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2014 E350 also restored: 1969 Camaro convertible SS 1957 Chevy Belair 2dr hardtop
Fairhope Alabama, Mobile Alabama, Golf shore Alabama, Destine Florida, Miramar Florida,. Kentucky ,Tennessee, Indiana and back Home northwest Illinois 4 weeks and averaged 33 Miles to a Gallon at an average of 70 mph. Finally broke car in.
We recently drove to Galveston, Texas. It rained everyday and sea mist was on my car the entire time. Don't even get me started about the sand inside the car
2 weeks ago from Marseille to Rotterdam (1200km) and back in 3 days.
(air France was striking & I needed to go their for work...)
And boy was I glad I didn't have to do it in a Renault!
last week from Marseille to the cote d'azur/Nice (200km)
Taking my car on a road trip with a buddy in the next few weeks from Massachusetts to Ontario. We're leaving our families at home and meeting up with a few friends (degenerates) for some fishing, cigars, scotch, and general shenanigans.
Left for Charleston, SC from The DC area last Wednesday evening. Stopped at a B&B in Dunn Wed night and finished the drive Thursday morning. Made the haul back on Sunday. Once we cleared Charleston our average on Rt. 26 and 95 worked out to be 74 MPH and 25.1 MPG. Not too bad.
Looks like a great drive. Should be enough for an informed review of the new E400 - would be an interesting read.
J.
I’m not sure I could make a thorough review … and pardon my non-native English…
Well, just a few words ... I’ve got E400 4M with a good option set in the early August 2014 and left for vacation in a week with my family.
First 1500 km (~930 miles) I did not push the throttle too actively as it’s recommended for the break-in period. So, just coasting on the good motorway Minsk-Brest and later at the highway Warsaw-Germany and further with Distronic Plus engaged made my family relaxed and fallen asleep at once . Noise isolation is relatively good in comparison to my old Mitsu Outlander and dramatically better than at my beloved SLK (https://picasaweb.google.com/1144323...eat=directlink ) . Though when I decide to make another music car out of E400 I’ll definitely will apply good noise isolation at trunk at least.
I started from my home at early morning and noticed that full LED light with IHC+ feature is really fantastic, it automatically made exactly what I wanted to do when approaching another car. Later, in the numerous tunnels of Switzerland, France, Spain, and Italy I’ve enjoyed the automatic light feature – just forgot about the light switch at all.
Needless to say that German highways are the roads E-class is built for. I did cruising at about 170 km/h (105 mph) without any difficulties. Sometimes tried to run above 230 km/h (143 mph) but not too long as the traffic conditions did not allow. All is really perfect. Just one bad notice – I’ve got a bit annoying whistle sound from the hood at about 110-120 km/h (68-75 mph) (I know there is a TIPS for this, I’ll ask the dealer at the upcoming maintenance). All of the driver assistance features worked well and did not introduce any inconvenience (except the ECO start-stop ). The lane keeping assistant is a bit disturbing in the road-works areas, where there are temp lanes drawn. Break assistant was engaged only once when it detected a pedestrian: I was turning on the traffic light slowly, drove really slowly while the pedestrian that was standing and talking to a pal decided to run over the crossing unexpectedly. I saw him and would stop without any issue but break assistant made it for me in a fraction of a second before I did . Blind spot assistant is helpful at the highway but I don’t like it in the city traffic – it’s too noisy (or, perhaps, I have to adjust my driving style ). The same is for the “approaching warning”. Distronic Plus is fantastic, both in normal traffic and in a jam. It was funny to see a driver next to me amazedly looking at me not holding the wheel on a curve lane . Yes, this is at the low speed at about 25 km/h (16 mph). After 30 km/h (18 mph) the car says to take control.
NAVI is good enough. There were a couple errors though – one in Poland when it guided me to a street with the same name but not in Poznan city, in its suburban satellite instead. The street was with the same name . Another situation was in Monte-Carlo: it drove me to a roundabout with 3 exits. One was one-way I did drive in. Another was with “Do not enter” sign with some plate under it in French (probably telling the exceptions but I don’t read French) and a police booth behind the sign. And the third was with automatic gate, I understood so it was backdoor to the sea port for service vehicles. I’ve made 2-3 revolutions on the roundabout and understood so I’m in the dead end . Had to ask the policeman, he phoned somewhere and a serviceman came and let me drive through the port gate away . I have to say that driving in Monte-Carlo is a challenge . Walking – is the same, you better take a 3D map with you (if there any exists) because 2D is not enough – too many passages up and down and you may float up from the passage far away from your destination . Well and TMC/pro feature is doing its job cool – I’ve escaped dead jams a couple times at German autobahns when the NAVI got jam info and re-routed beforehand.
Another challenge for E-class is Europe parking. Everywhere seems it’s done for compact “trolleys” . I had to park very-very carefully using 360-camera which is good enough. Still, I did not notice a thin little column and… there is a little scratch on the rear bumper .
E400’s 3L V6 TT engine is mighty enough. Once I had to engage “S” mode to turn left in very heavy traffic. It kicked noticeably. I was prepared for this but my passengers were not and so complained . Fuel consumption, taking into account full load – 4 not tiny people and the luggage for all for 20 days journey – was not that big. For those 7500 km (~4600 miles) I drove in this journey it says (as per dashboard) 9.1 l/100km (25.8 mpg) at 102 km/h (64 mph) average speed.
Any questions are welcome!
P.S. And yes, those multi-contour-ventilated-massaging seats are great! (though I had to adjust a lot before I’ve found a good shape)
P.P.S. Stuttgart, the Vaterland of MB is a really cool place:
Thanks )
And I forgot to mention the Parking Assistant. Not that I mind but I've tried it several times - it detects the parking space well and plunges into a gap suitable for E-class (plus a dozen of Smarts in addition ). But no chance to make it work in a "slim-fit", regular European parking lot - I had always to squeeze into [50-cm-front]<o---o>[50-cm-rear] manually.
10-04-2014, 03:45 PM
) for some fishing, cigars, scotch, and general shenanigans. 
… and pardon my non-native English…
. 
