mcbc220

I tried a couple of C300 sedans when they came out and liked them, but decided to wring another year's worth of service out of my old '94 C before upgrading. Back in the market and have done a couple of extended test drives in the sedan and the coupe. Overall, this is a very good chassis, but I have one major complaint—the steering. It feels really light and over boosted, and out-of-place in a solid, luxury vehicle. It seems to be particularly bad at low speeds. At higher speeds it firms up, but I do a good 50% of my driving around town. I didn't really get a chance to play around with the modes until we were out on the highway—does Sport mode make the steering heavier even at low speeds, or is it light across the spectrum of settings?

I'm deciding between this and the BMW 2 series, which is the car my inner child wants, but I worry it's too small, spartan, and of suspect reliability to make me feel as good about owning it in year 5 as in year 1.

Thlian

Correct me if I'm wrong guys, but the steering will tighten up when set to sport.
But since this is a steer by wire car, some have come to say it feels life less, the lack of feedback from the road

mo11

My previous e class coupe had electric steering, so when i switched to the c43 and found out it had it now too, i was really happy. I actually like how light it is at low speeds, maybe because traffic is getting worse and i don't wanna put so much effort in steering anymore... or maybe i'm just getting old, hahaha!

mcbc220

it's actually not steer by wire. It's electrically assisted rack and pinion. I knew it would be numb, but I'm disappointed it's so light. Feels too American or Japanese on such a good German chassis.

mo11

If you're coming from a non-electric power steering, i can understand how you might find it too light at first. But, eventually you'll get used to how it reacts, and its pretty sharp. Kinda like the gas pedal back in the day where it was connected to a cable... eventually, you'll find the trick on how to let it respond. And if you drop the car w/ wider rims and lower profile tires, the steering will amaze you... well, it did me.

mcbc220

Yeah, I'm used to '90s steering. The two DDs I've owned are a W124 and W202. Lovely cars, so natural and balanced. The C has a really good set of reflexes for a Mercedes while still being a very comfortable car to cruise around in. I liked it a lot.

StanNH

It is light, and has only modest feedback. I have set my steering preference under the "I" setting to sport, which does add some weight to it. The sport steering setting does feel better to me. It does have a reasonably quick steering ratio, so it's not bad steering, but it's default setting is lighter than I like. I recently test drove a new Audi A4 and was surprised to find that steering no better.

Shadwell

In each of the settings you can adjust the steering as being in comfort or sport...
more use i and set how you like...
mine has the 19's bilatein suspension and sport ARB,s with the steering in sport it's weighted fairly heavily....

mcbc220

i thkught the new A4 had worse steering, in fact. Really loose and sloppy in the two comfort-y modes, and barely better in the one sport mode until you're up to speed. No sport+ equivalent in it either.