Mercedes-Benz S-Class
Published · Researched 2026-09-21
The S-Class is the finest sedan in the world on the days it works. The problem is the calendar: a 2021–2023 car comes with nine active recalls, air suspension that fails like clockwork, and electronics that behave like a mood. Buy one anyway — just buy the right year, with the right paperwork, and a warranty longer than your optimism.
This is the W223, the seventh S-Class: standard air suspension, a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 with 496 hp in the S 580 (0–60 in 4.4 seconds in a car that weighs as much as a Range Rover), an inline-six S 500, rear-axle steering that turns up to ten degrees, and a dashboard that is more screen than dashboard. It debuts every technology Mercedes will sell for the next decade. You are paying to be first. First is expensive.
What's genuinely good needs no elaboration from me — owners describe the ride, the cabin, and the sense of occasion in terms other cars don't get. The rear cabin is a boardroom that happens to move. The V8 is effortless in a way turbo sixes can only approximate. When a 2024+ car has had its recall campaigns completed, owners report the experience the brochures promised: silent, sumptuous, faintly ridiculous in the best way. The used market knows this, which is why a 2022 car at $70–85k is described by the people who study these things as "genuinely tempting" — you're getting $116,000 of car for the price of a well-optioned E-Class.
What's actually wrong is a list, and it's a long one. Nine active NHTSA recalls on the S580. An engine-stalling ECU defect (27,000 cars). A rear-subframe weld defect so serious owners were told not to drive the car. A main fuse that could cut drive power without warning. A fuel pump recall. Air suspension — air springs, compressors, sensors — failing at $500 to $1,500 a corner. A Hyperscreen that lags and freezes, with module replacements at $800–1,500. Rear-wheel steering actuators dying at $3,500–5,000. Twenty-one-inch wheels that treat potholes as personal insults, at $400–700 a tire, several times over. A 48-volt system that can refuse to start the car. RepairPal rates the car 2.5 out of 5 and puts average annual maintenance at $1,100 — a number that assumes nothing big breaks, which, on an early car, it will. Skip this car if a four-figure surprise bill would ruin your month, if you can't verify every recall is completed, or if you believe luxury means not thinking about the car. On a 2021–2022, luxury means thinking about it constantly.
The social pulse is worship with an asterisk. Nobody disputes it's the best sedan. Everybody disputes whether you should buy a used one. The conversation has settled into a clear shape: 2021 cars are for gamblers and mechanics, 2022 cars are the value play if the paperwork is perfect, and 2024+ cars are the ones the enthusiasts actually recommend — "worked through more recall campaigns" is the phrase that keeps recurring, and it's doing a lot of work.
Value call: the depreciation is your friend and your warning. A 2021 at $60–75k is half its launch price for reasons that are all documented above — buy it only with a warranty and a pre-purchase inspection by someone who knows W223s specifically. The 2022 at $70–85k is the consensus pick. New, the 2026 starts around $121,000 in the US, which buys you a clean slate and a full warranty — the only way to own an early-W223 experience without the early-W223 risk. Against a BMW 7 Series or an Audi A8, the S-Class wins on cabin and prestige and loses on nothing except your mechanic's familiarity with the recall list.
The honest tradeoff, in the community's own terms: the most luxurious sedan in the world when it works — nine recalls when it doesn't. Buy the 2024 or later, verify everything, and enjoy the finest four doors money can buy.