W204 First drive and review.
07-21-2007, 08:03 PM
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05 CLK 320
W204 First drive and review.
Here is my car history My first car was a C-Class W203 series, followed by a 330ci -> updated W203 C 230 -> CLK320. I had use the C-Class quite a bit so I really wanted to see how the new car was.
So today my buddy and I went to the Austin MB dealer to test drive the car. As we came in I saw the car parked on the side and it was an immediate head turner. It was the standard grey with the sport package that people were talking about. But any way some other people took the car out to test drive. So we waited for the car to come back. In the mean time I pick up couple
CD's from my car to try it out on the updated H/K sound system.
After 10 min’s the car came in, and we got ready to drive the car.
Exterior:
Very bold design, as previously said a head turner and looks like a mini Sport S-Class.
The head lights are split into two levels, the upper level has a nice glow and the lower level has the high beams and low beams. The test car did not come with the xenon head lights.
The tail lights look very nice and the ventilated is a nice design a Mercedes Benz patent. In the computer simulations they stumbled upon this design so basically by channeling the air to the tail lights you reduce the drag and
buffeting at speed, supposedly increases the fuel efficiency a bit.
The external Antenna was a black color and not the color of the car but ordered car’s should have the colored antenna.
New mirrors were really big and yes you can see a lot of things and I did not notice much wind-noise when driving at 80mph, as others talked about. The
lighting pattern for the turn indicators are little different.
New vipers that are seen on the S-Class, the right wiper does not have the slide pivot action any longer, they are able to cover the entire windshield without sliding. Also at low speeds the wipers will slowly come to a pause for a second when the reach the maximum turn to avoid slapping water on the drivers side. This helps some of the water drain down the passenger blade without dumping all the passenger side windshield water on the driver side. There is also a slight pause at high speed but not too noticeable. It was raining hard outside and the new wipers did an amazing job cleaning better than my CLK.
Also there is a new rain sensor’s similar to the S-Class , but you cannot set the sensitiveness.
There are now 3 windshield washer jet heads spraying through 2 nozzles each so six nozzles in all. The arrangement is a little funky. The driver side has 2 heads and 4 nozzles and has an excellent coverage. BTW the new S- and CL have a total of 8 nozzles with 4 heads. The windshield washer jets are located under the front hood right near the wipers. When you start the spray the wipers move then sprays come on. You get a very good clean I mean an excellent cleaning. Also this design prevents this white liquid to build up on the paint. What I mean is when you turn on the nozzles there is a fine spray that falls on the hood, but with this setup the spray falls inside and you cannot see it.
The water routing channels have been updated on the rear windshield , all the water is routed through the middle section, and the side sections top sections of the windshield are sealed to prevent wind noise and also prevent water streams filling up on the side of the rear wind shield.
The car has an updated chirping sound when locking and unlocking, I am sure the sound has been updated it sounds different.
Side mirrors fold when locked this can be changed via the options in the MFD.
AMG wheels were 225 front 255 rear and looked very nice. Though some harshness was felt in the cabin.
The fuel filler has been updated; it has the same design as the S-Class. Have a spring action and a more convenient location to put the fuel cap.
Interior:
The interior design is very striking as you get in.
When you close the door you have a nice solid sound, like the old school Benz’s. Very nice.
The speedometer is simply outstanding, The dials are from an SL and so are back plates, very beautiful. The entire back panel is silver coated and has a very good contrast. The SL’s have a soft blue lighting the C’s have a white back lighting.
The MFD has a new screen; the text is sharper and more striking. I could see very clearly sitting at the passenger side. The MFD options are similar to an S-Class ,The steering wheel has and left and right buttons that invoke the MFD options , SYSTEM - NAV - AUDI - PHONE . There is a back button that can take you back when you are setting up the options. Very well done.
There is one ambient light under the rear view mirror and 4 soft ambient light strips under each door handle, similar to the S-Class. But these cannot be adjusted like in the S-Class, they have one setting. All of the air vents including the rear one light up in the night.
The front top console has pretty much a similar setup as before and I think microphones are located here. But the buttons look nicer they are squarer.
The sunroof panel has a solid feel, when opening and closing.
The sunroof control panel light has a small light that is visible to the passenger basically a small strip.
The buttons have a new lacquer on them, feel very nice. The push down feeling has been updated.
The A/C dial’s have the soft nickel satin touch similar to the Idrive control and they lose the plasticity feel from the older cars. They have a more solid turn.
The material that the gear shift sits on looks very nice, has a nickel satin finish. Has a good contrast compared to the metal trim of the interior. It looks very nice in the pictures when put on a lighter colored wood. Also the strip that indicates the park, drive, reverse, neutral is squarer than before and I think is made of the same material. C/S button on there is little bigger.
The electronic seats are 8 ways adjustable .The memory seats will be offered in the future and it will look nicer
There is a speaker grill like material in front and the rear of the car, I am thinking these are vent holes and are made to look nice. They do look nice. But have a little plastic feel on them, well the car is only 32k msrp so cannot expect high quality on these materials.
The car feels very big on the inside; the rear has a lot more room now. Also the front seats feel like they have a little higher feel to them, so you don’t feel like you are on the road, especially in small cars.
There are a total of 3 AC plugs in the car, one cigarette lighter front and rear and one more inside the glove compartment. There is also an Aux plug in there.
The rear seat divide has a place to put some things in like a small compartment and also the cup holders pop-out in a nice fashion in the rear seat, this you can expect only in a Mercedes.
The rear lights have been updated. Now there are reading lights for the rear passengers. The buttons on these reading lights have back lighting. And there is a nice chrome ring around the reading lights very good attention to detail.
The roof paneling seemed a little cheap. If you get the pano-roof then it should not matter.
The front cup holders are fine, cup holders are cop holders and I think fitting two supersize drinks should not be a problem.
The front storage space is decent, almost enough but would like a little more don’t know for what.
The glove compartment door is also engineered very well, when you open it, it will come down softly and can be pushed back in a smooth motion.
The doors have red light and a puddle light , the red light is useful to warn traffic behind that you are opening the door.
The front foot wells have a light when you get in, but not sure if there are ambient lights there. The manager told me it looks very nice in the night.
Command:
The command remembers its prior position up or down . So if it was down when you got out previously it will be down, if it was up, it will come up when you open the doors. Smart.
There are two buttons near the bottom of the command screen. Yes they have back lighting, one button is used to the close the screen while the other is used to tilt the screen front or back, so you can block the sunlight.
The command is very nice, it is a slight update compared to the original 2007 S-Class command. The screen has a chrome strip and looks very high quality.
The command dial is not a feedback dial like the S-Class. In the S-Class the dial tells you when you reach the end of a menu, in the x-y-z axis.
The navigation is leaps and bounds better than the old system and beat any of the systems already out there. Has a 3d feel to the navigation icons.
The voice control is excellent, even Microsoft or Apple don’t come close to this level of perfection in voice control. It can pick up a very soft voice with very good hit rate. It even picks up a whisper when you enter the phone number, you can say all the 10 digits at once and it has no problem with picking it up. The best part is if the system is confused it will give you a set of options that it thinks you are saying so you can pick one of the options.
I paired my Cingular 8125 in 2 minutes and was making call’s, and the call quality was very clear. It imports the V-Card from outlook. My buddy hooked up his Treo 700wx and it worked.
Has the dialed received call log with time, and also has an option to save the number to the contacts.
You can also import your outlook V-Card settings via the PCMCIA slot but we could not figure how to get it to work.
The dealership manager sncy’d his Apple phone with the system. You can have up to 10 phones sycn’d to the system.
The Navigation voice system will fade out and fade in the music as it turn on and off, very well done here again. The voice rises in a nice fashion and music fades down. When it is done the Music come up in a very pleasant gradient.
Audio system is suburb, massive improvement compared to the old H/K system , cannot believe the same system sounds so much differently. Can play back DTS, DD 5.1 and even has the Grace-Note setup. I could tell a night and day difference esp on the DVD-A when compared to my H/K on my CLK, of course the CLK does not have the DVD-A capability. The audio CD’s sounded much better.
They put the volume control in a nice place, glad you did not have to go through the command for the voice and control. Again you can press this button to close and open the command.
The Six-Disc CD changer is in dash, very nice. The system will tell you what is in the slots; it will read out the name of the CD/DVD and also what type of DVD it is DVD-A or DVD-V.
Yes DVD-Video are supported, they had a Texas 2006 game, it looked very nice. Screen was bright and 5.1 sound from the DVD-video was phenomenal. It does not let you skip the FBI screen. Also the video shuts off when the car is in motion.
When you place the Cd in the changer you can rip it to the 4gb hard-drive as an MP3, not sure what other ways you can rip it as.
There is a PCMCIA reader , not sure if the car comes with the adapter but the demo had a PQI adapter with a ScanDisk Card. I think if you get the adapters you should be able to put the upcoming 32gb cards in there.
The MP3’s stored are organized very well and the names are displayed in a great font size.
The overall GUI is amazing for the command. Comparable to an Apple GUI implementation / ease or even better that Apple.
Drive:
The updated steering was very nice. It feels so much better compared to the old system, very sensitive and also responsive.
Reduced body roll, the car felt very firm. My buddy did a very sharp corner and it looked like the car too that with ease. With the adaptive suspension it will probably be even better. I wish I could have pushed the car more that what I did, it was raining and there was a lot of traffic.
The performance of the 300 engine, for me it seemed fine.
The responsiveness of the transmission was good, an improvement from the older cars.
Wind-Noise was very controlled, Road noise was also down but you can hear a little bit because of the bigger tires, 18” rims.
The cruise control stalk has two settings now, one for a 1 mph increment and one for 5 mph increment same for the decrement. Again attention to detail. This feature is already in the M-Class and some of the older cars. When cruise control is engaged you get a circular readout similar to the E-class and the CLK.
Mercedes Features:
These are some features you will find in a Mercedes Benz
Priority based turn indicators yes they are still there, BMW also has this. When you turn on your hazards and you need to make a right turn you can set your right turn indicator without turning off the hazards. Once you have completed the turn the hazards will come back on.
All the control stalks are on the left side of the steering wheel, including cruise control, turn, headlights, wipers. Making driving with one hand an ease.
One touch lane indicator, just tap the turn light stalk and it will blink for 3 times and stop.
Fuel cap overfill valve, if you overfill the tank, the fuel overflow will go out from a small hole rather than spill to the side of the car.
Tunnel mode, press the the recirculation button and all the windows including the sunroof will close, press it again, they will all go back to this previous setting. This means they could go back to 5 different settings, each window with its own setting.
Final Thoughts:
I am a person you feels that the interior and features are more important. Yes a big engine is nice but I really don’t floor often and I lose the feeling of the power after sometime. I sit inside the car; I will feel the imperfections every day, so I really need a good interior with a lot features. Also with 3 dollar gas prices, every time I floor, I am probably burning a dollar worth of gas, so I really don’t care about a big engine. I prefer to put the money in a fully loaded car.
Overall the car is just amazing. It is a great improvement over the previous C-Class, and definitely beats the crap of the 3 series in the every department except the handling, again with adaptive suspension this could change. This would be a first time for a C where it pretty much holds every thing to itself. The interior in a 3 series is a piece of turd. Also the harshness of the 3 drive is annoying, yes it is fun when you first drive the car but driving like that for 50k miles is not worth it.
This car will bring Mercedes back in this market segment. I was in a Lexus IS last weekend and that car is not even a fair comparison to this car. Lexus was more like a Hyundai. Like the new TV-commercials. BMW will have a much harder time being the leader now, especially since Mercedes looks lot nicer than the 3 and the Mercedes is also very fun to drive. Infinite might also be a nice car but then again it is trying to be a BMW. Audi is also a very well designed car but it cannot come close to a Benz.
People are complaining about the lack of 30hp in the Benz to take it to the golden 300hp. Don’t worry about that, Mercedes is working on the new engines and it will be having more horsepower than the 3 – Series.
American version of the C-Class seems to be missing the following options. Triple zone climate control, Keyless Go, Sport mode-dynamic suspension, Memory seats from what I heard these options should be coming in the next year.
Mercedes has always been a company which led the way in automotive excellence and engineering, and the new C-Class is going to be a true Mercedes in its product range. A engineering marvel, a piece of art and above all a well rounded solid car. Every other car company is trying to be an BMW , rather than having their own soul and identity.
Pros:
Vast improvement compared to the previous generation.
Excellent Command system required option.
Improved handling.
The best C Class.
Cons:
Some cheapness but not too much. Again in lighter colors it will look very nice.
US version lacks all available options.
90/100
So today my buddy and I went to the Austin MB dealer to test drive the car. As we came in I saw the car parked on the side and it was an immediate head turner. It was the standard grey with the sport package that people were talking about. But any way some other people took the car out to test drive. So we waited for the car to come back. In the mean time I pick up couple
CD's from my car to try it out on the updated H/K sound system.
After 10 min’s the car came in, and we got ready to drive the car.
Exterior:
Very bold design, as previously said a head turner and looks like a mini Sport S-Class.
The head lights are split into two levels, the upper level has a nice glow and the lower level has the high beams and low beams. The test car did not come with the xenon head lights.
The tail lights look very nice and the ventilated is a nice design a Mercedes Benz patent. In the computer simulations they stumbled upon this design so basically by channeling the air to the tail lights you reduce the drag and
buffeting at speed, supposedly increases the fuel efficiency a bit.
The external Antenna was a black color and not the color of the car but ordered car’s should have the colored antenna.
New mirrors were really big and yes you can see a lot of things and I did not notice much wind-noise when driving at 80mph, as others talked about. The
lighting pattern for the turn indicators are little different.
New vipers that are seen on the S-Class, the right wiper does not have the slide pivot action any longer, they are able to cover the entire windshield without sliding. Also at low speeds the wipers will slowly come to a pause for a second when the reach the maximum turn to avoid slapping water on the drivers side. This helps some of the water drain down the passenger blade without dumping all the passenger side windshield water on the driver side. There is also a slight pause at high speed but not too noticeable. It was raining hard outside and the new wipers did an amazing job cleaning better than my CLK.
Also there is a new rain sensor’s similar to the S-Class , but you cannot set the sensitiveness.
There are now 3 windshield washer jet heads spraying through 2 nozzles each so six nozzles in all. The arrangement is a little funky. The driver side has 2 heads and 4 nozzles and has an excellent coverage. BTW the new S- and CL have a total of 8 nozzles with 4 heads. The windshield washer jets are located under the front hood right near the wipers. When you start the spray the wipers move then sprays come on. You get a very good clean I mean an excellent cleaning. Also this design prevents this white liquid to build up on the paint. What I mean is when you turn on the nozzles there is a fine spray that falls on the hood, but with this setup the spray falls inside and you cannot see it.
The water routing channels have been updated on the rear windshield , all the water is routed through the middle section, and the side sections top sections of the windshield are sealed to prevent wind noise and also prevent water streams filling up on the side of the rear wind shield.
The car has an updated chirping sound when locking and unlocking, I am sure the sound has been updated it sounds different.
Side mirrors fold when locked this can be changed via the options in the MFD.
AMG wheels were 225 front 255 rear and looked very nice. Though some harshness was felt in the cabin.
The fuel filler has been updated; it has the same design as the S-Class. Have a spring action and a more convenient location to put the fuel cap.
Interior:
The interior design is very striking as you get in.
When you close the door you have a nice solid sound, like the old school Benz’s. Very nice.
The speedometer is simply outstanding, The dials are from an SL and so are back plates, very beautiful. The entire back panel is silver coated and has a very good contrast. The SL’s have a soft blue lighting the C’s have a white back lighting.
The MFD has a new screen; the text is sharper and more striking. I could see very clearly sitting at the passenger side. The MFD options are similar to an S-Class ,The steering wheel has and left and right buttons that invoke the MFD options , SYSTEM - NAV - AUDI - PHONE . There is a back button that can take you back when you are setting up the options. Very well done.
There is one ambient light under the rear view mirror and 4 soft ambient light strips under each door handle, similar to the S-Class. But these cannot be adjusted like in the S-Class, they have one setting. All of the air vents including the rear one light up in the night.
The front top console has pretty much a similar setup as before and I think microphones are located here. But the buttons look nicer they are squarer.
The sunroof panel has a solid feel, when opening and closing.
The sunroof control panel light has a small light that is visible to the passenger basically a small strip.
The buttons have a new lacquer on them, feel very nice. The push down feeling has been updated.
The A/C dial’s have the soft nickel satin touch similar to the Idrive control and they lose the plasticity feel from the older cars. They have a more solid turn.
The material that the gear shift sits on looks very nice, has a nickel satin finish. Has a good contrast compared to the metal trim of the interior. It looks very nice in the pictures when put on a lighter colored wood. Also the strip that indicates the park, drive, reverse, neutral is squarer than before and I think is made of the same material. C/S button on there is little bigger.
The electronic seats are 8 ways adjustable .The memory seats will be offered in the future and it will look nicer
There is a speaker grill like material in front and the rear of the car, I am thinking these are vent holes and are made to look nice. They do look nice. But have a little plastic feel on them, well the car is only 32k msrp so cannot expect high quality on these materials.
The car feels very big on the inside; the rear has a lot more room now. Also the front seats feel like they have a little higher feel to them, so you don’t feel like you are on the road, especially in small cars.
There are a total of 3 AC plugs in the car, one cigarette lighter front and rear and one more inside the glove compartment. There is also an Aux plug in there.
The rear seat divide has a place to put some things in like a small compartment and also the cup holders pop-out in a nice fashion in the rear seat, this you can expect only in a Mercedes.
The rear lights have been updated. Now there are reading lights for the rear passengers. The buttons on these reading lights have back lighting. And there is a nice chrome ring around the reading lights very good attention to detail.
The roof paneling seemed a little cheap. If you get the pano-roof then it should not matter.
The front cup holders are fine, cup holders are cop holders and I think fitting two supersize drinks should not be a problem.
The front storage space is decent, almost enough but would like a little more don’t know for what.
The glove compartment door is also engineered very well, when you open it, it will come down softly and can be pushed back in a smooth motion.
The doors have red light and a puddle light , the red light is useful to warn traffic behind that you are opening the door.
The front foot wells have a light when you get in, but not sure if there are ambient lights there. The manager told me it looks very nice in the night.
Command:
The command remembers its prior position up or down . So if it was down when you got out previously it will be down, if it was up, it will come up when you open the doors. Smart.
There are two buttons near the bottom of the command screen. Yes they have back lighting, one button is used to the close the screen while the other is used to tilt the screen front or back, so you can block the sunlight.
The command is very nice, it is a slight update compared to the original 2007 S-Class command. The screen has a chrome strip and looks very high quality.
The command dial is not a feedback dial like the S-Class. In the S-Class the dial tells you when you reach the end of a menu, in the x-y-z axis.
The navigation is leaps and bounds better than the old system and beat any of the systems already out there. Has a 3d feel to the navigation icons.
The voice control is excellent, even Microsoft or Apple don’t come close to this level of perfection in voice control. It can pick up a very soft voice with very good hit rate. It even picks up a whisper when you enter the phone number, you can say all the 10 digits at once and it has no problem with picking it up. The best part is if the system is confused it will give you a set of options that it thinks you are saying so you can pick one of the options.
I paired my Cingular 8125 in 2 minutes and was making call’s, and the call quality was very clear. It imports the V-Card from outlook. My buddy hooked up his Treo 700wx and it worked.
Has the dialed received call log with time, and also has an option to save the number to the contacts.
You can also import your outlook V-Card settings via the PCMCIA slot but we could not figure how to get it to work.
The dealership manager sncy’d his Apple phone with the system. You can have up to 10 phones sycn’d to the system.
The Navigation voice system will fade out and fade in the music as it turn on and off, very well done here again. The voice rises in a nice fashion and music fades down. When it is done the Music come up in a very pleasant gradient.
Audio system is suburb, massive improvement compared to the old H/K system , cannot believe the same system sounds so much differently. Can play back DTS, DD 5.1 and even has the Grace-Note setup. I could tell a night and day difference esp on the DVD-A when compared to my H/K on my CLK, of course the CLK does not have the DVD-A capability. The audio CD’s sounded much better.
They put the volume control in a nice place, glad you did not have to go through the command for the voice and control. Again you can press this button to close and open the command.
The Six-Disc CD changer is in dash, very nice. The system will tell you what is in the slots; it will read out the name of the CD/DVD and also what type of DVD it is DVD-A or DVD-V.
Yes DVD-Video are supported, they had a Texas 2006 game, it looked very nice. Screen was bright and 5.1 sound from the DVD-video was phenomenal. It does not let you skip the FBI screen. Also the video shuts off when the car is in motion.
When you place the Cd in the changer you can rip it to the 4gb hard-drive as an MP3, not sure what other ways you can rip it as.
There is a PCMCIA reader , not sure if the car comes with the adapter but the demo had a PQI adapter with a ScanDisk Card. I think if you get the adapters you should be able to put the upcoming 32gb cards in there.
The MP3’s stored are organized very well and the names are displayed in a great font size.
The overall GUI is amazing for the command. Comparable to an Apple GUI implementation / ease or even better that Apple.
Drive:
The updated steering was very nice. It feels so much better compared to the old system, very sensitive and also responsive.
Reduced body roll, the car felt very firm. My buddy did a very sharp corner and it looked like the car too that with ease. With the adaptive suspension it will probably be even better. I wish I could have pushed the car more that what I did, it was raining and there was a lot of traffic.
The performance of the 300 engine, for me it seemed fine.
The responsiveness of the transmission was good, an improvement from the older cars.
Wind-Noise was very controlled, Road noise was also down but you can hear a little bit because of the bigger tires, 18” rims.
The cruise control stalk has two settings now, one for a 1 mph increment and one for 5 mph increment same for the decrement. Again attention to detail. This feature is already in the M-Class and some of the older cars. When cruise control is engaged you get a circular readout similar to the E-class and the CLK.
Mercedes Features:
These are some features you will find in a Mercedes Benz
Priority based turn indicators yes they are still there, BMW also has this. When you turn on your hazards and you need to make a right turn you can set your right turn indicator without turning off the hazards. Once you have completed the turn the hazards will come back on.
All the control stalks are on the left side of the steering wheel, including cruise control, turn, headlights, wipers. Making driving with one hand an ease.
One touch lane indicator, just tap the turn light stalk and it will blink for 3 times and stop.
Fuel cap overfill valve, if you overfill the tank, the fuel overflow will go out from a small hole rather than spill to the side of the car.
Tunnel mode, press the the recirculation button and all the windows including the sunroof will close, press it again, they will all go back to this previous setting. This means they could go back to 5 different settings, each window with its own setting.
Final Thoughts:
I am a person you feels that the interior and features are more important. Yes a big engine is nice but I really don’t floor often and I lose the feeling of the power after sometime. I sit inside the car; I will feel the imperfections every day, so I really need a good interior with a lot features. Also with 3 dollar gas prices, every time I floor, I am probably burning a dollar worth of gas, so I really don’t care about a big engine. I prefer to put the money in a fully loaded car.
Overall the car is just amazing. It is a great improvement over the previous C-Class, and definitely beats the crap of the 3 series in the every department except the handling, again with adaptive suspension this could change. This would be a first time for a C where it pretty much holds every thing to itself. The interior in a 3 series is a piece of turd. Also the harshness of the 3 drive is annoying, yes it is fun when you first drive the car but driving like that for 50k miles is not worth it.
This car will bring Mercedes back in this market segment. I was in a Lexus IS last weekend and that car is not even a fair comparison to this car. Lexus was more like a Hyundai. Like the new TV-commercials. BMW will have a much harder time being the leader now, especially since Mercedes looks lot nicer than the 3 and the Mercedes is also very fun to drive. Infinite might also be a nice car but then again it is trying to be a BMW. Audi is also a very well designed car but it cannot come close to a Benz.
People are complaining about the lack of 30hp in the Benz to take it to the golden 300hp. Don’t worry about that, Mercedes is working on the new engines and it will be having more horsepower than the 3 – Series.
American version of the C-Class seems to be missing the following options. Triple zone climate control, Keyless Go, Sport mode-dynamic suspension, Memory seats from what I heard these options should be coming in the next year.
Mercedes has always been a company which led the way in automotive excellence and engineering, and the new C-Class is going to be a true Mercedes in its product range. A engineering marvel, a piece of art and above all a well rounded solid car. Every other car company is trying to be an BMW , rather than having their own soul and identity.
Pros:
Vast improvement compared to the previous generation.
Excellent Command system required option.
Improved handling.
The best C Class.
Cons:
Some cheapness but not too much. Again in lighter colors it will look very nice.
US version lacks all available options.
90/100
Last edited by cracker123; 07-21-2007 at 08:11 PM.
07-21-2007, 08:41 PM
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2003 C230K Coupe Orion Blue
Wow, awesome review. You've pretty much covered all the bases, nice work! 
They're still not in Canada (Vancouver) yet, still waiting... *sigh*
They're still not in Canada (Vancouver) yet, still waiting... *sigh*
07-22-2007, 12:09 AM
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05 CLK 320
you will love the car in person, you guys should also be getting it soon, or just go to seattle check it out 
MB of Bellevau has lot of nice cars, saw couple of 57S there.
MB of Bellevau has lot of nice cars, saw couple of 57S there.
07-22-2007, 01:26 AM
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RR Sport / C63
FYI, even if the cars did come with the DVD-video option, bypassing the video-in-motion option is usually just a 1 or 2-wire modification. But for safety issues, it's recommended to leave it as is.
07-22-2007, 02:44 AM
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E550 4MATIC
The DVD-Video is only on the demo cars since that's a European-only option that was put on all of the demo cars. All of the dealerships got the same color, same package C300 Sport cars. Unfortunately, when the US models with the multimedia package arrives in late Sept or early Oct (first batch in Aug doesn't have multimedia package) they won't have the DVD-video option where you can play DVD movies... not unless you find a European version of the command console that you can buy online and install it into the car (like what I did with my nav unit in my A4), or unless a company out there finds a way to crack the US model command consoles to allow for DVD movie discs.
FYI, even if the cars did come with the DVD-video option, bypassing the video-in-motion option is usually just a 1 or 2-wire modification. But for safety issues, it's recommended to leave it as is.
FYI, even if the cars did come with the DVD-video option, bypassing the video-in-motion option is usually just a 1 or 2-wire modification. But for safety issues, it's recommended to leave it as is.
07-22-2007, 02:49 AM
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E550 4MATIC
They are really pushing this new Palladium Silver that is on the demos! It is a very good choice for the car though, I would seriously consider it.
Also, I see you pointed out that the memory seats were not in this demo, do you know the details of this? Will that be an option or only on the C350 etc? I was happy that they finally made power seats standard on all C-Class, it really isn't good for their image to have a Mercedes sold in the US without such a simple thing, but I wish they would have put the traditional Mercedes design with door mounted controls as standard.
The number one thing I can say I absolutely hate about this car is the lack of the retractable rear headrests, that is such a quintessential Mercedes design element that I will miss.
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07-22-2007, 05:43 AM
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Waiting for W204 Facelift
Great Review !
Really good ! are you working car writer as a second job
you like your test car colour or what is your colour for new C (W204) ?
Handling ? compare a lit more to CW203 and your CLK
you like your test car colour or what is your colour for new C (W204) ?
Handling ? compare a lit more to CW203 and your CLK
07-22-2007, 10:26 AM
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05 CLK 320
craker123, thank you for the awesome detailed review! You addressed all the small things that we enthusiasts notice and find very important. I had a quick drive in the new C-Class at my dealership today and was equally impressed. I might be wrong, but is this the first time Mercedes-Benz USA has taken such an agressive policy--by that I mean providing all their dealerships with identical demo cars slightly ahead of the launch.
They are really pushing this new Palladium Silver that is on the demos! It is a very good choice for the car though, I would seriously consider it.
Also, I see you pointed out that the memory seats were not in this demo, do you know the details of this? Will that be an option or only on the C350 etc? I was happy that they finally made power seats standard on all C-Class, it really isn't good for their image to have a Mercedes sold in the US without such a simple thing, but I wish they would have put the traditional Mercedes design with door mounted controls as standard.
The number one thing I can say I absolutely hate about this car is the lack of the retractable rear headrests, that is such a quintessential Mercedes design element that I will miss.
They are really pushing this new Palladium Silver that is on the demos! It is a very good choice for the car though, I would seriously consider it.
Also, I see you pointed out that the memory seats were not in this demo, do you know the details of this? Will that be an option or only on the C350 etc? I was happy that they finally made power seats standard on all C-Class, it really isn't good for their image to have a Mercedes sold in the US without such a simple thing, but I wish they would have put the traditional Mercedes design with door mounted controls as standard.
The number one thing I can say I absolutely hate about this car is the lack of the retractable rear headrests, that is such a quintessential Mercedes design element that I will miss.
. Not sure if the C350 has this standard, I think MBUSA is not bringing all the options over to the stateside the first year, that is what I am thinking. Again C350 might have it. In the us debut pictures they show the memory seats. http://www.worldcarfans.com/2070402....us-debut-in-ny
I was talking about the headrests with the manager, they were almost closed so I did not swap the headrests out. I will swap a C class W203 head rests with W204.
I am hoping the next time I go will be taking a lot of pictures. Hopefully of all the features I talked about, I will add it to this article.
07-22-2007, 10:29 AM
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05 CLK 320
I can say you will be surprised; there was a good deal of space even after I moved the front seat back quite a distance. Again you should judge for yourself. Finer details of space are based on individual preference. It is a lot more than the 3 series, way more than the IS, felt more like a lexus ES.
07-22-2007, 10:30 AM
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05 CLK 320
The DVD-Video is only on the demo cars since that's a European-only option that was put on all of the demo cars. All of the dealerships got the same color, same package C300 Sport cars. Unfortunately, when the US models with the multimedia package arrives in late Sept or early Oct (first batch in Aug doesn't have multimedia package) they won't have the DVD-video option where you can play DVD movies... not unless you find a European version of the command console that you can buy online and install it into the car (like what I did with my nav unit in my A4), or unless a company out there finds a way to crack the US model command consoles to allow for DVD movie discs.
FYI, even if the cars did come with the DVD-video option, bypassing the video-in-motion option is usually just a 1 or 2-wire modification. But for safety issues, it's recommended to leave it as is.
FYI, even if the cars did come with the DVD-video option, bypassing the video-in-motion option is usually just a 1 or 2-wire modification. But for safety issues, it's recommended to leave it as is.
07-22-2007, 10:34 AM
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05 CLK 320
Again compared to a W203 sport, there is difference. The feeling is completely different. This car seems to hug the road more , the 255 in th rear help for sure. Body roll is much better than the W203 sport, once you add the Advanced Agility package when ever it becomes available it will be amazing.
The steering has a very nice feel, the response is mind-blowing. I sort of feel it is the first steering from MB that beats a BMW. IMHO BMW and MB steering were sort of close but BMW used to be little better for some odd reason esp. with the response and feedback. MB now feels better than the BMW and the feedback is kept to a good level. So you don’t feel every small bump on the road.
Last edited by cracker123; 07-22-2007 at 10:37 AM.
07-22-2007, 01:52 PM
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W204 C220 CDI
cracker1: so the car had the palladium silver color and looked like the car on these pics -> https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w204/202321-got-play-w204-tonight.html
07-22-2007, 03:38 PM
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05 CLK 320
cracker1: so the car had the palladium silver color and looked like the car on these pics -> https://mbworld.org/forums/showthread.php?t=202321
07-22-2007, 08:33 PM
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"A Mercedes-Benz product"
07-22-2007, 09:15 PM
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2007 E63
To the original poster, great write up!!!!!!!
07-23-2007, 02:04 AM
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2013 650i Coupe, 2010 IS250 AWD, 1999 S500
Craker123, your review is awesome. I've rarely seen such a comprehensive review from a person not connected with the automotive industry, or are you?
Yeah I'm thinking they're waiting until 2009 to give the C everything, just to ensure it launches without any problems, like the S-Class. I'm guessing that the C300 will have around 265hp and the C350 with have like 310 for 2009. Just my guess. The folding headrests being deleted is a shame really and seat controls should be on the door, but oh well at this price point with all the standard equipment they're now offering I guess something had to give.
M
Yeah I'm thinking they're waiting until 2009 to give the C everything, just to ensure it launches without any problems, like the S-Class. I'm guessing that the C300 will have around 265hp and the C350 with have like 310 for 2009. Just my guess. The folding headrests being deleted is a shame really and seat controls should be on the door, but oh well at this price point with all the standard equipment they're now offering I guess something had to give.
M
07-23-2007, 02:33 AM
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E550 4MATIC
But I don't understand why door mounted seat controls should cost them more to have than the ones on the side of the seat? Retractable rear headrests I can understand, but I would prefer even if they made them not retractable from the front and just had the button on the side like they do now.
07-23-2007, 08:14 AM
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05 CLK 320
) , I loved the single blade. First with the pivot and reinforced blad prior to the aero wipers. These reinforced blades were awesome. They performed about 10 times better than the lexus one. Of course first with the aero vipers.
07-23-2007, 08:25 AM
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Craker123, your review is awesome. I've rarely seen such a comprehensive review from a person not connected with the automotive industry, or are you?
Yeah I'm thinking they're waiting until 2009 to give the C everything, just to ensure it launches without any problems, like the S-Class. I'm guessing that the C300 will have around 265hp and the C350 with have like 310 for 2009. Just my guess. The folding headrests being deleted is a shame really and seat controls should be on the door, but oh well at this price point with all the standard equipment they're now offering I guess something had to give.
M
Yeah I'm thinking they're waiting until 2009 to give the C everything, just to ensure it launches without any problems, like the S-Class. I'm guessing that the C300 will have around 265hp and the C350 with have like 310 for 2009. Just my guess. The folding headrests being deleted is a shame really and seat controls should be on the door, but oh well at this price point with all the standard equipment they're now offering I guess something had to give.
M
when I got my first car, I was shocked about the amount of engineering that went into the car. Lets see if Mercedes will continue to hold the throne, I sure hope so.
MB of Austin is awesome, they just handed me the key to the C class. It is helpful to look over everything in the car without having a sales person near you. The sales manager even gave his iphone to check out the Bluetooth.
Next time I go to MB of Austin I think next Friday I will see if I can swap out the headrests. Let me know if you have any other requests.
07-23-2007, 11:07 AM
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BMW 330i
People are complaining about the lack of 30hp in the Benz to take it to the golden 300hp. Don’t worry about that, Mercedes is working on the new engines and it will be having more horsepower than the 3 – Series.
American version of the C-Class seems to be missing the following options. Triple zone climate control, Keyless Go, Sport mode-dynamic suspension, Memory seats from what I heard these options should be coming in the next year.
American version of the C-Class seems to be missing the following options. Triple zone climate control, Keyless Go, Sport mode-dynamic suspension, Memory seats from what I heard these options should be coming in the next year.
