brandwooddixon
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2006
- Messages
- 4,175
- Reaction score
- 992
- Location
- Wolverhampton
- Your Mercedes
- S63 Coupe 2014
Hi all, just thought that I'd share my test drive experiences with you.
The kind people at Wolverhampton Mercedes have given me 24 hours with a new E320CDI Estate Sport with tiptronic. 1500miles on the clock.
Having just completed a 200 mile round trip of mostly fast motorway traffic with about 30 miles cross country work and 20 miles town driving here are my conclusions.
Now please bear in mind that these are all based on comparisons between this particular car and my own, old E430 Avantgarde.
On the move the engine is surprisingly quiet, both from the inside and outside (as attested when the dealer brought the car too me).
On idle, it's definitely a diesel although its still pretty quiet and certainly not as loud as some.
Ride quality is on par with the Avantgarde suspension of old. The 18" wheels feel some smaller bumps which you might not notice with 16" rims, but not bad enough to put me off. Certainly the handling on the twisty stuff is a bit more direct and with less lean than my car.
Mid range overtaking acceleration is prodigious and overtaking opportunities at 50-60 abound., but I found a noticeable lack of power below 1600 rpm, which suddenly becomes a kick in the back as the turbo cuts in. Preselection of a lower gear made this far better, especially when overtaking from 30 - 40mph or slowing for a roundabout and accelerating away.
The brakes can be a little sharp at first, but are certainly an advancement in power over earlier systems, although to my mind it was alittle too easy to trigger the brake assist.
Those Xenon beams are a definite must have, their light is far superior to halogen bulbs.
I did note that partial electric seats are a pain in the arse and manually adjusting the steering wheel is far more difficult than it should be. Full electric seats with memory are a must.
The passenger door mirror doesn't dip on reverse selection, although this my just be part of the memory pack, which this particular vehicle doesn't have.
A little thing I know, but the parking brake release is made of an inferior plastic than of old and has sharp molding lines present just where you grasp it. Generally all moving plastic parts seemed a little flimsier.
The centre storage box is no good for chocolate anymore, not being cooled by the airconditioning, although this may be due to the phone prewiring.
The partronic was interesting, but I'm not sure whether it's a necessity on an estate car, although I can see it being useful for guaging the back of a saloon.
The tiptronic gearbox function struck me as being superfluous, as I found the "flappy paddles" to be in the wrong place for where I grip the steering wheel, the gearbox will still override your selection in certain circumstances and you can achieve much the same by moving the gear selection lever. (Incidently it's nice to see that MB couldn't be bothered to change anything for the British market - the markings for the gear selector and the gearbox mode switch are on the wrong side of the console.)
Now my aim was to compare this car on a journey that I do regularly in order to see if comfort and economy were better or worse. Comfort wise there's no worries, but I was surprised at the economy, or lack of. I drove at the same speeds and in the same manner to which I normally do. Plod baiting for sure but here's the rub.
I normally manage around 27 mpg with my big old V8 petrol lump over this journey and driving in this style, but this CDI only managed 33 mpg according to the trip computer. That's barely 20% better, with fuel that's 10% more expensive.
So is the 10% saving worth it? Well I don't know. I suppose that the potential for fuel saving is larger with the diesel, especially if I slowed down a bit than with my V8. I've heard people say that they've managed over 40mpg in one of these, which would put it at a good 35% better than I could manage at the moment.
On a purely financial basis it makes sense, same or better performance, cheaper insurance and cheaper VED (well if compared to say an E500) but having driven through stop start traffic. I found that I began to miss the near absolute silence of my E430 and the quiet diesel "rattle" became more intrusive.
In all it didn't give me the same feel good factor, of being cosseted as I whooshed along. It still felt slightly more utilitarian, just a means of transport as you will rather than something special.
I guess that there's some hard thinking to do ....
The kind people at Wolverhampton Mercedes have given me 24 hours with a new E320CDI Estate Sport with tiptronic. 1500miles on the clock.
Having just completed a 200 mile round trip of mostly fast motorway traffic with about 30 miles cross country work and 20 miles town driving here are my conclusions.
Now please bear in mind that these are all based on comparisons between this particular car and my own, old E430 Avantgarde.
On the move the engine is surprisingly quiet, both from the inside and outside (as attested when the dealer brought the car too me).
On idle, it's definitely a diesel although its still pretty quiet and certainly not as loud as some.
Ride quality is on par with the Avantgarde suspension of old. The 18" wheels feel some smaller bumps which you might not notice with 16" rims, but not bad enough to put me off. Certainly the handling on the twisty stuff is a bit more direct and with less lean than my car.
Mid range overtaking acceleration is prodigious and overtaking opportunities at 50-60 abound., but I found a noticeable lack of power below 1600 rpm, which suddenly becomes a kick in the back as the turbo cuts in. Preselection of a lower gear made this far better, especially when overtaking from 30 - 40mph or slowing for a roundabout and accelerating away.
The brakes can be a little sharp at first, but are certainly an advancement in power over earlier systems, although to my mind it was alittle too easy to trigger the brake assist.
Those Xenon beams are a definite must have, their light is far superior to halogen bulbs.
I did note that partial electric seats are a pain in the arse and manually adjusting the steering wheel is far more difficult than it should be. Full electric seats with memory are a must.
The passenger door mirror doesn't dip on reverse selection, although this my just be part of the memory pack, which this particular vehicle doesn't have.
A little thing I know, but the parking brake release is made of an inferior plastic than of old and has sharp molding lines present just where you grasp it. Generally all moving plastic parts seemed a little flimsier.
The centre storage box is no good for chocolate anymore, not being cooled by the airconditioning, although this may be due to the phone prewiring.
The partronic was interesting, but I'm not sure whether it's a necessity on an estate car, although I can see it being useful for guaging the back of a saloon.
The tiptronic gearbox function struck me as being superfluous, as I found the "flappy paddles" to be in the wrong place for where I grip the steering wheel, the gearbox will still override your selection in certain circumstances and you can achieve much the same by moving the gear selection lever. (Incidently it's nice to see that MB couldn't be bothered to change anything for the British market - the markings for the gear selector and the gearbox mode switch are on the wrong side of the console.)
Now my aim was to compare this car on a journey that I do regularly in order to see if comfort and economy were better or worse. Comfort wise there's no worries, but I was surprised at the economy, or lack of. I drove at the same speeds and in the same manner to which I normally do. Plod baiting for sure but here's the rub.
I normally manage around 27 mpg with my big old V8 petrol lump over this journey and driving in this style, but this CDI only managed 33 mpg according to the trip computer. That's barely 20% better, with fuel that's 10% more expensive.
So is the 10% saving worth it? Well I don't know. I suppose that the potential for fuel saving is larger with the diesel, especially if I slowed down a bit than with my V8. I've heard people say that they've managed over 40mpg in one of these, which would put it at a good 35% better than I could manage at the moment.
On a purely financial basis it makes sense, same or better performance, cheaper insurance and cheaper VED (well if compared to say an E500) but having driven through stop start traffic. I found that I began to miss the near absolute silence of my E430 and the quiet diesel "rattle" became more intrusive.
In all it didn't give me the same feel good factor, of being cosseted as I whooshed along. It still felt slightly more utilitarian, just a means of transport as you will rather than something special.
I guess that there's some hard thinking to do ....
