E300 / C250 TD User views please?

[AdrianDW]

Currently I possess a facelift W210 (2000MY E240 Avantgarde, 70k miles). Lovely car, but the current fuel price is making me scared (and broke!), and as its only going to get (much) higher, I think its time to consider an oil burner. I'd like to look at C or E220 CDI's, but on the budget I've got (up to abut £8K) everything seems to have stratospheric mileages, so I'm looking at E300 and C250TD's

I've seen various reviews that suggest the W210 E300TD's are unrefined to the point of only being fit for cabbing use, and that C250TD's are unreliable and somewhat mechanically fragile.

Any of you happy or unhappy users out there who would care to give me some feedback on your steeds please - performance, reliability, refinement and economy - I'd be most grateful

Adrian

 

[jberks]

Before you jump, think on. I recently swapped my 2000 E240 for an E270CDI. Now, yes, it is more economical and thereby cheaper to run. However, when you actually sit down and do the sums, it's really not as great a gap as you might think. I figure I save around £30 per week, over the 600 miles (£60-70 per week instead of £90-100). But, if you do average mileage of 200 per week, you are looking at only a third of that. Nice to have, but hardly enough to break the bank. On top of this, these figures are based on a new (<30k mile) 270cdi. The 300td or 250td won't touch the economy of the common rail 270cdi so its going to be less again. Ask yourself, is the refinement of the 240 and the luxury of having a recent motor worth £5 per week? In actual fact, the 240 isn't that bad on economy. Sure its pretty thirsty round town but on a run I used to see 33-37. My Diesel returns around 10-12 more, but remember the fuel costs more too.

Whatever diesel you get (aside from the new V6's which you won't find for 8k) anything is going to be as rough as a collie's behind after the 240. I'm still getting used to the 270 after mine. As you comment, you will also have to either have to buy something with moon dust on it, or drop a chunk on model or age in order to swap as the D's hold their value far better than the E240s, with the increase in potentially expensive repairs as a result.

When I bought mine, I could have found another 240 for probably 5k less than I spent, but I consoled myself with the thought that I would save that over a couple of years and the depreciation would be beneficial in the long run, but changing any car is an expensive passtime and unless you do serious mileage, whilst you may feel smug at the pumps (as I do), your overall bank balance may not actually benefit as much as you expect.

 

[hexflyer]

dunno where you heard that the 5 pot 250TD is fragile these engines go on for ever, the 6 pot 300TD is also an engine quite refined and very smooth, i know of many that have reached 300-400k miles with no problems.
would agree on economy though they're pretty good but not a patch on the CDI's, unless you drive very high miles the difference in running costs of a modern petrol and diesel is not that great these days.

so unless you do a huge amount of mileage i'd keep the car you have .

i bought the C250TD because i know the engine will last a huge amount of miles, luv the gruff 5cylinder sound and the engine has bags of torque, economy is not bad either an average of 37mpg on mixed town and m/way

 

[Blobcat]

If you want smooooooth you may find an straight 6 E320cdi for around £8K. However unless you are covering > 12,500 miles pa you will not really notice the price difference between say a 30mpg petrol and a 40mpg diesel.
Also if you have been used to a face lift 210 the older version may just seem that 'older'

 

[niva441]

I've seen various reviews that suggest the W210 E300TD's are unrefined to the point of only being fit for cabbing use, and that C250TD's are unreliable and somewhat mechanically fragile.

I'm interested to know where you got that info from, my C250TD was still pulling strongly when I sold it at 217k miles. During that time it never needed any major work.

 

[comfort zone]

My e300 diesel auto has done 148000 miles. Ok it's not as smooth as a V6, but when you get above about 10mph it's just a little noiser! It's a diesel, what do you expect? Cruising at 70mph you wouldn't know the difference!

 

[AdrianDW]

Thanks all,
this just goes to prove that some "knowledgeable" review forums / magazines are guff - real owners views are always better!!
I do around 30-35k a year of which about 10-12 is business mileage and so I recover a little dosh - but you can do the math and work out the fuel bill I stump up for! I'm just trying to pre-empt what I anticipate will be a peak of fuel prices in around july / august.

Then again, people have said why should I worry about high mileage cars when I'm only racking up more of it. A full history and obvious signs of love (i.e an empty wallet and a sheaf of bills) should give comfort.

I'll let you know!

 

[Blobcat]

Thanks all,
this just goes to prove that some "knowledgeable" review forums / magazines are guff - real owners views are always better!!
I do around 30-35k a year of which about 10-12 is business mileage and so I recover a little dosh - but you can do the math and work out the fuel bill I stump up for! I'm just trying to pre-empt what I anticipate will be a peak of fuel prices in around july / august.

Then again, people have said why should I worry about high mileage cars when I'm only racking up more of it. A full history and obvious signs of love (i.e an empty wallet and a sheaf of bills) should give comfort.

I'll let you know!

How much do you get per mile for your business miles? Anything less than the governments rates and you can reclaim Mileage Allowance Relief (MAR). I do enjoy cashing cheques from the tax man .
So far I have put £9,1259.90 of Diesel into my E320 for the 90,000 miles I have had it. 10 pence per mile

 

[Neil Plumridge]

I've actually just gone the other way. I had an Audi A6 1.9 TDI SE (1999 - new-er shape), and moved to a C240 Avantgarde SE. The Audi used to average around 50mpg (nearly 60 on a long motorway run - who'd ever buy a Prius?!) and, as previous mailers have said, anything much above 20mph and you can't hear the tractor noises.

However, the big puffs of black smoke every time you accellerate and the Massy Furguson sound effects every time you start up in the morning seriously kill the image. Not to mention the fact that diesel costs around 3 to 5p per litre more than unleaded, and every time you fill up you end up stinking like long distance lorry driver.

I'm getting around 28mpg from the C240 but I don't think I'd go back to a disease-all. It's really a matter of taste, and I haven't done the calcs to see how much more it's costing me but in my opinion, after 6 years of oil-burning, it's worth it.

 

[Blobcat]

I've actually just gone the other way. I had an Audi A6 1.9 TDI SE (1999 - new-er shape), and moved to a C240 Avantgarde SE. The Audi used to average around 50mpg (nearly 60 on a long motorway run - who'd ever buy a Prius?!) and, as previous mailers have said, anything much above 20mph and you can't hear the tractor noises.

However, the big puffs of black smoke every time you accellerate and the Massy Furguson sound effects every time you start up in the morning seriously kill the image. Not to mention the fact that diesel costs around 3 to 5p per litre more than unleaded, and every time you fill up you end up stinking like long distance lorry driver.

I'm getting around 28mpg from the C240 but I don't think I'd go back to a disease-all. It's really a matter of taste, and I haven't done the calcs to see how much more it's costing me but in my opinion, after 6 years of oil-burning, it's worth it.

Althought the VAG 1.9tdi is economical it is not the most refined or quiet power plant. Before you dismiss Dr Diesels creation out of hand pls take a test drive in a 6 or 8 cylinder version.

 

[AdrianDW]

Thanks Blobcat - I get 16p off my company and reclaim the rest from the revenue - they're actually quite helpful these days. When I've run my own car (as opposed to a company one) I've never failed to get a rebate, and completely honestly too!!

Being a spreadsheet saddo I know it currently costs me 17p a mile in juice for the 240. Based on current prices for the smelly stuff and a guess on real world consumption of 36-38 for a diesel in the mix of driving I do, I could cut that to 12p. Last year I did 32k miles, so would have saved £1600.

Having run both diesel and petrol in the past I take Neil's point, though I prefer the dosh in my pocket to Mr Brown and friends. Anyhow, black smoke outbursts are great for blinding boy racers in "tuned" (i.e s**t and uninsured) corsa's etc. Drop a cog, blast of smoke and show 'em what diesel torque can do... at least for four hundered yards till they haul you in again and deafen you with some godawful bassy noise!!

 

[Blobcat]

Thanks Blobcat - I get 16p off my company and reclaim the rest from the revenue - they're actually quite helpful these days. When I've run my own car (as opposed to a company one) I've never failed to get a rebate, and completely honestly too!!

Only issue is that you only get the difference at whatever rate of tax you pay , rather than the actual difference. Between 16p & 40p for 1st 10,000 miles and 16p and 25p for all the rest.

Being a spreadsheet saddo I know it currently costs me 17p a mile in juice for the 240. Based on current prices for the smelly stuff and a guess on real world consumption of 36-38 for a diesel in the mix of driving I do, I could cut that to 12p. Last year I did 32k miles, so would have saved £1600.

We should compare spreadsheets , only problem I have is that the graph function only likes 250 lines of data so I'm onto my second set of PPM, PPL, Trip MPG, Life MPG, Miles Per Month, Cost Per Month / Year Graphs. I did this so I know exactly what my car is costingt to run.

Having run both diesel and petrol in the past I take Neil's point, though I prefer the dosh in my pocket to Mr Brown and friends. Anyhow, black smoke outbursts are great for blinding boy racers in "tuned" (i.e s**t and uninsured) corsa's etc. Drop a cog, blast of smoke and show 'em what diesel torque can do... at least for four hundered yards till they haul you in again and deafen you with some godawful bassy noise!!

Get an E320CDI and non of them will catch you after 400yds. I regularly give it an Italian Tune up to clear out the system and rarely see black smoke.

 

[Neil Plumridge]

Althought the VAG 1.9tdi is economical it is not the most refined or quiet power plant. Before you dismiss Dr Diesels creation out of hand pls take a test drive in a 6 or 8 cylinder version.

Problem with this is if you are going to get a 6 or 8 cylinder engine then you are starting to talk around 35-40mpg which isn't much better than a decent sized petrol engine. Don't get me wrong, I loved my Audi (and may even go back to the A6 when I can afford a new shape one) and I also know that diesels can be fast and, at speed, quiet but never properly quiet, especially in traffic and the other issues are still there. Like I say, it's just an opinion and not based on technical issues.

 

[Blobcat]

Problem with this is if you are going to get a 6 or 8 cylinder engine then you are starting to talk around 35-40mpg which isn't much better than a decent sized petrol engine. Don't get me wrong, I loved my Audi (and may even go back to the A6 when I can afford a new shape one) and I also know that diesels can be fast and, at speed, quiet but never properly quiet, especially in traffic and the other issues are still there. Like I say, it's just an opinion and not based on technical issues.

Agree with the fuel economy figures, mine is eactly 36.51mpg for 90,000 miles. Don't quite agree about it being equivalent to a decent sized petrol though. Previously had a 1.8 Vectra and that averaged 34mpg, not really comparable car though:roll:. We also have a 2ltr Accord and that is averaging 31mpg, again not a comparable car. The smaller petrol engined MB's can suffer quite poor economy due to the amount of car the engine has to drag around. Had a E200Kompressor for a week and couldn't wait to get back to the power and economy of my diesel.
However you pay's your money and you takes your choice. If your not covering >12,500 miles p.a you will probably not see the economy benefits of a diesel.
I really enjoy driving my car and love it. I have covered 1004.9 miles in one day, 39mpg for the trip and got out fresh as a daisy.

 

[AdrianDW]

I think its modern common rail diesels that are the problem...
12 years ago I had a Peugeot 306 TD as a company car, racked up 80k in it in two years and found it to be refined, quick, comfy and economical (around 40-45mpg on long motorway cruises). Put it this way, until I got the Merc i would happily say its the best car I ever had!
By comparison a new Audi A3 2.0 TD. Quick yes, comfy no (my fault, ought to have gone for the SE not the Sport), quiet no (nice hum and vibration just around 70-80 in 6th, where my cars live for most of their lives), economical no- 41 on the combined cycle, and comparison with other user choosers suggests this isn't unusual. Previous car to this was a Golf GTI (180bhp petrol turbo), and whilst the ride was stiff the it didn't extend to making my partner car sick like the A3, and it was doing 33mpg over the same regular routes.

Torn really - 110 mile run in the E240 this morning, almost all motorway hovering around 75 for most of the time. 32.5 trip consumption.

 

[mstar]

sometimes i think i am driving a different c250 td to others but they are not the most earth shattering performance diesels around, to be 100% honest i am disspointed with performance but thats probably becuz i had a company ford focus tdci which was great car interms of deisel economy and performance but i suppose thats a ford and this is a MERCEDES BENZ

 

[Blobcat]

sometimes i think i am driving a different c250 td to others but they are not the most earth shattering performance diesels around, to be 100% honest i am disspointed with performance but thats probably becuz i had a company ford focus tdci which was great car interms of deisel economy and performance but i suppose thats a ford and this is a MERCEDES BENZ

Your Ford had a high pressure common rail turbo diesel enginer. The Mercedes 250td is a much older design and not common rail CDI technology. The benefit of that though is that it will run on almost any type of diesel / cooking oil or bio fuel. Your Mercedes will also weigh considerably more than the Ford it replaced.
You could always look at chipping it to increase the power.