How bad is a C350 in snow?
 

Anyone with a C350 in North East? How bad is driving in snow with it? Any regrets?

Thanks

Tires will be the determining factor. With original equipment Conti supposedly all season tires......awful. With Blizzak WS60 (now upgraded to WS70), my rear wheel driive C300 is excellent in Michigan winters. Of course, if you have 4MATIC and great winter tires, all the better!

+1 tires. they make a huge difference on any car.. even AWD cars.

So...here in SC it RARELY snows..and when it does its nothing amazing. However, this past winter we randomly got 7 inches in an afternoon. The 350' did OKAY....nothing amazing...mine came with the Michelin tires. Long story short..I made a thirty min drive in the snow..parked for two hours..went to leave and the car wouldn't move..tires just spun. I can only guess a 4matic would have done much better. :y

Not necessarily.....Four spinning original equipment non-dedicated winter tires will have a rubber compound which will freeze hard, and lose grip/traction just as easily as two tires spinning. You might get some help from one tire finding a bit of a better traction surface, but inadequate tires will handicap front, rear, or all wheel drive........Remember Bambi?

I agree with the below stating that tires are the determining factor. My C300 4Matic Sport gets through the winters okay, but it's nothing awe inspiring. I would imagine the 350 with lower profile tires wouldn't do any better.

I've never driven the C350 but I had a 2003 E320 RWD with continentals that was terrible in the snow. If you had to stop in traffic going up hill (which there is plenty of in North Bergen) there's no way you're making it up the rest of that hill. The combination of heavy, underpowered, and RWD without any snow tires doesn't make for great winter driving. That was one factor in my next car at the time being a 2006 ML 500.

Btw, I am one of those Lazy Americans who cannot put a set of winter tires on in the winter and just run the same tires year round.

Sportstick, you are correct, sir. I guess the 4matic by itself wouldn't do much for moving from a dead stop..uphill..ect. So I guess we've all come to the consensus that tires are the main factor in snow performance no matter what vehicle it is. Luckily for me, it wont snow here for another twelve years. :y

You are a good candidate for Conti DWS tires when the time comes. Give up some dry handling/steering response vs Michelin Pilot Sport A/S Plus, but about the best high performance tires in wet/light snow short of dedicated winter tires like Blizzaks.

With my Blizakk LM25 winter tires on, it grips and turns just fine. The ESC light comes on a lot but that's fine with me. The LM25 winter tires are more of a performance tire and sacrifice some grip for better performance when the roads are clear. The WS line would offer a little more grip and a softer, quiter ride.

I had snow tires on my C63 and the car was great in the snow.... without snow tires, I wouldn't even risk taking a rear wheel drive car out.

Agreed. Tires make huge difference. Without snow tires in snow my C 300 4-matic is just terrible.

+1 on the tires.

In the Mid-Atlantic, it's OK with the Contis on light snow. During the major storms we got this year, though, my C350 stayed home as it spun its wheels and I had no intention of hurting the car.

FWIW, I needed to drive around and my (manual...) C230k did amazingly well for a RWD car. The coupe went where many other cars got stuck, and that was without the winter tires (Pilot Alpin PA2) that I forgotten to mount before the first storm hit. It was therefore shod with the Michelin Pilot Sport A/S in the storms, which IMHO are quite a bit better in the snow than the Contis -- not once did I get stuck.

Winters are only way to go: tested improvements in traction %60 -70% better than all seasons in cold temps not to mentions snow. Rubber compound is key for cold and treads for snow.

Dunlop 3D snows handle better than DSW by a long shot.

Winter Tires for Sure....
 

I live in Eastern Pennsylvania which is a moderate winter zone that usually has a couple of significant snow falls but plenty of freezing rain and ice.

My C350W came with the 17" Michelin Hx Pilot tires in the staggered size setup. These tires are fine for dry and normal rain but don't have enough grip on the ice, nor good tread clearing traits in light to moderate snow.

The car does, however, have an excellent F/R balance that combines with ESC system to drift and float the nose of the car around with little understeer in the snow. The ABS tries to keep the tires hooked-up with road, while the Comfort setting on the transmission starts out in 2nd gear (helps keep tires from breaking loose), but all-in-all there is insufficient traction to climb crowned snowy/icy hills (or start out on uphill stops which are quite common in NE Pennsylvania).

The addition of a set of winter tires and wheels (I use Blizzaks) enable safe driving on ice and snowy climbing hills. Moderate snow depth is no problem at all. The remaining problem is dealing with the low ground clearance of the C350W (the AMG body bits, especially the front under valance). If the snow is deep, or when crossing snow berms, that front body piece takes a beating (an expensive beating).

The factory summer tires were a nightmare with any amount of snow ( I couldn't even back into my garage).

As mentioned winter tires make a huge difference and offer quite a bit of confidence.

I just wish the damn C350 came with 4-matic...why do they not offer that option?!?

I don't have any actual sales numbers, but when the W204 first came out my salesperson told me they weren't offering the C350 with 4Matic in the US because nobody bought the W203 C320 4Matic. Everyone bought the smaller engine with 4Matic so why bother offering the larger engine that so few people want?

Will take a RWD with snow tires any day over a 4matic with all seasons - horrid.

Agree completely, but how about just days in the winter! :rolf: But, I know from visiting my in-laws, that on your side of the border that's "aboot" September through June! At least, that's when I see some of us Americans cross over with skiis on the roof racks! :D :rolf:

I'll second that.

I could not believe how well my car did on snow tires last year. I have a 4x4 for this winter season, but I will still be taking the C out in the snow becuase it was actually fun.

I drove my c350 through 4 snowstorms when Maryland had like 70 something inches' of snow last winter! and i was fine... expect for when it was sleeting then it was crazy. just speed up very slowly and you should be fine. (i had the tires that came with my car)

Yeah, last year in MD was crazy! :eek: I had my rear-wheel drive BMW and had Michelin Pilot Sport A/S and they did fairly well. I'm going to put a set of Continental ExtremeContact DWS' this fall and hope we don't have a winter like last year.

my 300 4matic did horribly in the snow with normal a/s tires...

put a set of snows on and the thing is like a mac truck on rails in the snow...

such a joy to drive - the thing drifts effortlessly with snow tires and 4m..

They Offer It in Canada...
 

I think this C350 is available as a 4MATIC in Canada as 4MATIC is very popular there. A downside is that the wheels are not (F/R) staggered size as are most C350Ws, a bit more weight, higher C/G, and higher front weight bias. There is a trade between lower performance due to these effects and the benefit of additional accelerative traction that 4MATIC provides.

I picked-up my US Spec C350W at the Sindelfingen factory in the fall of 2008, and was cautioned about the Austrian road restrictions in the alps. It seems that US all-season or summer performance tires (even when used on 4MATICs) are banned from some roads unless winter/mountain tires also mounted. They were trying to sell a tire/wheel swap-out package that would allow you to legally drive during the winter in "ski areas and certain Austrian highways", and then remount your US OEM wheels/tires prior to shipping back to US.

https://mbworld.org/forums/c-class-w...50-4matic.html


Heres my 09 C350 4Matic on summer's 2 yrs ago. I would still recommend winter tires, but my made it any place I wanted it to go. Even up hills in heavier snow.