As I mentioned in the previous section, this car went up on the auction block quickly. I'm going to attach my for sale ad below + my sale pictures in case anyone is interested, but I thought I'd also be a little more candid about my reasons to sell the car.

While the power (and braking for that matter) was absolutely shocking for a car this size / weight, I felt like the car was driving me vs me driving the car if that makes sense. I'm sure the biggest reason for this was going from a manual transmission to an automatic, but it was a lot more than that.

• The 5 speed automatic on the E55 has the reputation for being built like a tank. Unfortunately, if tanks shifted, I would wager it shifts like a tank too. It may have been the Euro-Charged tune it was running, but it was absolutely terrible. I could never predict which way it was going to shift at any given rev / load. It seemed completely random and never seemed to make the right decision. I ended up paddle shifting 90% of the time.
• Sensotronic Brake Control (SBC) / Brake by Wire - This was a big one that surprised me. The 6 pot calipers on the E55 are absolutely bonkers, but instead of the feedback you get from a master cylinder + vacuum booster, it feels like you're stepping on a spring. Very strange and I never got used to it
• Dynamic Seats / Seats that adjust their bolster air pressure to negate G force. I.E., you take a hard left and your right bolsters pump up to support your body's centrifugal force. It was fun at first, but soon turned into a novelty that robbed even more feedback away
• Bad condensate drain design. The W211 evaporator box would never completely drain its condensate, so in the hot + humid south, mold sets up inside the HVAC system. Mercedes had crazy service bulletins advising drivers to turn off their AC compressor X minutes before arriving at their destination to allow the condensate to drain properly + they had procedures for cleaning out the evaporator box + more with antifungal spray foam. Neither resolved the problem. What bothered me was that it was such a stupid thing to mess up. If every other car I've owned can do this right, why couldn't Mercedes?
• Distronic - Like the dynamic seats; this was a small but cumulative issue. It was one of the options I was most excited to have since it was rare, and it worked VERY well, but I found myself using it a lot until I realized it was taking all the fun out of driving and making me feel like I was in auto-drive everywhere I went.
• Fuel Economy - I feel like I can't even complain about this because I should have been prepared ahead of time...... but..... HOLY COW this thing could guzzle gas! I didn't actually log my mileage, but I would guess I was getting single digit MPG during city driving.

Those are the main ones I remember. There were also stupid issues, like wishing I hadn't bought another black car because the gravel road I lived on made it impossible to look clean. Another reason I think it didn't stick around is personal buy-in. Every other car I've owned got buy-in from me through work / projects I completed. Even with a Mercedes STAR diagnostic system, I never really got rolling on my repairs / projects and I don't have a good reason for why that never happened.

All that said, I don't regret the trial. There were tons of stuff the car did right. I just felt like I wanted to shift back to the way BMW does things, hence the sale and eventual move to my e39 540i.

That said, here's my for sale ad + final pictures:

I’m selling my 2004 Mercedes E55 AMG, currently located in Starkville, Mississippi 39759. The car’s been adult owned (I’m 34) by an Electrical Engineer that loves and pampers his cars. It hasn’t been raced under my ownership either on the street or at the track. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had the accelerator down more than 2/3rds of the way down! I’m the 4th owner and I’ve had it since June 2016. With such a short ownership I guess you could really say you’re buying it from the third owner, except I simplified a few things. Namely, removing a lien the 3rd owner had and getting the title in-hand. 
Why the short ownership? Not because I didn’t absolutely love the car. I bought this car after I sold my swapped FD3 RX7:

The reason for the RX7 sale, among other things, was to scale back my investment in my car and re-invest in my house. My wife is scheduled to deliver our second child on the 14th (TOMORROW!) and I’ve got to use ½ of the proceeds of this sale to pay for related expenses + a small home construction project. The other half is going to go into a much cheaper commuter that can simply get me from point A to B. This is strictly a financial move. If I had it my way, I’d keep the car as long as I could. I’ll never get tired of how utterly insane the acceleration is on this beast.

The car spent most of its life in Texas. The most recent owner had the car for ~ 30k miles and was a 15 year Mercedes Master Tech. 

One of the things that originally drew me to the car when I was searching was the fact that the current owner (at the time) was a highly qualified mechanic that obviously cared for the car and the list of things he’s done for the car over the last 25k miles was extensive and effectively covers every common issue with these cars. I’ve always been told to plan on spending $1-$2k on maintenance (outstanding or preventative) when purchasing an E55. With this car, all preventative measures have been taken so it’s really car that’s ready to go without needing to second guess anything. 

The other thing that pulled me in on this car is how it’s optioned. Distronic was the option I really wanted to find. I’m not going to say it’s impossibly rare, but I’ve been looking at E55’s for several years now and I haven’t seen many with this option that were in my price range. It’s very well optioned (see below) and the original sticker price reflects how much the original buyer went all out.

Finally, the icing on the cake is that this car already has a Euro-charged SC pulley, belt wrap kit, and ECU + TCU tune! The pulley and tunes are primarily about adding HP of course, but I also see it with the belt wrap as a preventative measure since the original OEM pulley doesn’t have such a great track record and the wrap kit cuts down on slips and wear. It was a big bonus for me.

So without further delay, here are the details: 

Documentation is a little spotty but still very good. I’ve got a folder full of receipts and documentation but I don’t have as much info from the first and second owner. The attached VMI does show that they definitely brought it to the dealership whenever anything needed to be addressed.

The car is gorgeous inside and out. The paint is all original and is in very good shape. It did have some average paint chips around the front bumper when I got it, but I’ve worked hard to make them all but invisible. I spent 2 weeks detailing every inch of the car while driving the family van to really get it in outstanding shape. Some of the work involved in the detail was filling the paint chips 1 layer at a time using the Dr. Colorchip system then knocking down any uneven paint, sanding it using finer grit all the way up to 3000 grit then switching over to a rotary and compound to put a final buff on it. While at it I also removed the V8 compressor fender emblems and gave the emblem area the same treatment working up to 3000 grit and using compounds to work up to a mirror finish. After an extensive exterior detail and claybar I progressively polished the paint and put 2 coats of Zaino Z2 to seal in the work. 

I also spent 3 days inside the car cleaning every nook and cranny and the result really shows. 
You’ll be hard pressed to find another E55 that looks this good :)