Why is Mercedes engine efficiency trailing?

In the Aust. market we're lucky enough to have the CDI range on offer.
A C250-CDI (my car) on a flat highway run at 100km/h (62mp/h) will return a fuel burn number of 4.6ltrs/100km travelled distance.
I'm averaging 6.2ltrs/100km travelled distance in a typical combined cycle of driving.
I'll leave the conversion to imperial numbers to imperial users out there, but in short it's nothing short of impressive, my C250-CDI consumes around half the fuel usage of my petrol engined Mazda 3 SP25, the Mazda weighs 300kg less, is FWD so there's less power loss through the drivetrain and produces less than half the torque and alot less power too, compared to the almost same sized diesel engine in the C250-CDI.
I'd say it's also outstanding compared to BMW's or any other brands out there comparatively speaking.
Oh forgot to mention, also the CDI's do feature stop/start which can be activated/deactivated at will, I have never driven with the stop start active, I always switch the 'ECO' off after start up, those numbers above would otherwise be even slightly better
Last edited by AV1; Jun 28, 2012 at 08:06 AM.
The fact is that, just as with the 2005 C230, the new C250 isn't truly class competitive in terms of power. However, unlike back then, the new C250 is also not class competitive in fuel economy. I think that was the whole point of the OP in this thread and he was wondering why.
Simple answer: I dunno.
The fact is that, just as with the 2005 C230, the new C250 isn't truly class competitive in terms of power. However, unlike back then, the new C250 is also not class competitive in fuel economy. I think that was the whole point of the OP in this thread and he was wondering why.
Simple answer: I dunno.
Here where we pay around £1.40/litre (around $9.70 per UK gallon) for diesel they make more sense of course...







