Questions about the new E-Class
 

Hi I am new here, I am helping my parents who are looking at buying a E300. I need some help with the options and also figuring out what is the best deal my parents can get and if my parents should wait till November or December to buy the car. They are looking a Sport Model E300. They have Never owned a Mercedes Benz their current cars are a 2003 Acura TL-typeS & 2004 Acura MDX.
Here are the Options are are currently looking at:

Premium 2 Package
Burmester Sound System
Acoustic Confort Package (Maybe)
Comfort box
Air Body Control (Maybe)

Exterior
Dimond Silver Metallic

Interior
Nut Brown/Black MB-Tex or Nut Brown/Black Leather

So one of the questions is that they want safety tech, so what will they miss if they choose Premium 2 instead of Premium 3 ?

Is the Acoustic Comfort Package worth it?

If they choose the MB-Tex instead of the real leather can they still get heated/cooled seats ?

Is the Air Body Control worth it ?

Also what about Extended Warrentary / Pre-paid Maintenance ?

So one of the questions is that they want safety tech, so what will they miss if they choose Premium 2 instead of Premium 3 ?

They lose all the safety tech including such as the active lane keep assist, active blind spot assist, drive pilot, impulse side, etc.

Is the Acoustic Comfort Package worth it?

Nobody has it yet and this is a special order item. You probably will not be able to walk into a dealership and see a car with this option. A special order takes about 3 months to build.

If they choose the MB-Tex instead of the real leather can they still get heated/cooled seats ?

They can get heated, but they cannot get cooled.


you will always get the best deals in december, there is no way around that. A particular number or percentage is hard since it will still depend on your dealer relationship and negotiation skills. Expect somewhere between 10% at the very least, to 15%.

Duplicate

Thank you
So if they choose P2 Package, instead of the P3 package will they get any safety tech ?
The dealer they are going to go to just opened up its brand new, they have not been open for more then a month.

All the new mercedes comes with some kind of collision avoidance system. I think the standard system only prevents collisions around 25mph and it will auto brake and avoid the crash. The one in P3 can accommodate higher speeds. Also standard is the pre safe which will close the windows, and adjust seat position right before a crash.


A lot of cars will have the regular blind spot warning, which is a stand alone option, on their cars. This will not be active, as in if you continue to veer into the next lane with a vehicle, it will not try to counter steer.

So, would they miss much, safety tech wise if they go with the P2 ?

lol im not sure how much clearer I can be. In terms of crash safety, no. The car has at least some collision prevention radar. However, all the cool safety tech that the E class debuted with they will lose out on.

Evasive Steering Assist
Active Lane Keeping Assist
Active Lane Change Assist
Active Blind Spot Assist
Active Brake Assist with Cross-Traffic Function
Congestion Emergency Braking
Speed Limit Pilot
Surround View System
PRE-SAFE Impulse Side
PRE-SAFE PLUS
Active Emergency Stop Assist
Distance Pilot DISTRONIC and Steering Assist

Up to them if they think it is worth it

Ahh I got it, it makes sense now. The issue is their budget does not allow them to upgrade the P3 package unless they up their budget.

P3 has a most advanced assistant car driving technology but still not perfect.
looks like the Active Brake assist doesn't detect the construction cones or fences.

Ahh ok makes sense.

I have driven an Air Control and Acoustic Comfort Package car.

There are two components to the acoustic comfort package.

1) Infrared and UV barrier in side and rear glass, which also has sound damping ability. The interior (and your arms) heat up noticeably less. I'd say it is ideal for the sunny southwest.

2) Most noise today comes from the rear and drive tunnel of cars, simply because they have already worked so hard on outside mirror, wind screen and door noise. This package has sound deadening in the floor, tunnel, rear shelf and behind the rear seats, making the car quieter still. Noticeable improvement in road noise and drive train noise.

The only noise left to the car is tire noise on rough asphalt or worn concrete. There is almost no mechanical or wind noise at US highway speeds. If the road is fairly smooth, the car is very, very quiet inside, much like an S-Class.

The Air Body Control makes the ride smoother, but never floaty the way conventional spring suspension can behave. It also tightens up to control pitch and roll even while giving a smooth ride, unlike nervous sport suspension setups. When in sport plus mode it is quite as good as regular sport suspension, tight and very well controlled at all times. The one inch rise for city driving and for ingress and egress is a plus for older folks.

In a way I consider both these options as essential defining features of a luxury sedan.

Unfortunately the USA Benz team have deliberately priced the P3 package for those fearful and/or gullible enough to pay for all kinds of options they really do not need. The "Drive Pilot" should be a separate $3,800 option (including multi-contour seats as part of side assist feature) Instead, they clip you for 11,000 and leaving you to pay for Air Control and Acoustic Comfort as extra options.

Drive Pilot is a nice set of features, but not with the pricing trick played on customers by the P3 option. I have told my local sales manager they are going to have to give a discount for or find a way to omit options we do not want before we get our next E-Class.

If I could get P1, Acoustic Comfort, Air Control, heated seats and Drive Pilot for ~$66,000 out the door, Mercedes would have a five time buyer. As it is, it is more like $72k out the door doing P3, Acoustic Comfort and Air Control. I am sure Mercedes laughs all the way to the bank.

Ahh ok well my parents drove the car and they have to decide if they are willing to spend the extra cash for the P3 or just look at a different car since after driving the P3 packaged car they are set on either buying the car with P3 and the Full digital dash display or just look at a different car, depending on what they can work out as a deal and it works with their budget or they may have to pass on the E class. Thanks all for your help.

Cars to consider
 

Have had many MB's over 40 yrs -great cars. If your folks decide against buying one,for whatever reason, I would recommend looking @ the 2017 Audi A4. Do not own one but have driven it. Another GERMAN alternative.

I have also driven the 2017 A4. No back seat, dumb iPad sticking in your face were my first impressions. The C-Class left me with exactly the same impression.

Fit and finish are excellent. Biggest news is the 2017 A4 is a very quiet, refined feeling car.

The 2017 A4 AWD with magnetic ride is also a sleeper. The performance level is very high, despite the somewhat confused reviews by the current batch of automotive journalists, most of whom simply have no clue how to drive quickly. With variable torque AWD and DSG gearbox is has great traction off of corners, probably much more than most drivers would care to experiment with. It exhibits excellent transition behavior as well. This chassis is just asking for sticky, stiff tires.

Think late 90's early 2000 WRX-STI versions. Although not quite as powerful, the handling balance and brakes are all there to be exploited by a professional. The S4 may look quicker on paper, but the lighter weight of the 4-cylinder and the resulting better weight distribution makes the A4 more fun to drive, IMHO. The DSG gearbox is sublime and is 3 to 20 seconds a mile quicker than the manual, depending on how hard you flog the manual gearbox. With this said, the car purrs like a kitten when driven normally.

Perhaps a best comparison for an Audi is the FWD 2.0 A6 Premium Plus version. This is every bit as refined as the E300 with the exception of driver assistance package development. It books about $5-7000 less expensive than the comparable E300. For us older, less rambunctious members it would be smart money to take a look at the A6, if only for a realistic comparison of the competition.

Careful, because the dealers all pack the A6 cars with sport suspension, sport seats and big wheels. Not really what is desired by most people for an everyday ride. The sport suspension is better sorted than the Mercedes versions, but still avoid the 19 and 20 wheel options if you want a good ride quality.

just my two cents....
-=m=-

A6 FWD = bad handling, under steering & torque steering

Stick with the Quattro.

I think a blanket statement of "bad handling" is a misnomer. It is misleading at best. First, an example of bad handling.

We must note a significant number of complaints about the harshness of MB sport suspension, especially with stiff low profile tires, yet MB markets, dealers order and customers buy into it. Road and Track (back when writers were also drivers) noted in a four way test of sport option MB, BMW, Audi and Volvo that "The Mercedes is the only one of the four that feels like it belongs on the track." Trust me, those were not kind words.

My wife's '10 C300 has full sport suspension, and it is a complete joke at anything approaching its handling limits. It is twitchy, has very poor steering feedback and unsuited for driving at the limit. It rides wonderfully on smooth roads, rides like a truck on rough asphalt. It has wonderful turn-in and beyond that things suddenly fall apart. Basically, the shock valving is atrocious and as a result the car cannot get out of its own way. That is bad handing.

The A6 FWD has equal length drive axles and does not exhibit objectionable torque steer, except perhaps if you floor it at 5mph and turn at the same time. RWD cars try to spin their inside rear wheel, too. Good drivers know better. This simply a question of staying within the flight envelope of the airplane. At proper cornering speeds it will put down power to the limits of the tires, as does any car.

In a well sorted chassis, understeer is a state of mind induced by driver technique. However, FWD (and AWD) cars drive completely differently than RWD cars at the limit. Not badly, but differently. The short version is if you want a great handling car, get active, torque distribution AWD, such as Audi S or Subaru STI. Both have a huge performance envelope. So much so, that I never took wanna be street racers into corners in my tuned 1994 WRX-RA. You never knew if they were incompetent, driving anything from a Honda or a VW to a M3 or 993.

It is necessary in many cars to do braking in mostly a straight line and to get the power on fairly early, all else being equal, because putting the power down takes weight off the front wheels and puts it on the rear wheels. If you don't achieve that dynamic rear weight transfer, the car will continue to rotate. We even have a word for it: spin-out. This is a bit problematic in the wet for many rear wheel drive cars, especially if the rear shock's low speed compression is too stiff or the rear anti-roll bar is too big.

The whole 'drifting' scene got started in Japan by kids buying too large of rear anti-roll bar and figuring out how not to crash their car in such a rainy country. They wadded up a lot of Sylvia's and Celica's learning, too. Surprisingly, the average drifter does not have a clue how to drive quickly, just how not crash such an ill handing car.

The trick to FWD cars is that they need setup differently with regard to shock valving and front/rear spring ratios than RWD cars. To keep this short, just accept that as fact. The result is a FWD chassis that can be driven deeper into corners under braking because it does not want to turn-in as readily. (This gives the powered front tires more grip off corners, duh.) Why is this so? Because by judicious tuning of shocks and spring rates the car is less sensitive to front-rear weight transfer and does not rotate as readily. Without proper technique it is dead easy to make such a chassis understeer.

To the novice driver this will feel like the car has poor 'turn-in' compared to a front drive car. This is only true if the driver uses RWD technique driving a FWD chassis. In simply terms, the corner must be attacked more aggressively, with hard braking and progressive easing off into light braking clear down into the apex. You must use dynamic weight transfer of deceleration to plant the front tires so they will guide the car into the apex or tightest portion of the corner. You use a slightly different line as a result, but the FWD car will no longer be understeering, if it is setup properly. A similar technique is usually used with AWD cars, it being the quickest.

With one foot on the brake and one foot on the gas or the right foot covering both the throttle and the gas you drive AWD/FWD down into the corner with rotation controlled by brake force as you add only a small steering angle. Oddly, there is relatively little steering wheel movement until the road opens back up. On tarmac, turn-in rate is controlled with the brakes using an almost pre-set steering angle then very gingerly adding throttle to stop turning and only unwind the wheel as the road opens up. This is very different from RWD technique.

Both AWD and FWD chassis can be driven much deeper into corners that RWD. This can be an advantage on an unfamiliar road.(Do you spell it rally or rallye car?) The RWD is more brake, flick the rotation and power out. This RWD technique is very demanding of a 'proper' line, one than is different than that demanded by a properly setup FWD car. The reason why i stated that AWD was better, is the AWD car may be driving up the inside of you or around the outside of you in a corner. They have the most flexible chassis and respond to subtle variations in driving technique, where FWD and RWD commit the driver to technique suited to those particular chassis.

As I noted with my bad handing example, a great deal depends on the engineers and particular to the US, what dynamic behavior is allowed by the lawyers. It is felt best for safety in road cars driven by the general public that they have a failure mode that sends the solid front of the car into what ever is going to be hit, and normally this means terminal understeer in ALL chassis setups and with very few exceptions, even in the era of ESP.

Automotive companies selling passenger cars, as opposed to high performance cars, will dumb down their chassis until they are quite un-drivable, quickly going into terminal understeer, which causes the driver to slow down and prevents most egregious steering or braking inputs from upsetting the chassis and putting the car sideways into an immoveable object. This bit of engineering expertise is a necessary evil in the world.

Since almost all cars today are FWD, one can appreciate UA549 commonplace remarks, but they are not specifically true to the Audi A6 simply because it is FWD. One only needs to drive a Peugeot 205 GTI or a VW GTI to have a great FWD driving experience. (The only Peugeot I have driven is the 205 Turbo 16, but that is quite another story altogether.)

I have not driven a late model FWD A6, so I cannot specifically comment, but Audi sport suspensions on the A6 have been quite well sorted in the past, leaving me little doubt that the A6 FWD chassis is on 19 inch wheels and sport shock valving is rewarding of proper technique, at least to the limits allowed by the fact it is built for the general driving public, not professional drivers.

I was referring to ordinary day to day driving, not competition. Typical owners do not and cannot "set up" the suspension on their cars. Around town driving is when torque steering rears its ugly head and causes accidents. As you point out it is at slower speeds that torque steering is a problem such as flooring the throttle while attempting to turn and merge into flowing (45 mph) traffic. I have to do this every time I leave my neighborhood. I have driven many FWD cars owned by family members. Their handling is quite unpredictable in normal driving situations, especially under steer. That under steer has caused many drivers to lose control on a typical decreasing radius off ramp that is typical in a metro environment.

BTW the Audi A6 FWD comes with 18" wheels. If you are going to add performance items to the Audi then compare it with the MB performance models, not a bottom line entry model E300.

Oh, and a harsh ride is not an indicator of handling. Many of the top handling street legal cars have stiff suspension. I had a first model E500. Driving over a coin one could tell if it was heads or tails. :zoom:

When we ordered the E300 (with P3), our salesperson (who we'd bought a few Mercedes' from)...

... He recommended the 12.3" Instrument Cluster (Code 464, $850.) He said if we order the car, might as well add this option. He said the two side-by-side 12.3" screens are nice, and worth the price.

... He recommended the 18" wheels (Code RQR, 18" AMG 5-Spoke Wheels) instead of 19" wheels. Based on his experience, the 19" wheels can be a little harsh for the ride of the E300.

Just want to share.

uww 549, I too was talking about everyday driving, if you re-read the bottom section, which explains exactly why street cars are not set up like race cars. But, torque steer or understeer causing accidents in modern cars? You are obviously out of your depth and have resorted to unfortunate hyperbole. To quote WSC, "a terminological inexactitude".

My brother-in-law was for decades a senior chassis engineer at GM. When he retired, GM thanked him via a full page add in the Wall Street Journal. His team did everything from the Corvettes to the Equinox. He is credited with over 30 patents on stability control, several in use by every car manufacture today, including Mercedes Benz. I have known him for over thirty years.

He will tell you that chassis setup for production vehicles is all about engineering a safe failure mode when drivers make errors in judgement. Cars that hit things going sideways have much more frequent and severe injury history than cars going straight ahead into things. This is a simple, well documented fact. So, they have built in terminal understeer and ESP algorithms that force stability above all else. The normal cars, vans and SUV not only do not pull one "G" in corners, they are designed to make their drivers to slow down well before the chassis itself becomes unstable.

Now, regarding decreasing radius turns I am reminded of the expression, 'Fools rush in where brave men fear to tread.' Drivers entering decreasing radius turns with too much speed cause these accidents. A surprising percentage of them will be drunk.

Although these modern FWD cars understeer, I think you are describing the consequences of gross driver error. The cars themselves are surprisingly maneuverable under full braking when equipped with ESP. But, the laws of physics cannot be exceeded or there you are.

In this case, they would be in no better shape in a 3 series BMW. They are in too fast, and are going to hit something, either going to hit straight, side swipe or tag the guard rail with the rear end. Pick your poison. The problem with tagging the guard rail sideways is when there is no guard rail, but a tree or a wall or another car. At the end of all hope or with lack of proper control input, engineers prefer to hit with the front, not the side or corner. The go to a lot of effort to ensure that a likely event. A safe failure mode is simply a case of designing for all events and road conditions. Even monkeys fall out of trees on occasion, it is only humans who put up safety nets.

As for all those in this thread who suffer from merge anxiety, I have little sympathy. I drive a FWD car with 240 ft-lbs of torque, well enough to spin the front wheels, hop them or start a fight with the steering wheel. But, I have no problem merging into 45 mph traffic turning from a standing start without causing wheel spin. It is all timing and technique.

Then, there is the freeway merge with much less than 400hp. The other day I had an AUDI S7 all over my tail in an on-ramp 180 degree curve, just raring to go. I looked out my driver's side window into six lanes of oncoming traffic and simply held constant speed of probably 35 mph for about 2 seconds in the middle of this curve. He honked even his horn. I calmly resumed acceleration using all of my 0-60 time of 8,7 seconds, accelerating so as to be going about the 55 mph of the right lane traffic, while with room enough to yet remain still under full acceleration. Why, one might ask would I want to keep the hammer down if the right lane traffic is doing 55mph?

A couple seconds earlier, when looking out my side window at the freeway traffic, I had spotted a seam in traffic developing and had timed both my relative speed and time of arrival to it. Thus, I eased into traffic at about a 15 degree oblique angle straight off the on-ramp curve. I was able to seamlessly accelerate out to the 70 mph car pool lane in an arrow straight, but oblique line, safely threading all six lanes of moving traffic.

The S7? He had zoomed by me on the right, using the merge lane portion to pass me and had to immediately brake for traffic. Last I glanced in my mirror he was still pondering his fate in the far right lane, trapped by his exuberance. I doubt he will ever learn how to merge.

At least you had a merge lane. Here in town there are few merge lanes and joining the flow of traffic while making a full power 90 degree turn is problematic in an under powered FWD car. Of course one can always wait 5 minutes for a break in traffic while those behind you are attempting to control their rage or simply driving around you to make their turn.

From hyperbole to presumption, nice rhetorical transition here.

We have very few merge lanes on our city streets, just onto the freeways. While one does take their time when necessary in the interest of safety, I never see have people driving around others to enter a road here. Tell me where you live, so I don't ever visit.

Obsessive worry is a form of anxiety, but that is a separate subject. On the other hand, it really depends on what you call merge. Fighter pilots merge, often at 7-9 g with death on their mind. Someone else's. Rage nor worry does little to insure success, just really good training and exceptional skill.

There also the CHP merge, from days the California Hwy Patrol owned Dodge Coronet 440 intercepters. This involved accelerating smoothly, if furiously, diagonally out to the number one lane through freeway traffic. This is from a time of far less traffic and despite opinion to the contrary, this is not the only desirable form of merge.

There is the standard freeway merge, where one judges the traffic speed, and carefully regulates entry speed and timing so that there is a free space to fit into.

There is the Louisiana merge, where you stop on the ramp and wait until it is all clear. At one time seems to have infected several adjacent and near adjacent states.

Last, there is the secondary road merge, which is difficult at times, especially if turning left, because of two way traffic. When traffic is thick and fast, it can be a frustrating experience for some individuals. Picking every suitable spots to enter is not something everyone masters and similarly not everyone masters courtesy, patience and the post juvenile realization that the world consists is not what one sees, but what everyone else sees about you.

The other thing I have noticed is time is a funny sensation. Five minutes is usually not more than 60 seconds when you believe you are in a hurry.

A 90 degree merge is what one does when making a left or right turn at an uncontrolled intersection. Five minutes is exactly that! It is not 60 seconds. I don't work so I'm never in a hurry. Many of our traffic lights change at 4:30 to 5:00 minute intervals. When I drive to my neighborhood shopping center that is 1.8 miles away (speed limit 45), it can take up to 16 minutes depending on the color of the 3 traffic lights along the route.

As a pilot I have a highly developed sense of time due to frequent training and re-certification.

Back on topic I still believe that the A6 Quattro is a better comparison to an E300 or E300 4Matic. Price wise they are similar.

If the traffic waits are getting that bad, I'd suggest the county and/or city hire some competent traffic engineers. Pubic officials would not tolerate them here, if they wanted to stay in office. The conditions you describe can greatly benefit from a modest, but dynamic and computer controlled traffic light grid plus a bit of white paint. I can imagine several PHD thesis have been written on resolving the very conditions you describe.

The Quattro A6 is nice, drove a 2002 2.7t 100k miles, but it is overkill for an urban sedan in Southern California. I guess I am guilty of provincial thinking on that one, but my point was FWD cars are honestly not inherently unsafe or less effective as transportation.

It is just that the Air Control/Acoustic Comfort equipped E300 is the more sedate and refined of the two. At my age that is comfort and quiet is the target. Too bad we cannot order the similar options available in Europe for the A6. 2001 was the last year the Audi European and American order guides were the same. I rue that day.

Speaking of pilots, the other day out off Point Firman I saw a P-51 try an Immelmann when he suddenly snap rolled at the top, at about 4000 feet. It was a very ugly moment. Must have used up a good 500' drifting upside down and backwards, and got it to bite, but recovered only on the second trip around. He was just good enough to live to tell the story, but for a moment it had flat spin written all over it. He motored away at greatly reduced throttle, living proof of the old saw, 'I'd rather be lucky than good, any day.'

Fly safe, drive safe.

With a population density of ~3400/sq. mile in a fully developed county of 280 sq. miles surrounded on 3 sides by water, the traffic engineers are challenged. There are very few alternate routes. The traffic control system is under video, in-ground sensor and real time computer control. The real issue is traffic volume. There are very few alternate routes. The mixed residential/commercial road into my neighborhood handles about 72k vehicles per hour during the peak rush.

Southern Cal traffic is a breeze compared to here. I used to commute from LAX to my office in Thousand Oaks weekly. I live on the West Coast of Florida.