shoes

I joined the E320 CDI club yesterday. I bought the car in Arizona and drove it back to my main home in Napa, 775 miles. Now get this, I only stopped once in eleven hours and it was mainly because I had to pee, the car only used 23 gallons, which is a little more than one tank. The temperature was 105 most of the way so I constantly used the air conditioner. Also I drove 80-85 as much as possible and despite 3 different traffic jams, still managed to average 70 mph over the eleven hour trip and 33 MPG. I found that turning off the A/C jumped the mileage to 37 MPG and driving at 65 with the A/C off, closer to 40 MPG. I wonder how much better it will get after the break-in period?

My other car is a CL600 and they both have good power off the line. Impressive.

bmms8

hey, congrats on your new car!! musta been fun to average 33 with all your stuff on!! GL with it!

TPAbnz

How's the A/C in this car at that temp?

HELL ONA HARLEY

Congrats and enjoy the savings neighbor.... Guess you'll have to wait to register it here in cali huh???...

konigstiger

My A/C is outstanding even when temperatures here reach well over 100 degrees.

Viesel

I can say one good thing about my CDI, I keep a thermometer inserted into my ac vent and just like to keep an eye on the temp and even in the hot humid Florida weather the ac vents always read 41-43F.

konigstiger

Best of luck, curious which dealer made the sale?

Spartan

"Hello? Hello? Is this the Department of California Air Resources *****? I need to tell you a secret!"

Welcome to the CDI club shoes, your secret is safe with us because we will keep a sock in it.

Oslo

Impressive .....

mbman002

The 320 CDI motor is absolutely fabulous in terms of gaz consumption.

My father has a S 320 CDI (facelift) and when we go skiing, we can do the whole trip (1100 km) on only one tank with an average speed of 140-150 km/h

That's an average consumption of 8 liters/km or 29mpg

DWP

So, since the car isn't presently allowed to be sold in California, is it eligible for registration in California if you're a California resident, buy it out of state, and immediately drive it back to California? I somehow doubt it that an evasion like that will fly, legally-speaking.

Oh, you don't plan to register it in California? Good luck. The California DMV and the CHP are cracking down on California residents with out-of-state car registrations. The methods they use include, but are not limited to, encouraging your jealous neighbors to rat you out. You may or may not agree with those tactics, but they are a fact.

http://www.theacorn.com/News/2004/06..._Page/003.html

http://www.chp.ca.gov/html/cheaters.html

saffrontiger

It's too bad he has to hide it from the "authorities". Just think, in one act of consumer choice he became an environmentalist, and reduced our future relaiance on foreign oil. Did I also mention he's driving an amazing technological marvel. "Drive softly but carry lots of torque"

AirBenz919

Congratulations on the purchase. 33MPG is really impressive. Just out of curiousity, did you buy your car from MB of Chandler or Fletcher Jones? Anyhow, best of luck with the car, and enjoy it!

shoes

Hopefully none of those "jealous neighbors" are on this site, but because of my residence in Arizona, where the car is legally registered there is little my neighbors object to. The car will be used to commute back and forth to my place in AZ and I hope to break the 40 MPG barrier once it cools off.

Good news for CA residents is that once a diesel car hits 7500 miles it can be leagally sold to a CA resident. I suspect there will be a number of such cross border sales in 6-9 months.

AirBenz919

That's good news. If you don't mind my asking, what city in AZ do you live in?

konigstiger

Shoes,

Out of sheer curiosity which dealer brokered the deal here in AZ - MB Chandler, Phoenix Motors, or Schumacher?

rickyfanmdr

Congratulations on your new car!

shoes

Not sure why folks are so interested on where I picked up my diesel- is it because they are so hard to find? I don't want to create any problems for any dealers out there in case they are telling you they cannot locate one of these cars. My AZ residence is in Scottsdale so it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out where I got my car.

Spartan

Shoes, I would be cautious.

You got mail.

konigstiger

Got it! That said, not to worry I have a good relationship with all three. Chris Schumacher – hell of nice guy. My curiosity was more footed as to where you got the best deal if you did any comparison shopping. Sometimes repeat customers don’t always get the best deal 100% of the time.

kort677

Debadge the car, nobody will know it is a CDI

AirBenz919

Gotcha! Point taken! Congrats on the car again, and hope this excellent fuel consumption continues!

TPAbnz

My thought too. Isn't there just one CDI badge on the deck lid?

I'm not an expert, but can't the badges be released with dental floss, and use "Goo-Gone" for any remaining adhesive?

shoes

I usually debadge my E55's so that no one knows what hit them. Interesting idea to debadge the E 320 CDI, I may just do that. I find you can easily debadge using a pliers (CAREFULLY) to start the removal process- it is just double sided sticky tape holding it on. If any of the tape sticks to the car, using a car polish or even "goof off" takes off the remainder of the residue. My dealer advocates using a hair dryer to heat up the tape, but I find leaving it in the sun a while does the trick.

TPAbnz

Be careful with Goof Off; that's solvent used to remove dried or cured paint. I'd stick with the floss for neatly separating the adhesive tape from the badge. Goo Gone or WD40 will gently disolve the adhesive on the deck lid.