keith100

I like the look of the 205 coupe as well, but unfortunately what you mostly see as a driver is the same interior as the sedan.

The 205 reminds me somehow of a '60s Chrysler - round airvents chromed switches and column shifter...

I have been looking for a new car recently and settled the problem of the increasingly bland/mid lux offerings of MB/Audi/BMW by buyimg Jaguar with a satisfying supercharged V6

I'll be moving on from this forum now but best wishes to all members. The W204 was/is a great car PIty there wasn't an interesting replacement.

Cheers

dol4er

The problem with Jaguar is that they do not have a R&D department and they build a car Frankenstein... just put together parts from different manufacturers. Same goes for Land Rover...

Engine from X brand
Transmission from Y brand
Ignition from Z brand

They can never make everything work perfectly well together as Audi/BMW/Mercedes do. They develop and manufacture all parts by themselves and make them better and better with each coming generation.

As to the topic, of course, W205 is better than W204... W206 will be better than W205 and etc.

Adi-Benz

I had the same thought, that the w205 interior is cheap. However, I sat in a packaged c300, and it was totally different than the loaner.

Base c300 is dead cheap plastic, however the packaged ones with nice leather, brushed aluminum parts, better console trim, etc. are totally different.

However I don't want a 4cyl mb. Buy a c400/450/43 and tune it :]

tekfoc

no love for my c63s. lol just kidding

Adi-Benz

Lol price wise closest replacement is a c400. Of course the c63s is great :P I sat in one with a black and orange combo interior, was sweet.

For C400+ a lot of this stuff is standard.

triplmmm

correct. All us 204 people like to rationalize why ours is better. Ha Ha. I'll move up someday when price comes down. For now I love my 204

Alfadude

Uh.....if Audi/BMW/Mercedes developed and manufactured ALL PARTS themselves how do you explain the Takata air bag recall that affects pretty much every manufacturer? Every car manufacturer sources a lot of parts and assemblies from different suppliers.

keith100

Of course they do. That's why companies like Magna flourish. Magna currently builds the new G class and the BMW 5 series and a host of sub-assemblies for multiple makers , MB put Renault engines in smaller engine CLA's and W205's in different countries and Nissan engines into the US built C300. That's why MB did a share-cross with Renault years ago, but keep very quiet about it.

CJG

I’ve driven the w205. Interior seemed cheap. Exterior is bulbous. The hood is fat and tall. Really dislike the tail lights. They just look out of place. That said, the motor was very responsive. I wouldn’t have guessed it was a four cylinder. It spooled up very quickly. I’ll be curious to see how they last long-term.
I prefer the W204.

dol4er

Of course they have different suppliers but the point is that parts design is their own. Transmission is their own, engine is their own, software is their own, ignition is their own and etc. These parts need to be designed to function altogether and they are which makes cars less prone to faults. Nobody cares about airbags and they are insignificant, why wouldn't they use another company's airbag? I see no point in wasting time developing your own airbag...

It's like Apple developing its own CPU but having Samsung manufacture it for them. It's still an Apple CPU, right? On the other hand Samsung hasn't designed CPU but use other manufacturers' CPUs. In other words, the hard part is developing a part from scratch, not manufacturing it.

superangrypenguin

You guys should type this into Google

"W205 excessive wind noise", and you'll see hundreds of threads of W205 owners bashing their heads in trying to figure out why their cars are so insanely on the road, and then you'll quickly not want to upgrade. I didn't intentionally go looking for that until I was working on my car project yesterday. Take a look