In full swing there’s another 150 so it’s 500 KW of power it’s also 1,20 Newton M that’s according to the spec sheet but that’s a little bit misleading because the electric engines torque is measured after it’s been through the gearbox and multiplied so in a roundabout way it’s
Probably not 1,20 but it’s certainly still 7 or 800 at least that gives this car much greater fuel economy than before with all the performance or that’s the theory but I guess what we need to do is check it out and we also need to see what this sounds like
Because let’s face it that soundtrack was as much a part of the old C63 as anything else about the car Aside from the really high-tech Drive Line If you believe the marketing Bumpits F1 inspired fair enough this car is also really high-tech in other ways too it’s got adjustable dampers the different AMG Drive modes Comfort sport sport plus it’s got the works it really is there really is a lot going on under
The waterline that you don’t actually feel and the other thing that you don’t feel is the weight it’s 2.1 tons remember so it’s a big lump of a thing but it carries that weight very well possibly because there’s so much balance in the platform it’s it’s got a 50/50
Weight distribution which surely helps and big tires and big brakes now what everyone wants to know of course is what this thing sounds like well sounds like a four-cylinder because that’s what it is an AMG have resisted the urge to give it a V8 soundtrack they’ve said all along if it doesn’t
Have a V8 it won’t sound like one and it doesn’t the soundtrack is augmented a little bit through the speakers uh and there speakers under the car so that people on the outside can hear what’s uh what’s going on but basically it feels like a really refined really smooth
Sophisticated and very powerful four cylinder does it feel like 500 KW and 1,20 NM to be honest it doesn’t and again that may be a function of the mass of the thing but it certainly gets out of Dodge in a heck of a hurry and I have
No trouble believing that it will get from nor to 100 km an hour in under 4 seconds in fact comfortably under 4 seconds 3.4 is the official claim now the other thing about this car this is and I and I say this without without fear of contradiction this is
The first C63 that I’ve ever driven that I could live with the ride quality on a day-to-day basis it rides so much nicer than previous cars to Bear the C6 badge it is not funny even on sport or even Sport Plus the suspension is compliant enough that you can absolutely roll over
The worst of the pots and Imperfections and it doesn’t throw the car offline more than that it doesn’t throw the passengers in the air like the old car used to so that’s a big step forward I think this car also steers beautifully uh the rear wheel steering obviously
Kicks in at lower speeds to help guide the car uh in a tighter Circle at high speeds the rear wheel steer in sympathy with the front wheels so that it maintains stability on highs speed turns but it works so beautifully the feedback through this wheel is really really up
There with the best of them I think it’s fantastic the weight’s great everything about the steering I’m a big fan of now while that electric turbocharger means no lag or actually almost no lag you can still actually feel a little bit I think the limiting factor in the way
This car gets up and goes is the nine-speed gearbox which is a to the the petrol 2 L engine frankly it has trouble keeping up shifting down fast enough to keep up with the motors uh and the other thing about it is that when you have
Accelerated and you back off I find the gearboxes a little bit too Keen or too eager to hang on to low gears it sort of leaves you hanging in the seat Bel almost when you’re back off and it could afford to be calibrated a little bit so
That it shifts up faster I think that’ be make it a nicer car certainly in Comfort setting in the sports setting you kind of expected to hang onto the gears but in Comfort it could afford to be a little bit more relaxed a bit chilled economy is much better than the
Previous V8 the V8 had an official combined figure of 10.3 L per 100 this car is 6.1 still not Stellar for a hybrid but pretty damn good for something with this sort of performance okay so 6.1 L per 100 km is pretty amazing for a car that can get
From n to 100 in about 3 1/2 seconds but what about charging the battery well it’s a small 6.1 Kow battery and it’ll go from fully discharged to fully charged in under 2 hours from there you have about a 15 km all EV driving range if you don’t want to wake the neighbors
If you can get near the claim 6.1 L per 100 km Mark the 60 L tank will give you almost 1,000 km between fill-ups but if you start using that turbo boost consump will inevitably rise that’s life there’s every kind of driver Aid you can think
Of here and it all seems to work well you get a 360° camera and eight airbags including a driver’s knee bag and a center airbag which aims to prevent head clashes in the case of a side impact while the C-Class has been crash tested in Europe the C63 hasn’t been tested
Here and Mercedes has no plans to throw one at the wall locally service intervals are every 12 months or 20,000 km the factor warranty is 5 years unlimited km but Mercedes also covers the Hybrid battery for 6 years or 100,000 km which ever comes first there’s also fixed price servicing at
Just over $7,000 for the first 5 years I’m really struggling to remember another car that threw up so many philosophical questions before I’d ever driven it but the reality is AMG has done a great job yet again of turning a C-Class sedan into a real high performance weapon that leaves the
Original C63 owners and those who worship at the altar of the twin turbo V8 basically that’ll be the thing for Mercedes to do is to drag their hearts and Minds into the New Millennium and if they can do that their wallets should follow because believe me this is an
Absolute sweetheart of a car would I like it better with a V8 engine and 400 or 500 kilos less yeah of course I would but it’s a moot point because that’s not where the world is at the moment this is the future and if that’s the case future looks pretty bright
The 2024 Mercedes-AMG C63 sports sedan has arrived in Australia, making its divisive presence known. Of course, the controversy here has everything to do with what’s under the new BMW M3 and Audi RS4 rival’s bonnet and nothing to do with its styling inside nor out.
Gone is the C63’s 4.0-litre twin-turbo petrol V8 engine, replaced by a 2.0-litre single-turbo four-cylinder engine, which forms part of a plug-in hybrid system that ‘only’ delivers 15km of driving range due to its performance-first approach. The so called S E Performance flagship also has all-wheel drive instead of its predecessor’s rear-wheel-drive set-up. Shock horror on two fronts, then.
But this new combination helps the C63S E Performance to produce a stunning 500kW of power and – take a seat – 1020Nm of torque. Needless to say, it’s a significant set up for the series, as CarsGuide Contributing Journalist David Morley finds out in this expert review.
#Mercedes #AMG #C63 #Review
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Timecodes:
00:00 Intro
00:47 Pricing and features
01:26 Design
01:49 Practicality
02:28 Under the bonnet
03:33 Driving
07:09 Efficiency
08:03 Safety
08:25 Ownership
08:43 Verdict
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Read Dave’s full review: https://bit.ly/3UCz4cA
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