ranord

Stan, big day today I would imagine, hope the crew @ Holloway have
your new wheels in First Class shape. Equally, hope AL A BAMA has their
production act together. No reason why Made in America should be something
should be a negative. Heard wind noise in my new ride & so far have not
Set an appt. with dealer. Everything else seems to be OK....cross fingers.

StanNH

On my way down now. The deal is done. It basically is trading in my now 7 month old C300 base for a C300 Sport. The difference in the MSRP's alone is $4,000, so I knew going in that I'd have to shell out for that and depreciation. Depreciation came in at $5,000, but MB-USA is kicking in an extended warranty and some vouchers to cut that in half, so it's not a bad deal.

I should have the car by noon today and will post several hundred pictures when I get home.

gocal73

So, $4000 difference for the upgrades. Makes sense and the new car looks awesome. So awesome that temporary insanity set in with visions of trading my W205 for a similar version. Then I read $5000 depreciation on your 7 month old car that was only driven to a from the dealership for repairs, and that brought me back to reality. Good luck with the new one. If the dealer is smart, they at least correct the bumper fit before you show up😊

StanNH

Part of the depreciation hit is all the incentives and discounts now being offered. When the car first came out, discounts were tight and there were no sales incentives at all, so I only got about $2,500 off MSRP. They did wind up giving me a good discount on the new car, but not much they could do about the current resale value of a barely used, but still used, C300.

Anyway, I just drove my new car home and put nearly 200 miles on it today. It looks fantastic, and seems to be a much better build than my older C300. The sunroof shade is taut with no sag at all, the fuel filler door is a perfect fit, and the rear bumper is very good, but not quite perfect. There is a slight step visible, but it's much less than I had before and not enough to bother with. The brake lights line up perfectly.

On the trip home I hit speeds of up to 80 mph. Like my other C300, there was no wind noise unless the car was hit with heavy crosswinds. Generally, a reasonably quiet ride.

I find the steering on the Sport to be markedly firmer than my base, which is what I was hoping for. There's pretty good weighting now, whereas before I felt the steering was much too light. The ride on the Sport is not really that much firmer than my base with 18" tires. It got jarring on some very broken up surfaces, but so did my C300 base.

Overall, the C300 Sport I have now feels more solid and "buttoned down" than the C300 base I drove for 7 months.

And two more changes I noticed: the Auto Start/Stop button has moved to the left side of the console, and there's no longer an "Auto Volume" control function in the vehicle settings sub menus. I think they eliminated it, which is no great loss at all. The Burmester has much heavier bass than the one I had before. I don't know what they did, but I had to back off the bass to a minus 4 setting ... before it was set at plus 2.

I just got home and will get some pictures posted, as well as a more detailed review and comparison, when I have more time later this weekend.

tgrx1901

Don't forget to update your forum signature to reflect your new acquisition too Stan

I hope you have many trouble free and enjoyable miles ahead in your new car.

StanNH

Will do ASAP.

Thank you ... 200 trouble free miles so far!

mdsbuc

Congrats Stan. The new Merc sounds wonderful. I can't wait to see photos and read your reviews. Enjoy!!!!

BlackjackM

Congrats! I, quite literally, could not be happier with mine.

juwivive

Good to see that everything is looking positive. Enjoy your new car!