JimPap

I've only had my C-300 for a week and have noticed that the fuel economy is somewhat lower than I expected. (maybe my expectations were unrealistic) It appears to be getting about 21 mpg for my mixture of city and highway driving. City is not that large, so traffic moves pretty good.

What are others getting on their C-300s????

benggolf

Hope you did not expect to get the same gas mileage as advertised; these are taken under strictest and controlled conditions, not to mention a light foot on the accelerator.

If you get within 10% of what is advertised, you should be OK.

qwerty1024

I know you were asking about the C300 fuel consumption and this won't answer your exact question, but the C350 I've been driving for the past 2 weeks has gotten ~22.4 miles per gallon. That is, after driving 298 miles it took ~13.3 (US) gallons to "fill" the gas tank. And this may be right as the on-board computer had a calculated value of only a few tenths better "since last reset". Best I've seen while crusing on level road @ 80 MPH (2100 RMP) was an indicated 26.6 miles per gallon. The worst I've seen was an indicated ~16.1 miles per gallon

The ~22.4 Miles Per Gallon Avg is based on the traffic conditions below:
In Traffic
Most of the time it is in traffic, with an average speed of 31 Miles Per Hour during a 45 minute drive. Worst I've seen was 16 Miles Per Gallon (where average speed was only 8 Miles Per Hour)
No Traffic/Light Traffic
The rest of the time, traffic was not a factor therefore was cursing at ~80-85 Miles Per Hour. During the contant 80 MPH cruise (2100 RPM) I've seen an indicated 26.6 Miles Per Gallon fuel consumption.

Driving Mode
Regardless of the traffic, because the car is not near its 1000 Miles of break-in period, I've been driving with the automatic in "C" mode, almost never accelarating past 3000 RPM. I've also made an effort to minimize the stop-and-go scenarios as much as possible, so it is a very "conservative" drive (only occasionally it's been more "spirited", still not past 4000 RPM, and very rarely in the few first hundread miles).

Oh, and one other thing, temperatures for most of the averages above were about 70-89 F and some hill climbing/descending.

I think I'll stop here ... but before I do, isn't fuel consuption supposed to improve slightly after the break-in period?

Dema

Wait until your car will be broken in. For Mercedes it can be 25K miles. Anyway expect noticable fuel economy improvement after 5,000 miles. MB provides conservative fuel economy on papers, so you should get better numbers in real life. Actually big advantage of MB is a big fuel tank. Enjoy your car.

ScottyGams

yeah, the first week of the car... trust me... you were leadfooting more than you usually will, and who could blame you!

wait 2 months before you can really report some unbias numbers

JimPap

I see what you mean about the lead foot being part of the problem. During the first week, seeing what it can do has been way too much fun. Although I later drove to maximize fuel economy after the gas refil, I'm sure that I'll have to find a driving style that's both fun and won't burn through quite so much fuel.

I refilled the tank yesterday resetting the fuel economy menu and found that in 64 miles, my average economy went to 24.1 mpg from 21 mpg. Granted, that's too short a distance to draw much of a conclusion and I was deliberately driving with a light foot....which is very unnatural with this car but similar to the acceleration in my previous Buick LeSabra. I also had the A/C off for part of the test as it had cooled off a little. In the Buick, similar driving with the air on would have given me only slightly better mpg. So, I'm feeling much better about the fuel economy.

It would be interesting to hear what others are getting on their C-300s, 350s, etc.

csre4

im getting 23.9 avg.
do you have the 7speed auto or 6sp manual?

JimPap

7 speed automatic.

CarGuru

I've got 2800 miles on my C300 (Sport) 18" AMG wheels. My wife drives this car conservatively during the week, I take it out and lead-foot on the weekends. I've been hand-calculating 21.9 +/- since the day we brought it home. I think your numbers sound about right. IMO I'm content with anything above 20 mpg, and now that I've established the baseline, I could care less and simply just fill it for my wife everyweek and fagetabout-it

-Ryan