CynCarvin32

dont know

whats mario gona cook you?

Saprissa

LOL !!!
Austrian frankfurters !

has anyone even heard from Mario lately ???

you know I'm just messin' with you guys, right CC32 ?

amdeutsch

German Bratwurst (not that US immitation Johnsonville) with Curry Catsup and a nice cold Bitburger to wash it down with.

vraa

Damn Germans.

Give me some pizza any day!

amdeutsch

Says the subway vegan from India.

<duckundrennwegschnell>

vraa

At least I'm healthy you *******

You must learn carefully the ways of the Vegan Jedi!

amdeutsch

Wookie.wav

King320

Nice video, i wish i could have been part of the fun As for the results, im no expert on the 230K. all i saw was the video, and am perplexed, magazine racing would suggest the 230 winning, but all i know is that i saw a beating worse than i get racing my dad's E430, anyways, i think the 230 is a nicer car, the trim is just unbelievable for such an inexpensive car. No wonder MB is selling those things like hot cakes! enjoy your cars

CynCarvin32

excuse me are you for real?

everyone knows that when you push the throttle in an automatic transmission vehicle into the "kick down switch" the car drops to the lowest possible gear and then accelerates at WOT until the driver lifts his/her foot from the gas.

so there is NO way you can race a car in 5 or 6th with an auto transmission (especially when its only a 5 speed!!).

posts like this make you realize that some people dont even understand basic vehicle function.

FYI all W203's with auto's are 5 speeds. We never said there was a stick involved.

Also we have raced my silver C230k against a friend C230k 6-speed MANUAL and the auto car is quicker. So there is no reason to race that slow C230k against the C240. We wanted to give the good old C230k a chance but it still blundered.

Good gosh....

I think you fooled you self fella.....

CynCarvin32

well.... thats a good question but i have the answer

the answer is two fold. there is an answer for those that believe that the "learning" of the transmission has something to do with performacne and one for those that do not.

if you think the tranny ecu and its learning process does cause a difference in acceleration rest assured these two cars are canyon driven at 10/10th's regularly and both cars are driven hard and put away wet. I doubt there is a more agressive tranny shif logic than the ones in that C240 (or the C230).

For those that dont think it does fear not the car was in full kick down and they were doing what ever was possible to get that car to speed as quickly as possible. These trannies were working over time and were shifting at redline every time... no questions asked!

Capt Nemo o2

If the cars are in a position where the need to downshift, the auto will be quicker than the manual. No human can shift as smooth or as quick as an auto can. Now if the driver with the manual held the approriate gear and did not require downshifting then the manual will win. Now if the auto is in manual mode and both cars hold the right gear it will be very close but probably in the autos favor but not by much. It would be based more on reaction time. And once again I repeat myself, in this situation (high speed rolling start) with two cars so similar in performance the car who has the advantage of starting the race has a huge advantage as his reaction time is effectively cut to zero while the other car has to first see the other car is going. That really isnt that easy when these cars dont accelerate that quick from higher speeds, and there isnt much visual que that the race has started. With two cars so slow and so similar in performance reaction time will make or break the race. Now I can accept that the C240 is faster, but you need to have better proof. You need a third car who will start the race or have synchronized watches with second hands and set a time to gun it. A car that can keep up with both cars will also be helpful so you can video tape with the race with out being in the cars. The cars should have equal amount of fuel, nothing in the trunk (besides spare and what not) and the drivers are of similar weight to make everything fair (Stock vs Stock and not Stock vs Stock + a few hundred pounds)

Capt Nemo o2

Ok, thanks for clearifying, I just dont know much about how the new software works. My dads old E didnt have the learning feature and I only put about 20 miles on his current one! Any other benz I drove was while valeting!

ctC230K

LOLOL THE AUTO CAR IS QUICKER that is the funniest thing i have heard all day!!!!!
you got me, i forgot the auto's are 5 speed. can you tell i don't drive them? why? because they're slow. if they are quicker than a 6 speed then the driver is a newbie. you guys look like you're about 18 but i'll try not to assume you don't know how to drive a manual transmission. kick down switch is NOT basic vehicle function, it's a Mercedes-Benz automatic transmission function.
tell your friend he needs to learn how to drive a manual transmission car before he can race it!

ctC230K

by the way, i believe the c240 IS faster on the highway but who needs a car that is faster going 80-130mph? 0-60 is what matters to me since all the roads i drive on every day the speedlimit is 45 on the fastest road, 25 on most of the rest.
i don't need to use the highway every day but even on the highways around me the limit is 55 so having a car that is faster at speeds of 70, 80, 90 mph is irrelevant.

CynCarvin32

I look like i am 18? do I have a series oh photots bragging about cars in my sig? do I have scanned photo of my speeding tickets? no that would be you.
my video was made to prove to the nay sayers here that the C230k was not as fast as they had thought.

While some cars do not have a kick down feature some non MB's do have it. It is common in most German vehicles.

My friend is an expert road racer so I venture to guess his abilities to power shift, rev-match, and heal-toe are good enough to make a stick vehicle accelerate quickly. Launching a car with almost no torque down low is not very difficult.

delbomber

A man who knows how to run an experiment!

Excellent point. I have never had a reason to get a car beyond 100 unless I was trying. I do a lot of highway driving, and the 6-speed offers adequate pull...and in any range of normal driving speeds (with the extreme being 85 anywhere in the northeast), C230 is king, rendering all that time and effort I spent arguing beyond these speeds useless, and the entire debate irrelevant.

That's the thing, no one ever said the 230 was fast...in response to claims the 240 was faster, we refuted. Fast? Come on. No one needs a video to disprove that! Even so, the car is only RELATIVELY slow. It IS quick and fast enough, and 10 years ago would have been a little rocket.

I have no doubt you made your video with nothing but pure intentions...but next time you try to prove something, if you want it to stand up to scrutiny by intelligent people and not just lemmings, use a more sound method.

Cheers.

mikefl52

I have not got into the frey before, but with this statement all your credibillity is gone. All I can say is that your friend does not know how to drive a 6sp if you beat him with your auto. All publications and many comments in this and other forums, as well as my experience of driving both, indicate that your statement is just not true.

delbomber

Don't know how I missed that comment of his. I've tried logic, it's just not possible. Save yourself a lot of aggravation and give up now

What I say next is just to Mike and other rational readers, otherwise I'm sure a video would appear to test the 6-speed c230 vs the auto c230 and disprove EVERY SINGLE test result EVER published about this car. But hey, results from a drag strip in Bumble**** USA by amateur drivers should be trusted over silly 'ole rags like Popular Mechanics and Car&Driver.

I wholeheartedly agree.The 6'er is like a completely different car. Anyone who thinks an automatic transmission can down-shift as quickly as a human being is completely CROCKED. Upshifts AND downshifts in autos are slowed by the premium placed on smoothness...Every test of every car I have ever seen supports this. Every car I have ever driven supports this. Don't let them drag you into this! This is not a point that can be argued AT ALL. EVERY TEST shows the 6-speed is faster. His comment only proves these guys DO NOT know how to drive. A 5-speed auto faster than a 6-speed manual? And these are the same guys who want us to believe their 240/230 drag race that flies in the face of physics and independent test is representative of all cars?? LOLOLOLOL! I really am laughing out loud!!

This just keeps getting funnier and funnier.

delbomber

Dude, you're starting to scare me now!! You said the C240 was a LOANER. Now, suddenly, you know the entire history of its tranny?

To wit: on Sept 7, 2004 you said So last night an associate and I were driving home and I decided to see how much quicker my C230k was when compared to his 2004 C240 loaner vehicle.

Nary a mention of anyone else with a 240...why test it against a loaner? Then, for the purposes of the video, you suddenly found a 240 which you know its entire history??????

Busted.

Ever consider that maybe every car you test against your 230 beats it because, a)your car is a slow terd, for whatever reason b) as demonstrated by your comment on stick vs. auto, you don't know how to drive? Wait, don't answer that...your comments to this point have been revealing enough. Any answer will just be more spin!

As you know I'm done arguing about which car is faster. You're 95% wrong and you need to accept it. But your methods, deceptions, and opinions about transmission PARADIGMS are truly frightening and worth exploring, if only for amusement purposes! Can't you acknowledge that perhaps it's just your car and not all 230s, like I acknowledged that beyond 110, in a ridiculous handicap race, what you're saying might be true?

I realize the tone of this reply might seem nasty, but it's not, believe me...it's more befuddlement and entertainment...

I'm going to try to refrain from commenting further, as this defense of the 240 and comments about the 230 continue to become more and more surreal and worth less and less of my time. Were this a rational debate I would be glad to carry on indefinitely, but purely emotional and illogical discussions not only go on indefinitely, but feel even longer!

Hey, I bought a bag of pretzels from the corner store last night...they were stale. That must mean all the pretzels in the woooooorld are stale. :p

ct made a great point earlier, and it is on its laurels this argument is finished and you can stop backtracking and spinning...IF the 240 is faster beyond 100 mph, well terrific, congrats to all c240 owners...the car is faster outside the range of 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of everyday driving speeds. Sleep well. Esto dignus.

PC Valkyrie

I'm always amazed how much heated debate (bordering on hate) there is whenever the C240 is compared to the C230K.

Owners of the C230K just can't graciously accept the possibility that their car may not have the torque at high engine speeds to beat a C240 from rolling highway speeds. As I have posted before, the shape of the torque curves are very different betweent the 2 cars and it should not be too surprising that the C240 may have better passing power at high speeds.

No one in their right minds will deny the fact that the C230K will outgun the C240 from 0 to 60, or the 1/4 mile.

There are many on this board who constantly bash the C240 and think it is a peice of c**p. Perhaps these same people can't accept the possibility that this piece of c**p can beat them at WOT at highway speeds.

I agree that in day to day driving at legal speeds, the C230K is much more spirited than the C240.

Anyways, both cars will no longer be produced after the 2005 model year. Let's just accept them for what they are: DIFFERENT.

delbomber

Not hate, exacerbation at the logic. If someone presented a sound, objective, rational example like I did, I would have shut up a long time ago. Instead we get arguments plagued by emotional rhetoric and unscientific tests. A simple understanding of Statistics (as in the science of, not baseball) would be enough to know that the sample size (ONE set of cars) is nowhere close to the required minimum sample size (which also must be chosen at RANDOM) for a confident representation of the population. Once I realized the vacuous logic I was dealing with I should have quit to save myself a lot of time and energy, but it was just too much fun up until these last few posts, where the points they have raised have gone from being fallacious to downright stupid.

Anyway, I'm not sure you're talking to me directly, but if you are then you're mistaken. :p My own example demonstrated the possibility (albeit completely inferred and IMO, slim) that the 240 is faster beyond 100 mph and I thusly acknowledged it. My issue for a while has been the veracity of the "race", logic applied to factors that invalidate it, arguments made that are patently false about--lol, get this--autos being faster than manuals, and the indignation in regards to acknowledging, like I and all other 230 owners involved in this thread have, that yes, perhaps they're wrong and their one little race in the middle of nowhere is not representative of the entire population of C230s and 240s.

This has gone beyond a discussion of the cars and is now an argument about the argument. Boring.

CynCarvin32

what you need to remember is that all cars a variance in the production tolerances. Motors can have a variance in power of up to + or - 15% before you can claim that your car is not up to spec legally speaking.

I have had cars that ran extremely hard for their stated hp figures and I have had cars that were far slower than any other car with that same engine size.

I had a C280 (1997) that was very strong and I had a C36 that was even stronger. Both cars were quicker than any other C280 or C36 that I came across. On the flip slide my C32 was slower than several friends that had the same make and model cars. I asked MB to make the car quicker (up to snuff so to say) and their tests showed that it was in "spec" for a production car. AMG's can have a variance of up to 30-50 hp these days. I have not dyno'd my 55k's but my E feels far stronger than the SL (the SL is heavier but it also has a more aggressive rear end). A friend has a CL55 that makes over 540 hp at the crank and his 55k is 100% stock (dyno proven).

What I am trying to get at is that the 6 speed in question was just a very weak example of a 1.8k motor.

CynCarvin32

read the thread. the loaner car was in the drivers hands for over 45 days because his E320 had some serious issues and the factory was in the middle of figuring out how to fix the issues or just buy the car back. After 40 days or so of very aggressive driving I think that the ecu learns a new driving style.

glad im scaring you though.

oh by the way the kick down switch nigates what the tranny ecu has learned and forces the car to do anything possible in an effort to get the car up to spped as quickly as possible. that is a safety feature to make sure that in a pinch the car will drop to the lowest possible gear, shift as quickly as possible, and shift at the optimal rpm.

well ok feel free to bash my driving ability. It just shows that you are trying to find some crumb to make your story look better. If I am such a moneky behind the wheel explain why have countless hours of track experience where people in Z-06's and various other very quick track cars come over and complement both me and the car. I guess I just monkey the C32 around enough to get it to go quickly. Granted many people at open track events are not the best drivers but groups like NASA tend to have some fairly skilled people running in their events. Im not saying that a C32 is quicker than a Z-06 or 996 TT at the track but the average person there with one of those cars tends to never quite understand how a 4 door mb could have just blown past them or climbed onto his/her bumper in the middle of a high speed sweeper. I'm just out having fun

If we want to play fast lap game maybe my lap time at the AMG challenge can show my driving skill a little better. I was .01 slower than the man with the fastest lap and he was a semi-pro road course driver. .01.... man i need to work on my skill level because clearly im falling way to far behind.

gaiex

No way a c240 beats a c230k, specially if both were manual...

The c230 with auto is slower than a c240 auto, because the auto tranny its almost perfect for V6, but with the c230 the gear ratio are to big and the little engine with only 5spd is slower than the v6, otherwise the manual one in the c230 is a lot quicker.

The 240 wons because of the higher torque curve and because of the gears ratio on that speed, so, if the c230 was an manual, and it had a good driver, it will smoke the 240 :v

My CDI with less power (only 143hp) but with more torque (330Nm) than the c230k, when reached 124mph the kompressor starts to go away, because of higher top speed and power, but until that speed, and because of the low torque band, it just stays side to side

So, the torque curve may have a lot of significate to...

gaiex

Its rigth, I noticed that too with my manual CDI, the car turns out a little quicker, and a better throttle response