Reduce driving stress? The sheer mass of the manuals is stress-inducing. It's daunting to think about all you have to learn to master the controls so you can feel like master of the universe. And even if you fully understand them, it would take so much attention to keep the car perfectly tuned and the potential for information optimized, that a co-pilot would be very helpful. Maybe that's where the voice command feature comes in. Some stuff you can just tell the car what to do, and hope it understands you. After you learn its language.
Silly us, we thought the trunk lid was stiff, until we realized it just doesn't like to be controlled by human hands. A fingertip maybe, then the Pneumatic Door and Trunk Closing Assist does the rest. For 2002, an interior trunk release has been added for safety.
Ergonomics-wise, the center console has great support for your right knee, bracing your throttle foot. But there's nothing on the left, no real dead pedal, and not enough seat support for your thighs, so your legs get pitched during aggressive cornering. We know, the S500 is a luxury car, not a sports car, but if you offer a suspension that boasts level cornering, the driver can be expected to use it.
The roofline, the C-pillar, creates a blind spot when you look over your right shoulder. But there's no blind spot through the windshield, not even in the spray of a truck in the rain, thanks to powerful wipers with no less than six nozzles to spray washer fluid.
Naturally, the Bose sound system is state of the art. More things that can be optimized, more programmable features. Soundstage positioning, it's called. According to Mercedes, "From a driver in the car alone, listening to talk radio, to a car full of people, listening to symphonic or vocal music, there is an audio setting to make the listening experience more enjoyable." But the quality of the rock 'n' roll we listened to didn't knock our socks off. Maybe we didn't have our soundstage positioned perfectly. Don't they have engineers for that, at concerts? Next Page