So, Had a W212 (2014 E350), totaled, now have a W213 (2021 E350) loaded.

MB has removed or downgraded the following, probably to save money:

1. No Spare
2. No CD
3. Front cabin storage reduced: FrontBottomOfSeatGone; FrontSideWebbingGone, Glove box smaller, DoorPocketsSmaller
4. Crummy Touch controls instead of toggles and buttons. Reviewers (Motortrend, Car&Driver, Consumer reports) all hate them (CON lists).
5. Space behind fold down back seats now not high enough to accomodate a Cristmas tree (found out the hard way)
6. Sound volume gradations how chunky instead of continuous
7. 4 cylinder instead of 6.

I'll be doing a lot of research and test driving on my next buy. I'm guessing this got worse with the W214. A low mileage W212 will be on my list - only because I have such a great dealership near me. (Bobby Rahal Wexford PA).

 

1. No spare would ​​​​​​be to save money and weight and earn money because the run-flats are harsher and wears quicker and more susceptible to damage so you replace it more often.
2. No cd indeed they force you to use either Bluetooth or sd card
​​​​​​

 

I'm seeing a trend with newer Mercedes cars (< 10 years). I feel the same with my 2014 C350 (W204). You'll probably lose some money, but I'd start my search for a good W212 now. Why go through life hating your car?

 

It’s the way of the (automotive) world.

Cost reductions needed to fuel EV development and to improve company profitability if anything is left after throwing it into the EV pyre.

Porsche is doing the same thing on latest Cayenne iteration. No front seat bottom storage, fewer square inches of leather-in-color (replaced with black), eliminated rear sport seat bolsters, eliminated rear floormat retention pins, etc etc etc.

Porsche is allegedly planning a 3-row EV SUV above Cayenne and they need to reduce cost and harvest profits from the “volume” (a relative term) models Cayenne and Macan to burn the cash on 3-row EV SUV development.

 

No CD = No Big Deal.

I have a USB jump drive in my 2018 E400 that includes 3500 tracks — rock, jazz, classical, and folk. Sounds great on the car's Burmester Surround Sound System.

 

MB has removed or downgraded the following, probably to save money:

1. No Spare - Find me a car that does. My older one has an inflatable, the newer one a can of fix a flat. In either case it is MORE than sufficient as a typical MB owner is not changing their own flat anyway.
2. No CD - few weeks ago some guy at a gas station gave me a "demo" DVD. I had to go to one of my older cars to even play it. No DVD player in the house either. No loss. And, no I am not a fan of gansta rap - but this one -
   You Tube
3. Front cabin storage reduced: FrontBottomOfSeatGone; FrontSideWebbingGone, Glove box smaller, DoorPocketsSmaller And at a time where a typical US third grade kid is morbidly obese.
4. Crummy Touch controls instead of toggles and buttons. Reviewers (Motortrend, Car&Driver, Consumer reports) all hate them (CON lists). Anyone I have ever met who pays any attention to CR is seriously a Karen.
5. Space behind fold down back seats now not high enough to accomodate a Cristmas tree (found out the hard way) - so, get a wagon or SUV. Life has options.
6. Sound volume gradations how chunky instead of continuous - Last I checked, MB does not make audio equipment.
7. 4 cylinder instead of 6. - This is the "Al Gore" and "Gretta Thunberg" effect. It makes me feel better to pour the used oils from my cars into the habitat of manatee.

 

@Holtgraver

• If you want a spare tire, buy one. I did.
• I find the storage space is about the same. It is divided into smaller spaces, a BIG plus. I like the small slot in the center console for storing things such as bills, credit cards, etc. Smaller storage spaces makes it is easier to locate items contained therein.
• I've never attempted to put a Christmas tree into the back seat of a car. I'm sure that's a challenge for any car. If you have to do it, buy a smaller tree.
• CDs are obsolete along with cassette tape. If you want to play that kind of media, get a player and plug it into a handy USB port. MB is simply keeping up with technology.

 

It took me 2 hours to transfer 1/10 of the CD's I had loaded on my 2014 to a thumb drive. Also, who the hell has all USB-C plug ins -nearly all of mine are USB-A - The W213 and W214 has only USB-C.

 

1. Why didn't they just make the under trunj floor indentation a bit deeper. Do you really like having a spare flying around in your trunk and taking up room which cannot then be used for luggage?

2. What are the new smaller storage spaces you are claiming are there?

3. You decline the back seat and can easily fit a 6' 5" tree in the prior E class models. I've done it for 15 years. Should I really just accept reduced functionality now and why?

4. You're probably right about technology (my 60 year career), but be prepared to throw your stuff away when the tech disruptors switch to USB-D or wireless only. It's pretty clunky to have a player sitting on your passenger seat or floor if you have a passenger. More Mercedes elegance I guess.

 

I do not disagree with the general sentiment about cost cutting and cheapening of materials in modern cars, but sounds like you missed a couple of technology shifts. People moved their music collections to files about 10 years ago, so they can be backed up to the cloud and easily copied to one's phone or portable storage device and played in the car or other media player over Bluetooth or USB via CarPlay or Android Auto and such. Bonus points for being able to fit your entire music collection onto a device that measures less than half of a single CD case, so you don't need all those storage compartments to keep all those CDs.

Just out of curiosity, what do you even keep in your car? Most of the storage compartments and nets in my car are empty or mostly empty. As said, my data and music is on my phone/in the cloud and the phone has a place in the center console for it to go in pretty much any modern car. Usually there's a wireless charging pad these days where the phone goes. I don't even carry a keyring anymore that I have to put somewhere in the car to not have it stab me in the groin. My house keys etc. are digital keys on my phone and I have keypads on the lock as a backup to get into the house in case I lose my phone. Back when I carried physical keys and lost them I couldn't get into the house anymore and had to call a locksmith to replace the locks. Now I can just disable the digital keys should I lose the device they are stored on, and I don't have to carry anything in addition to my phone. Similar situation with my wallet. Got rid of the bulky bifold that was uncomfortable to sit on and had to be stored somewhere in the car while driving in favor of a minimalist card wallet that isn't much larger than the stack of cards I carry in case I find myself somewhere where I can't pay contactless with my phone, and I keep a $20 bill in the money clip for emergencies. I also still have to legally carry a physical drivers license for now, even though I have a digital driver's license on my phone. Downsizing and smart Everyday Carry is the key to lack of storage space. You might even find it liberating to not have to have all the junk with you. Travel light, travel smart.

As for the spare tire. Haven't needed one in forever. Complete blowouts are rare, and many cars nowadays come with runflat tires so you can keep driving to your destination or a safe location instead of having to change a tire on the side of an Interstate with your back towards 75 mph traffic zipping by. Too many distracted drivers on the roads these days that might not see you and wipe you out. Personally I don't use runflat tires, but I have a compressor and a can of goo to seal a puncture in an emergency, but I've yet to even need that and I'm pretty unlucky when it comes to screws and nails in my tires. However, most of the time they seal the puncture enough to keep driving until it can be repaired.

Things change and we constantly have to rethink our habits. Years ago we might have lugged around a ton of stuff with us everywhere we go, but the digital age eliminated much of that and all we have to carry is our phone, a minimalist wallet and maybe the car fob. The latter two are gradually going away, getting fully replaced by digital wallets and digital keys. The W214 for example has support for digital keys, so you don't even need to carry your key fob anymore.

 

"7. 4 cylinder instead of 6". this is more likely your choosing as w213 is available with 6 or cylinders as well.

 

My W213 has all USB-A ports and no USB-C ports.

 

If the car doesn't meet your specifications, not sure why you purchased it?
4 cylinder is consumer decision to so hardly a fault of MB for having one in the particular vehicle you selected.
The world has moved on from CD's for good or bad reasons; my 2018 doesn't have a CD player either so you have to go pretty far back to get an integrated one.

Sorry to hear your not happy, but most of your list of faults are consumer requirements mostly addressed with a different model or brand.

?? How did you end up with the car you have now? Was it a direct replacement by the insurance company for the write-off and you had no choice?

 

I mean OP I guess the things you listed that you lost you gain from a W212 to a W213 is more modern tech, more luxurious looking interior design that was inspired by the W222 S Class that in my opinion has aged like fine wine.

 

It took me 5 days using 4 PCs to rip my entire CD library that was loaded into 3 CD carousel players so I could have everything auto-indexed on a 1TB SSD music vault. Having done this, I can load an SD card in just a few minutes. Some technology change is annoying, especially when all it does is revise the human interface. But I don't miss juggling CDs in the car or trying to unjam the player.

 

How many CDs did you rip and to what format? Did you clean the CDs prior to ripping? A fingerprint or dusty CD can dramatically increase ripping time because of the up to 16 retries to get a good read.

Last month I ripped 450 CDs to FLAC for a friend. It took two 10 hour days using ExactAudioCopy in fast mode, a 24x Dell DW316 portable drive and an Intel Core Ultra 7, 5GHz w/32 GB mem notebook.

 

As the musical rights is already payed, you can easily download from pirate bay...or something

 

Digital rights obtained by purchasing a CD, does not include the distribution of said media to others or obtaing it from others.
The purpose of ripping a CD is to provide for personal use and the backup of same. Put simply, Croitoru Laurentiu, you are wrong!

 

Indeed, but downloading the same content for personal use is not distribution.

 

I have about 1100 CDs, now all packed away. I used a Windows app "Freac" (www.freac.org) that rips in any of several formats. I did *.wav for my vault, and sometimes do mp3 for SD cards for the car. My CDs were clean to begin with, but the wav file rip was taking about 7 minutes for a typical CD on average. About 6 hours for 5 days on 4 PCs, and then another couple hours to transfer into Sony's proprietary file format. Glad it's done.

 

YES IT IS! You are receiving an illegal distribution in violation of copyright and other laws such as receiving stolen property.

mbretrofit.com

 

Doesn't anyone remember Kim Dotcom? See the wikipedia writeup regarding his success as a distributor of copyrighted materials.

 

I'm still pissed they got rid of the foot switch for high beams.

 

And the starter engagement plunger pedal that used to be right above the gas pedal too.

 

And the foot activated parking brake.