Not that this interests the predominantly north American user base here but I'm so impressed by the economy of the new 2 litre diesel in the w213c I thought I'd post up. I had a w212 e300 hybrid before. That used the old 2.2 diesel at the same tune as the 250 (about 203 bhp) and a 27 hp (iirc) electric motor. That was very economical, especially in warmer weather (mpg tanked on winter especially on winter tyres) but overall it's economy was around 52 mpg (about 44 mpUSG). I thought that was very good and frequently got high 60s if i paid attention to economy. For such a heavy car that could bit 150 mph i felt that was a minor miracle.

The new 2 litre is less powerfull, at about 192 bhp, but the car is a good 180 kgs lighter with the lighter chassis, engine and no hybrid gubbins. It feels less spirghtly only against the e300e when the electric motor assisted acceleration, which was rare but overall feels just as quick.

I have 19 inch wheels with grippy tyres (275mm at the back) compared to the 17s with 245mm eco low rolling resistance tyres on the w212. The hybrid also only had eco and sport modes and i need used sports as the engine never switched off and went electric only, which i always felt obviated having the damn thing in the first place. So always drove in eco, with the sloppy throttle and reluctant gear changes if bought. But economy made it worth it.

So, grippy tyres, driving in comfort mode and letting the car drive on motorways and dual carriageways in finding I'm getting about 50 mpg average which i think will increase to match the hybrid with the better economy I'm getting now temps are usually above 8 Deg centigrade. That's great, no need for crazy expensive batteries or more things to go wrong.

Now the bit that amazes me, i did a 70 ish mile trip yesterday and as I'd left early and traffic was good i decided I'd drive slow most of the way to see what mpg I'd get. I put cruise on 63 (slowest i can sit in 8th) and often slowed down to lorry speeds (56mph). The first ten miles of the trip were done with no regard for economy and then the rest done at those slow speeds.

The result? 70mpg! 59 in USG. Bloody amazing for such a big car. Yeah it's 4 cylinder and worse a diesel (so sounds like a posh tractor more then a daihatsu or Datsun or whatever else the i4 petrol was recently compared to) but hey, at least i can go nearly 1000 miles between fill ups . And we all hate visiting the gas station right?!!

 

1000 miles is amazing.almist 5 times of any battery powered car. Now if they can make it clean enough!

 

I will never buy a diesel car again for objective and subjective reasons (ecology/smell/character) but having driven the new E 220d with 9G I must admit I was quite impressed too.

Anyway, if you'd perform such economy run with a M113 V8 AMG, you can get up to 30mpg. So the power gain can be almost proportional to the consumption but we are talking about 15 years old engine.

I'm sure the new 4.0l M178 V8 Biturbo AMG with valves shut-off (valves 2,3,5,8) will get up to 40mpg if driven economically. Now that's impressive!

 

All engines are so much more economical now than they were. Petrol especially has made great gains over the last few years, more power, less fuel. Good signs for a sustained future of ragging nice engines around.

I'm not fussed about diesel, the cheating VAG and others did, along with dirty emissions of older spec engines just don't apply to good modern diesels. I always wondered how VAG got such good power and emissions out of their small capacity diesels without using adblue and, well, we all saw exactly how they did it!

I'm asthmatic but i don't feel in the least guilty driving this derv drinking car. I'd feel guilty these days doing 25mpg in a v8 (I've mentioned before I've got an old jaguar xjr rusting to death on my drive, that old gal rarely broke 18mpg, i used to feel like i was burning dinosaurs out of spite for the planet...but i did love it). I'll go fully electric once the range improves and battery costs become sensible enough that they hold value as second hand buys (i know Tesla seem to be very valued but excluding them, most battery powered cars over here become unbelievably unpopular once out of warranty and for good reason).

 

I don't think that the NA owners aren't interested in diesels -- it's just that our government makes it virtually impossible to import diesel vehicles here. Quite a shame as my 2015 E350 puts out more soot than the only diesel offering we got did of the same year.

Personally, I was wishing for the diesel hybrid to be brought over. I was floored when I found out the US government didn't want a "dirty" 70 MPG car. Then again, we've always been stuck with crappy headlights because we're still using headlight regulations from 1968.

 

The new Diesel engine in the e220d is very clean (meets euro6 standard).

 

And i think it meets it in a genuine way rather than a vw sort of way! I guess things will be put in sharper focus when the RDE emissions tests come on line.

 

Considering Merc's offices in Stuttgart just got raided this week by German authorities, it sounds like Merc might have been using the VW emissions strategies as well.

 

My experience with diesels is limited to my Europe sojourns. This time I drove a big Opel van. The engine was very, quiet and refined and provided amazing fuel economy. On the other hand, the small biturbo diesel was also gutless in the extreme, it took quite a bit of shifting to keep it in its narrow torque band and was borderline dangerously slow at highway speeds. At speed over 100k it barely had any acceleration at all, it reminded me of an old VW microbus. Interestingly the turbos seemed to be activated by the pedal, which had a distinct "detent" at the end of its travel, if you pushed the pedal beyond it at least some power could be summed for the few seconds the engine was in its optimal torque rpms.

 

Modern small diesels in passanger cars are usually very good with little to no turbo lag and a very wide power band (relatively speaking). But if you drive a bad one they really are bad! I tried a 2 litre Renault unit and ten years and whilst it said it had 160ish bhp it wouldn't move at all until you put 500 or so rpm on it, try to pull out gently and you'd be t-boned waiting for the power to come in.

The merc unit is actually really nice, smooth, faulty quiet and has good pull considering its small size. Very good for us heavily taxed Brits

 

I have an SL (admittedly only a 3.5l V6). I get so used to pulling away effortlessly in low revs in the e220d that I have to re-learn to rev the backside off the SL to get going every time I take it out the garage!

 

Id love to try one. One thing I keep reading in the reviews about it is that its not very sporty but that its a super cruiser.