c230 Coupe

[strawberry]

I am in the market for a c230 coupe, I have my eye on a 2002 model with evo pack and a few other extras like the seat pack, can anyone give me any advice on these cars or owners who have any experience of the or what to bear in mind when buying one. Many thanks.

 

[pascal]

First of all it is not a 'real' coupe. It is a hatchback as far as the term hatchback goes. If you want a Coupe, buy CLk.

A friend has a 200 sports coupe since 2001, and has had several minor faults, mostly electrical. Fuel tank sender, MAF (or maybe it was lamda O2) sensor and blows bulbs by the box load. The AMG kit does improve looks in my opinion, but it always looks less impressive/prestigeous than saloon.



pascal

 

[garethc200k]

I have the C200k Evo version 2002 26Kmiles I find the hatchback really useful for carrying stuff u just can?t get in a saloon; it?s just had a new roof (panoramic) under warranty £3000
The old one creaked and rattled, silence at last! I think the car is great, leather, auto box, parktronic is good, no other faults
The CLK looks the business though

 

[kit820]

Problem with hatchback is that after a short while, you will start getting plenty of rattling noise. I have a pre-face lift model, despite being a great car to drive with its excellent power delivery due to its size, I have suffered a few reliability problems, namely electricals. I had issue with my steering too and if you read on in this site, there has been plenty of discussions on the coupe pulling left. At this point, this continues to be an outstanding issue for many fellow c coupe owners. Some live with it whilst others solve the problem by swapping the front two tires (but then this is hardly the long term fix).

Another problem is that even being six ft (just), I find the car to be lacking headroom. There is no solution to that beside keeping my hair short! Rear view is hardly brilliant too.

Despite all that, I would still endorse on this motor as being a hatchback, it does offer comfort, elegance and decent performance. It is both a decent town runabout as it is on the motorway. It has a decent ride and the roof is just excellent. AMG body styling or not, it is still a charming looking car. In fact, I hardly notice much difference with the AMG body styling. Maybe you could save those money for a set of carlsoon or brabus wheels which in my opinion look even better than the AMG stuff.

regards

 

[angus falconer]

Personally I am not sure how useful hatchbacks really are. When I have had the choice (ie not company cars foisted on me) I have usually chosen coupes or four door saloons.

Currenly I have a W202 C-class saloon which has a pretty big boot.

If I want to carry anything big like a bit of furniture from John Lewis or whatever I usually find they deliver it for free anyway.

And if I had spend a good deal of cash on a hatchback I wouldn't want to damage it by loading it up awith furniture, DIY stuff or wahtever anyway,

So do you really want a coupe or do you want a hatchback?

 

[bjv]

So do you really want a coupe or do you want a hatchback?

hatchback angus

But I do not know exactly how big difference is,

C180 143 HP-C200 163 HP ?

 

[kit820]

Yes BJV, the difference in power output from the three different engine sizes isn't particularly huge especially when this is translated into road speed, for example, there is only less than half a second difference between the 0-60 time of a c230 and c200. Personally, I think even with its 140+ bhp, the 180 model is already adequate for a car of that size but then of course this may not always satisfy those looking for greater performance.

I am not too sure about the mpg figure on these various models, but from my past experience on Mercedes, it is not unusual to see a higher capacity model giving better mpg than a smaller one from the same range as the latter may need a bit of extra right peddling. This may well bear effects on the car's general wear and tear in the long run.

Personally I went for the c200 as where I am right now, the annual road licensing is such that vehicles of 2.3l or more sit on a higher bracket. Although this may not be relevant to you but insurance premium could well be another deciding factor.