stealth.pilot

I am getting married this week and I felt my wife needed a modern transport, but I didn't want to hand over the keys to my 2014 M5 and my 2015 Jaguar F-Type R Coupe.

So I just bought this 2015 Mercedes C300 Sport.

Car is fully loaded:
Polar White
Cranberry Leather
Open Pore Black Linden Wood
19" AMG Wheels
Premium Package
Parking Package (auto parking plus sensors)
Interior Package
Lighting Package
Drivers Assistance Package including Presafe brake with pedestrian detection and distronic with steering assist
Sport Package
Hands free Package
Panorama Roof
Multimedia Package
Head Up Display
Power rear sunshade

Overall impressions:

Things I like:

1) Interior is gorgeous for a car of this price. In some ways it's better than the interior on my $108,000 Jaguar. It crushes the E Class, even the E63 on interior luxury. The C Interior as specced here is comfortable, elegant, well designed, looks and feels luxurious. I can't wait to see what they do with the 2017 E63S.

2) Handles very well. Optimal balance of ride comfort and handling. Feels light and nimble but also comfortable. Also super stable at 100mph.

3) Enough power for a normal person. I will admit, on my way back I was doing 95mph and then pushed the throttle and was a little caught off by the lack of response. My M5 and R Coupe are capable of rapid acceleration at any speed. But on the other hand up to 85 mph this car feels very capable.

4) The Drivers Assistance package is amazing. I tested it doing things I thought a woman might do driving this car. I started sending texts, the car started drifting to the inner median, but it never crossed the line because the Active Lane Keeping Assist corrected the cars course. Later on I did the same thing with Distronic plus with steering assist. This was amazing. It would basically steer the car round highway bends, keeping to fairly well centered (not perfect but comparable to a human.). I then tried to do this with no hands. In this instance it drifted to boundary and the lane keeping assist corrected course while telling me to put my hands on the wheel. I didn't have the guts to test the autonomous collision avoidance feature.

5) Mercedes electronics are much improved if you get the version with the Multimedia package. Not quite as good as BMWs but very very good. The user interface could be better though - the menu structure is somewhat unstructured in my opinion because you have the scrolling menu, and also the top bottom menus.

What could be better (bearing in mind this is a C300 not a C63):

1) MBrace Plus is over priced. $520 a year seems ridiculous to me. BMW charges $398 per year. Lexus probably less still. Also the woman on the phone seemed very illusive in explaining pricing. Wasn't a very transparent interaction because she was trying to pitch me a multi year plan.

2) They still have that idiotic power button which switches off everything instead of a mute button which just turns off the radio/media.

3) Seat cushions are a bit short, although fine when extended. Although this makes the car great for women which in our household is the purpose of this car.

stealth.pilot

BlackjackM

Nice review. I agree that the interior is exceptional. Sometimes I forget how great it is until I ride in my wife's acura or in a friends car...when I get back in the MB I fall in love with it all over again.

gfmohn

There is a radio/media (only) mute button. Just push down on the volume control wheel on the center console. Push again to restore sound.

stealth.pilot

Thanks. Good to know. The so called delivery concierge told me there is no mute and you have to scroll the volume down to 0!

LAC300

Beautiful car!

jakc

Nice car congrats. The MY16s have 5 years of MBrace for free. Ask the dealer if they can just throw it in for free. Since you got your car so recently I don't see why not.

dnice-1

There is a mute button right on the steering wheel too I between the up and down volume control. Very nice ride btw!

YodaSyrup

Nice ride. I've had a couple of C300 loaners and I have to say - these are great cars. I've been a manual transmission, BMW guy for most of my life, but the C450/C43 is starting to look pretty damn appealing. These are satisfying cars - they look good, are engaging to drive and Mercedes tech is finally on par with the competitive set. All this without breaking the bank on insurance, gas, repairs and the depreciation you get with a true AMG or
M car.

Mr. J

That's a nice looking ride I'm sure your new wife will love it. My wife fell in love with the same interior combo of the ash and cranberry leather. It stands out but still looks really classy. I think the fact that she's an oboe player is one of the reasons she has such a strong preference for the ash wood.

Unsolicited advice from one happily married man to one soon to be happily married man, change this:
to this:
before you share the review with her.
Otherwise...


Good review man, enjoy.