My wife and I bought a 2019 CLS450 back in March and had a chance to take it on a week long road trip from where we live in San Diego to Napa, CA. We drove her old CLS550 on a similar road trip up to Paso Robles after we bought it and I thought this would be a nice opportunity to test out our new CLS.

We drove up to Paso to visit some friends who live in Templeton, CA and then set out early on a Tuesday morning to drive up the 1 through Big Sur and on to San Francisco to pick up my sister and her husband and then on to Napa for 3 full days of wine tasting then drove back down the 5 freeway on Saturday morning to our home. Overall, the car was fantastic. Very comfortable and capable but a little lively on rough pavement. Those 20" wheels make the ride a bit harsh, makes me wish we had opted for the air suspension.

Driving up the 1 through Big Sur was amazing. The 1 skirts the coast of California for about 100 miles of tight twisty roads with spectacular views. If you get a chance to drive this route, I highly recommend it. I put the car in Sport+ mode and it always seemed to be in the perfect gear for those tight winding roads. Big Sur is absolutely a beautiful place to visit and the people are very friendly, I wish we had a day or two to spend there. I want to go back there someday and spend some time exploring the area. My only complaint about this drive is that it adds a couple hours easy to the distance we covered and traffic can be heavy with near constant road construction going on to keep the roads passable. It is like its own little micro-climate along that stretch of road with frequent heavy fog, drizzle and rain. Plus, you are right on the ocean so it is cooler there than it is 1/2 mile or so inland.

We spent quite a lot of time in this car and it never left us feeling tired or sore. My sister and her husband said the back seat was comfortable, they spent about 2 hours in and out of the back seat every day as we went wine tasting from our hotel in Napa to the wineries. We only hit 2 wineries per day which was perfect, one in the morning and one in the early afternoon. This allowed me to drive to the wineries, we did a tasting/tour of most of the wineries we visited so we spent about an hour to an hour and a half at each one so I wasn't drinking so much that I couldn't drive. Plus, I had specific wineries I wanted to visit so I made reservations for tastings and tours at each one well in advance and honestly it could not have been any more perfect. We visited Cakebread, Silver Oak, Far Niente, Corison, Miner and Grgich Hills. I think we bought wine from every winery we visited and we had no trouble fitting the 17 bottles I bought in the back seat for the return trip to San Diego (I didn't want to put it in the trunk as I wanted to keep it as cool as possible). My sister and her husband rented a car for the drive back to SFO for their flight home to Florida so we didn't have to worry about packing their luggage, all the wine they bought and us into the CLS. Worked out perfectly.

One complaint I have with this car is the lane departure and proximity sensors kept going off when driving through the town of St Helena. St Helena is a cute little town in the north end of Napa Valley with a lot of shops and street side parking. Roads are narrow and it is pretty crowded with tourists but the sensors seemed to get confused easily when in situations like that. I'm going to mention this when we take it in for the first service. It really hasn't done this much anywhere else though.

The drive home was fairly uneventful, head out of Napa and hit the 5 freeway which takes us all the way home. We left Napa at around 9:30AM and arrived home in San Diego at around 5:30PM. We only stopped 3 times, once for gas and 2 times for bathroom/rest breaks. The car actually averaged about 25mpg on the trip back with my wife driving the first 300 miles or so. She has a lead foot so we were doing a solid 80mph most of the way. I decided to avoid driving through downtown Los Angeles because of traffic so we went the inland empire route through the foothills of Pasadena and picked up the 15 freeway to take us into San Diego. I'm not sure this saved us any time though as traffic was pretty bad on that route too. I hate L.A. traffic. The car was great though. Not a single problem and we arrived home feeling a bit weary from all the driving but it honestly wasn't bad at all.

I miss the oomph of our old CLS550 but this car makes up for it with better fuel economy, nice interior and stunning good looks. Awesome trip, awesome food, awesome wine and awesome car. Highly recommend visiting Napa if you like wine. It is so beautiful there.

 

Our car at Silver Oak Winery. One of my favorites!

 

Our booty! We stayed at the Archer in downtown Napa. Great hotel and walking distance to a few decent restaurants and it was only 20 minutes from there to the wineries.

 

Great selection of wine! Thanks for the review. Beautiful car.
The 450 unfortunately does not equal the 550 in performance - I would think it is more of a replacement for the CLS400 that was offered here in the US for a couple of years. Did you consider the CLS 53?

 

There really weren’t any around here we could drive and I wasn’t sure the premium was worth the added cost quite frankly. But then again, I haven’t driven one.

I would have considered it if I could have gotten behind the wheel of one.

 

I plan to do this same trip on a S1000RR if the boss isn't going to join me :-) Agree with everything you said, especially the worst part, LA traffic. Every trip North and return trip involves a plan to avoid traffic in LA. And thank you for putting it in Sport mode for Big Sur...I hate rubber necking snails, no matter what car/truck/motorcycle I'm on. Weekdays are best for Big Sur.

 

I'd like to do that trip on my Ducati Multistrada but the CLS was much more comfortable.

 

OP i think you care more about your wine then this car LOLOL. 80% wine talk, 20% car talk. tell me about your car, i dont give a s**t about the wine LOL.

 

Few years later down the road when air suspension problems are surfacing, you know you've made the right decision for not opting for Airmatic.

 

I must say I have had my cls amg for 6 months and I'm still in love. It's a great mix of luxury and sport. I can cruise or throw down the hammer when needed. Cheers my brethen

 

We have had our Black 2019 CLS since October 2018. Since that time, we have been satisfied with the car. Here are some of the minor issues with it: Front windshield replaced due to small black blemishes, center console control piece due to blemish in the glass and upper dashboard trim cover panel due to broken pieces by the HUD unit. This issue was the cause of persistent rattle noises. Ride is excellent in comfort and Economy, but a bit rough (sport, & sport + handling) due to 20" Goodyear RFT. Mileage ranges from 18MPG in City to as high as 32.5 MPG on long runs on the highway. This is our second CLS. Mileage about 13,330. Our dealership in Ft. Pierce, Fl. is excellent at servicing our needs!

 

What does that even mean ??

 

The windshield had spots imbedded in the glass itself that could not be repaired or removed. An imperfect windshield.

 

Do you have any pictures of this ?

 

No. The dealer took the pictures for their files.

 

Does your CLS nav system find addresses from the Contact file that have been imported via bluetooth from your cell phone?

 

Hi. I will let you know tomorrow. I have not used this feature….

 

Thanks, pls let me know. The addresses imported to the Contact file from a cell phone (per the instructions in the Owner's Manual) are not recognized by the nav system.
The nav system responds with "No Result". I have an Android phone, which worked fine with the nav system on my 2015 S-Class and my 2020 BMW but it does not work on my 2020 CLS-450.

 

Hi. Sorry i did not respond sooner. Had an issue with logging into the website.

Ok. on our COMAND SYSTEM, I can see the contact's full information including the address, but you cannot do anything with it. I will try again today and see if there is a way of using the data. Hopefully, I have answered your questions H.

 

Thank you for checking. When you call up the Contact file in the nav system and select an address, the nav system should take you to that address, as described in detail in the Owner's Manual. Your car has a dysfunctional navigation system like my 2020 CLS 450. Mercedes knows about this problem but has done nothing to fix it. A class action suit might be very appropriate,

 

I am just getting used to my new to me 2019 CLS 450. I have found the ride to be very compliant and smooth. I haven't had a chance to try out any of the sporting modes (yes, I've engaged them, but not on a road where it mattered). The Apple Car Play seems to work well. Voice commands for navigation seem to function well, through Apple Car Play. My phone is easily accessible via voice commands, as well. As far as power, I would have considered the AMG 53. However, the heavy premium paid for normal service, additional insurance costs and other higher costs make that a bit harder choice. Personally, I've had the firmer ride, world class handling and acceleration. It is cool. It is like dialing up a 10 second rollercoaster ride anytime you feel like it. That's the deal though. In 12-13 seconds you are past 130MPH. Lateral G forces of 1.1-1.15 Gs are not applicable on the street. Its there. It is always there. Mostly you can't use the bigger part of it.

My very early thoughts (2 shorter road trips of 6 & 8 hours) are that it is a great cruiser. It is very comfortable. The seats are very good. The technology is very good. The safety features are very good. It looks very classy (except for the driver - that's a downgrade no matter what car ). The lunar blue metallic is a great color. Now that I've had the paint correction and coating applied, it truly pops. It has a trunk. A real trunk. I've had 4 guys in the car. One was 6'4" and another one was 6'1". Four guys and no one wanted to beat me when we got back home. Four guys and it wasn't an SUV. I like it. It is powerful enough. It is very smooth. The ride is very compliant. You can haul people and stuff at the same time. You look good doing it.

 

Just picked mine up last week. In love so far, ready for a roadtriip !

 

Is your car burning oil? My 2020 CLS450C has only 600 miles and is already down more than half a quart which is way excessive?

 

How did this turn into a diagnostic post

 

This is the same exterior color as mine. I can't leave the house in it without someone giving a compliment on the road. Stunning color!