had to go to a wedding yesterday out int he sticks and my dads mate lent us his c class 320 cdi for the trip and, to add some useful input to pf, here's how i found it

it's fucking rapid

it blew away everything on the motorway, and that's not bragging, nothing was doing more than about 80 so nothing troubled it when it came to outpacing it, the way it went from "ok we are crusing along" to "lets get the fuck out of here" was immense for what i was expecting

and after about 230 miles the trip said it did 37.4 mpg so very impressed

good amount of kit on it, xenon's, auto lights and the like, full electric pack, hot seats and folding mirrors and everything you'd expect on a top of the line car, with all them fiddly controls on the steering wheel to go through the menu's, a bit complicated but amongst some of them were "speed limit for tyres - 140 mph - 150 mph"

ok, so we've established it was quick, and it was well kitted out, what really surprised me was how quiet it was, at virtually any speed on good tarmac it was whisper quiet, no sound from the a pillers, or the wing mirrors, the wipers were louder than the car was at 60 mph, even clipping along at a fair old rate of knots, i could hear my old dear blabbering away in the background (ok, so perhaps not such a good thing )

but the bad points, not many, but enough to put me off

the steering was absolutly crap, there was no feel to it in the dead ahead position and it was ultra light until you turned it just a bit off centre, then it would weight up rally heavily, and i just couldnt live with that, it was really sensitive, but really dead at the same time so you always had to have your wits about you as it would tram line like fuck and pull you this way and that in the ruts

suspension was a bit hit and miss, the front suspension was very supple, you could go over humps in the road and not feel them, but when the back wheels went over, it was like the car was connected to your spine and you felt every single cobble and pot hole and speed hump as if the rear axle was welded to the car, absolutly not one mm of give at all

the brakes are big and of the 4 pot variety with what mb call "perforated discs" and, in this case, they scrub off speed very very well, they just feel as wooden as the steering, although this could be something to do with the brake assist stuff it's got

if it wern't for those issues, it would be an almost perfect car, but with them, i couldn't drive it for too long, deffo not when i was tired as it was just too jittery

it's a nice car with it's B service due in a few miles so they may fix some of the problems, but they won't fix the alignment of the steering wheel to the seat to the dash, that just freaked me out the first time i noticed it and after that i couldn't get rid of that feeling that everything was off kilter, let me explain

you sit in the seat, you centre yourself in the seat, you hold the steering wheel and you have to twist your body just so, but when you look at the steering wheel it lines up perfectly with the centre of the dash, so all good
but if you are giving it some and turn left and move your head to lean, the centre line of the steering wheel where you think the middle is when you look at it, is about an inch to the right of the centre of the dash, and then you find yourself knowing that the seat is out as well, and then everything else gets confusing, coulped with the fact that the pedals are offset to the right meaning you can't left foot brake it's all a bit of a downer

it's an almost perfect car and, if i had one, i'd be investing in something to solve the issues with the suspension and steering, and then live with the off centre driving position and cramped interior if i could only feel that punch when you bury the loud pedal, even when you don't it's very very rapid and i'm glad i took it for the trip

if i could only couple the mercs speed with the mondeo's everything else, you'd be onto a proper winner there mr buyer

anyway, that's my contribution sorted for this year so back to normal eh

 

oh

 

New merc?look very nice but my neighbour in the unit next door had a blue motion model that claimed 68mpg(yeah right),he got more like in the 30's but it did break down twice,apparently a fault with all the blue motions,although it's fine now.

 

 

Gary has just bought a VRX8, Dojj, and it's a proper' animal. Off to Southport in it in about 5 minutes, so I'll let you know what I think of it once we get the beach.

Benni.

 

Great cars these, i have the one below it the c270cdi and thats pretty quick.Prefer it to my old 330d to be honest and not really a merc person.

 

Doesnt look THAT quick on here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2ysh...eature=related

 

I was looking at the c270cdi as that is more economical than the c220cdi , weird .

Like the look of the new merc's as there more of an every mans car to being an older persons car that they used to be in my eyes .

But in all honesty if i had the money i'd have the 335d bmw any day

 

So you used to own and drive you pals Bentley Continental GT and never mention it but you feel the need to talk about a diesel Merc?

 

i never took the bentley further than out the garage to look at it (because you need one person one side and one person the other to make sure it clears the drain covers in the drive, it's THAT wide) although i can't get hold of his slr for tomorrow he has mentioned that it's possible to give it a whirl

but yes, the merc was epic is a straight line and a proper nice drive if you want to tool about but not that great as an actual drivers car

 

Had a few of these on demo at work, absolutely love em, possibly the only merc I've enjoyed driving. Boss had a cl63 until recently and that did nothing for me at all, was fast but so boring. He's now lost any little bit of taste he had and bought a panamera!!

 

Having driven various C Class models over the last two years I'm afraid I didn't recognise any of the negatives that Dojj mentioned.

I can regularly get 60+ on a run in my current C200 (only 136hp), but my C220s could nudge 60mpg. I've never had one return less than 47mpg over 5,000-9,000 miles and that includes a lot of city driving as well as motorways and extra-urban stuff.

 

So you going to buy a merc then dude

Not as nice as they used to be

 

That's the V6 petrol not the turbo diesel. Wouldn't expect that to be rapid anyway. Turbo diesel in gear punch is a shitload more than anything an N/A petrol can put together but they do run out of puff after the mid range quite badly.

 

I took my grandmothers c class on a trip to the airport yesterday, petrol one though. Not sure what engine size (as it's factory de-badged) but it's only a baby one, I was actually pretty impressed with it! Flappy paddles kept me amused for 5 minutes and it was much nippier than I thought it would be. It's an 08 model, certainly a lot nicer than the older ones! 3000 miles on it from new! Needed a good run lol

 

That isn't even the car that Dojj is on about you fucking retard!!!

Would you like to guess if it's FWD or RWD as well?



MONG!

 

Oh i got the wrong video, big deal :

By the way i dout you'd have even noticed if someone else didnt already point it out