[7] The R-Class received a major update with facelift to the front and rear fascias, grille, side mirrors, and taillights for the model year 2011.

The North American market continued with R 350 4MATIC and R 350 BlueTEC 4MATIC, both in long wheelbase form and with V6 engines only, for 2011 and 2012.

[11] The driver can manually select the gears by pressing the upshift and downshift buttons placed behind the steering wheel spokes if desired.

A high performance version of R-Class wasn't well-received due to its poor handling dynamics, especially with the heavy V8 engine.

[13] Due to extremely low sales and the lack of advertisement, R 63 AMG was withdrawn from the market in 2007, making it a single model year.

[16] Due to its small sales volume, the production was shifted from Alabama to Indiana where the R-Class for Chinese market was assembled by contract manufacturer AM General from 2015 to 2017.

In Germany, the limited engine choices and lack of available rear-wheel-drive option at the launch led to slow sales with almost 4,500 units sold in 2006.

[citation needed] The cause of its poor sales performance is hard to attribute, considering a multitude of possible reasons.

Secondly, the customer preference had shifted away from MPV minivans and vans to CUV's and SUV's during the late 2000s and most of the 2010s.

The mid-cycle refresh didn't help with sales at all despite an updated fascia appearance more in line with the M-Class and GL-Class and a better interior.