On our drive, to be precise. We collected it at lunchtime and got a very comprehensive handover, covering features I didn't even know it had, such as the dusk-sensing courtesy lights and the speed-limiting cruise control.
It's only covered 35 miles since then, and I'm still not sure I've got the seat right, or decided which I prefer of the gearbox's S and C modes, but I've got a longer trip planned for tomorrow which should get it all nicely shaken down. This was a car whose list price and options added up to £36,000 three years ago, and so far I feel well pleased to have got it for significantly less than half that.
Further report to follow soon.
|
|
Remind me, is this a 211 or 212 (current) model? If its the former there are loads of toys to play with that I know of: the dimming of the roof courtesy light, decoding the Comand so it plays DVDs on the move (for the passengers only of course), etc. The hand books will keep you busy for hours. Enjoy!
|
|
IIRC the first challenge in an S211 is finding the handbook in the first place!! The CD autochanger was also nicely hidden, but I don't know if that's the same with COMMAND since the one I had ('04 reg) didn't have it.
|
|
There's a neat cubby for them in the rear seat centre arm-rest, for those who can't find them.
|
It's a 211, with a CD changer but without COMAND, which didn't feature in many of the cars I found within reach and budget - although it was in more of the E280 and E320 cars I made a policy of not looking at. Since its main features are navigation, which I'm not fussed about, and phone, which I don't need, I'm happy to do without it. The standard audio unit sounds good, even to ears used to a Volvo HU-803, and it has very little background noise to compete with.
The handbook was presented with due ceremony in its snug zip-up holder, and I've put it in the glovebox. If I put it in the armrest I just know Beestling Major will find it and read aloud choice extracts about jacking points and ESP override all the way to Sussex tomorrow.
|
>> It's a 211, with a CD changer but without COMAND, which didn't feature in many
>> of the cars I found within reach and budget - although it was in more
>> of the E280 and E320 cars I made a policy of not looking at. Since
>> its main features are navigation, which I'm not fussed about, and phone, which I don't
>> need,
211's even with comand didn't automatically come with phone pre-installation.
You may even fine that yours does have phone pre-installation.... Have a look in the armrest to seee it there is a connector in there....
|
Interesting, ST. I looked in there and found two orange LEDs and a connector for something. Not an iPhone - not many about in early 2009 - and not a Nokia. I've nothing else to try on it and I don't make calls when I'm driving anyway, but if it was even a neater way to charge a phone on the move it might be useful. Any idea what my options might be?
Drove the car on a 160-mile return trip to the Sussex coast. Impressions mostly favourable, but here are some observations. Remember that today more than doubled the total time I'd spent in the car.
- Leather seats are different. You have to learn a different way to sit on them to avoid slipping forward and slouching. Mercedes seats compound this by being firm; the shaping is excellent and they never feel hard, but I have to pay more attention to my posture in this car than I do in the cloth-clad Volvo.
- It's quiet. At motorway cruising speed, the engine is barely audible, there's no wind noise and even on wet Tarmac the tyres contribute very little. If there were nothing else on the road, it would be a very relaxing drive.
- One area I need to learn is how best to use the gearbox's modes. Today I kept it in S (for Standard, not Sport, incidentally) which keeps the box from changing up too soon at low speeds. On the motorway, though, I miss the crispness of the Volvo, which will happily do 50-70 in fifth to seize a gap in lane 3. In S the E tends to change down, which I don't think the engine needs it to; next time I'll try C to see if it's more willing to hold on to fifth.
- The Audio 20 unit is a pleasant surprise; with all the expensive audio options Mercedes offers I'd half-expected the standard unit to be a let-down, but it does very well. Mine has seven CD slots, one in the head unit and six in the changer behind a miniature garage door in front of the gear selector. I have a suspicion that discs loaded in the changer sound better than those played from the top slot, but I don't know whether this makes any technical sense. I wasn't expecting it to be as good as the Volvo HU-803, and it isn't, but it's miles better than the piece of junk in the Verso.
- Too early to say much about fuel consumption. The computer was suggesting high-30s, and I'd hope to improve on that as my auto-driving technique improves and the whole thing gets smoother.
- I only once went for an imaginary clutch pedal and caught myself before I got there. A couple of times I selected lower ranges in villages or on hills and forgot to go back to D afterwards; the engine isn't loud enough to make this obvious. And I'm finding it remarkably easy to engage the parking brake at red lights to save the driver behind from my very wide high-level brake light.
- I'm looking forward to the smell of the MB dealer's valeting chemicals fading away. It's headache-inducing at the moment but that won't last long - will it?
So, nicer than the Verso? Unquestionably. Perfect family transport? Too soon to say. Have I mastered all its tricks and toys? Not even close. The weather has put an end to all outdoor activities tomorrow, so I'm planning a big pot of coffee and a long session with the manual.
|
>> Interesting, ST. I looked in there and found two orange LEDs and a connector for
>> something. Not an iPhone - not many about in early 2009 - and not a
>> Nokia. I've nothing else to try on it and I don't make calls when I'm
>> driving anyway, but if it was even a neater way to charge a phone on
>> the move it might be useful. Any idea what my options might be?
Does the connector look like this?
www.mercupgrades.com/pictures/all/ML_HFP_connector_384.jpg
If so, you have phone pre-installation!
Then, look here for what cradles are available for your car...
www.mercedes-benz-mobile.com/
|
|
Yes, that's it - although mine is on the vertical rear wall of the armrest compartment since I don't have that inner tray. Thank you.
|
>> One area I need to learn is how best to use the gearbox's modes. Today
>> I kept it in S (for Standard, not Sport, incidentally) which keeps the box from
>> changing up too soon at low speeds. On the motorway, though, I miss the crispness
>> of the Volvo, which will happily do 50-70 in fifth to seize a gap in
>> lane 3. In S the E tends to change down, which I don't think the
>> engine needs it to; next time I'll try C to see if it's more willing
>> to hold on to fifth.
In my last Merc, a C not an E however, I used to keep it in Comfort mode all the time for that same reason. The only time I chose Standard was when I was giving it the beans down a back road.
|
|
On my 2008 E class, the S is for Sport and C for Comfort (page 123 of the 416 page manual). I rarely use anything other than Comfort.
|
On mine there's 3 settings.
E - Economy
S - Sport
M - Manual - Engages the flappy paddles or tip up and down from the gearlever
I use E most of the time. Kickdown seems to do the same as S.
|
|
i confess to being slightly envious, desirable car, be interesting to hear how the relationship with it develops.
|
On my 2008 E class, the S is for Sport and C for Comfort (page 123 of the 416 page manual).
You're right, Duncan, only it's on p117 of 400 in my manual: 'for all normal driving conditions'.
I'm in the 20-page section on the 'on-board computer' at the moment. Seems I can use it to program how long the lights stay on after I take the key out. All I wanted to know yesterday was how to reset the trip meter. This is going to take a while.
}@---)
|
>>I'm looking forward to the smell of the MB dealer's valeting chemicals fading away. It's
>> headache-inducing at the moment but that won't last long - will it?
Hopefully not. They are grim. I don't know if you like the smell of leather, but treating the seats with some sort of hide food should remove that hard sheen and make them more grippy, as well as bringing out the smell. So hopefully as the chemicals fade away they will be replaced by glorious leather aroma, and it'll start to feel more like your car than a dealer forecourt special :)
|
|
I did the front seats of the X1 on Friday - they look a lot softer now - get round to doing the rears soon
|
|
Surely the answer is to wear suitably Germanic trousers eg: Lederhosen
|
One week on
Now I’ve filled it twice and driven 400-odd miles in between, I think I’m ready report some early ownership impressions.
It’s quiet. I’ve done two 80-mile motorway-speed trips (A3, then M40) and both have been dispatched with delightful smoothness and efficiency. There’s no need to turn up the music during the quiet passages, which means I’ve been able to enjoy the Radio 3 end of my collection as much as the Planet Rock one. Enthusiasts rave about the smoothness of MB’s V6 diesels and I don’t doubt them, but this four-cylinder one is good enough for me; a different world from the bedstead-factory noises of the Toyota 2.2 it replaced.
It’s comfortable. As with any multi-adjustable seat, it takes a while to get it right. The stepless electric adjustment helps, and the memory function means I can always return to the last-known-good setting if my fiddling doesn’t work. I hit the sweet spot on the M40 trip yesterday – lower than I’d assumed I wanted, with the wheel set higher than I usually have it and the base tilted up under my thighs, which seemed to let the leather slide me back into the embrace of the backrest than forward off the cushion. Perfect – only I forgot to save it before letting the friend I went to visit play with it, and now I can’t find it again. The Lost Chord? I hope not, but even almost-right it’s pretty good.
It’s not slow. 2.2 litres doesn’t seem much to propel 1.75 tonnes, plus contents, but it copes well. When it does feel slow to get going, it feels more like the effect of the automatic taking a while to take up the power – it’s less crisp than a manual at low speeds – than a lack of power from the engine.
The ride, handling and steering are just fantastic, for my purposes anyway. It has 16-inch wheels with tall 225/50 tyres (a funny mix of brands at the moment, but they’ll be swapped for Michelins as they wear out.) At no stage yet have I felt I’d want bigger wheels for supposed sharper handling, and I appreciate the way it smooths out all but the worst bumps and holes. Perhaps best of all is the steering; never having had a rear-driver before, I’d not appreciated the difference unpowered front wheels can make to the feel and precision of the set-up. It’s very easy to place the car on a twisty road, something I can do in the old S60 but found very difficult in the over-assisted and anaesthetized V70. It turns much more tightly into parking spaces too – just as well given that it’s more than sixteen feet long.
I like the automatic. MB’s are automatics almost by definition, of course, but I’ve never lived with one before – never even driven one a significant distance on UK roads. This E220 has a 5-speed box, whereas new ones now get seven, but I really like the way it manages the car. I’ve settled on S mode at low-to-medium speeds - where it generally stays in a low enough gear to be ready to exit a bend without kicking down - and C on motorways, where I want the opposite effect of staying in top gear and using the torque to accelerate, which works very well.
One curious feature is that third seems very high, although it still produces sufficient engine braking to maintain 30 when necessary without resorting to the brakes.
It’s tolerably economical. First fill-to-fill measurement yesterday gave me about 37mpg. I hope to improve on that as my driving technique develops but it won’t be disastrous if it stays there.
Any dislikes? Not many so far. The trip computer is over-complicated, and the steering wheel is too multi-functional for convenience, because you first have to switch it to the right mode before it will adjust the radio volume. The white-on-white speedometer is not as easy to read quickly as the simpler Volvo one. And I’ve not found the climate control to be quite as foolproof-ly set-and-forget as the Volvo’s – the car seems to get stuffy on the Auto setting, although that may be the lingering effect of the dealer’s vile valeting chemicals.
Need to get a towbar sorted this week, so we can take the bikes to France. Looking forward to that – this really is a car we can look forward to long journeys in. The sense of occasion I wrote about last year is there in abundance.
|
|
Always great to have a car that you want to get in rather than see as just a tool
Last edited by: mikeyb on Sat 5 May 12 at 11:00
|
|
That summarized my feelings towards the CRV I ran - Great tool, but that's it. The X1 does more or less the same but I like driving it.
|
>> And I’ve not found the climate control
>> to be quite as foolproof-ly set-and-forget as the Volvo’s – the car seems to get
>> stuffy on the Auto setting, although that may be the lingering effect of the dealer’s
>> vile valeting chemicals.
Wdb - while you're on the subject of climate control, does the S60 have the facility of cold air through the centre vents and warm air through the footwells at the same time, as in BMW and Mercedes systems?
|
Nice write up WdB! It's good to get a follow-up after the first impressions have died down a bit.
>> When it does feel slow to get going, it feels more like the effect of the automatic taking a while to take up the power
Is it as bad as a CVT? (Which is very good once on the move, but not so good in getting moving in the first place.)
|
Truth is, Corax, even after ten years with the S60, I have no idea what air comes out where. I press the Auto button - or rather just leave it selected - and occasionally click the temperature up or down a degree. In all but a very few cases, that gives me a perfectly comfortable cabin environment, so whatever it actually does, I wouldn't change a thing.
The Mercedes is different: I'm more conscious of cool air from the upper centre vents, to the point where, if it's directed at my face, my eyes get uncomfortable as my contact lenses start to dry out. As with the seats, I'll find the ideal settings in time, but it tends to confirm my theory that there are some things Volvo really does do better than anyone.
Is the auto as awkward as a CVT? No, nothing like. Nine times out of ten, it takes off exactly as I want it to. The tenth is usually in a situation where I want to switch suddenly from slowing to acceleration, perhaps at a mini-roundabout when I find I don't need to stop after all. In a manual, I can have the car in second, clutch up and power on in the blink of an eye; the automatic can't read the road and is probably still in a higher gear, so it takes a moment - and it is only a moment - to gather its thoughts and get going. There are no jerks, jolts or anything more undignified than a momentary hesitation, and I expect I'll learn to anticipate it and drive around it.
|
>> The Mercedes is different: I'm more conscious of cool air from the upper centre vents,
>> to the point where, if it's directed at my face, my eyes get uncomfortable as
>> my contact lenses start to dry out.
I might be mistaken with the Mercedes. I was sure that there was a separate cold/hot air selector for the centre vents like the BMW's. I probably saw it on the S class.
Maybe the Mercedes always has cold air coming through the centre vents, or you might find a setting from one of the sub menu's on the display to adjust it from cold to hot. Why make it simple?
:)
Last edited by: corax on Sat 5 May 12 at 18:32
|
No ventilation options in the menus, but plenty of lighting choices that I don't understand. If I remember tomorrow I'll whack up the cabin temperature, then check to see if the air from the centre vents is still cold.
Forgot to mention yesterday that this car can fly when provoked. I kept it in third yesterday as I came out of a roundabout, and absent-mindedly booted it as I often do in the Volvo. No drama here, but a very gratifying, torquey surge and quite a melodious howl from somewhere in the distant recesses of the bonnet. I'm used to 340Nm; this has 400 and now I know where to find them.
}:---)
|
The owners manual is superbly complicated. In my book, air conditioning goes from page 170 to 188.
Lots of choices, whether enough choices; well...
|
I'm used to 340Nm; this has 400 and now I know where to find them.
Nicely put....
|
When I test prove my model of car it was the 140PS variant with only 320Nm of torque. I noticed it was lacking but it could have been gearing. My Mazda6 had 143PS but also 360Nm and on back to back drives on the same stretch of road there was a big difference. I did a lot of comparison including headlights (both HID but this one has bi-Xenon adaptive lights).
So without a test drive I decided to go for the 170PS/350Nm car..... what a difference. And because power is up too it is a lot better than the Mazda6 and miles better than the same car with the 140PS engine.
|
Just done a short 200 miles today in my E250. Normally, the fuel consumption thingy shows around 45mpg. Which of course one can choose to believe or not, but receipts versus miles would seem to suggest it's about right. Anyway, today, the traffic was hellish on the M6/M60/M62 and it was nigh on impossible to get above 60 mph although it did move so I just tucked in with the trucks and other pleb.. sorry, er, slow moving traffic in lane 1 and turned the radio on.
Fifty flipping three mpg it said when I got back to the grounds of the D'Bout estate !
Got to be a good score for a big automatic estate beastie that hasn't it?
|
I think Newton said something similar in his First Law of Motion, Humph. It does show what the last 20mph costs us in fuel. My car - same block as yours, as I understand, but with different, older ancillaries - leapt from high-thirties to middle-forties in similar traffic on the M4 last week.
As NC has reminded us on occasion, distance per unit volume is an odd way to measure fuel use, since few of us buy a set amount of fuel and see how far it will take us. So your extra 8mpg meant you were using about 15% less fuel, while my saving was more like 18%. You still used less than I did - except that you drove a lot further.
}:---)
|
The only measurement of fuel consumption I take even slightly seriously is PPM. ( pence per mile ) in the end. All the rest are mildly interesting but ultimately irrelevant.
|
I've done trips where low constant mph has resulted in better (much better) mpg. But overall trip has taken a lot longer and as a percentage I know I could achieve much higher mpg but choose not to a lot of the time.
Remember the official figures are based on speeds lower than real life speeds too.
|
|
I think my "drive it like I sole it" technique will have to be modified when the 3 Series arrives....game on.
|
Sounds like cobblers to me...
:-)
|
|
Or as a Liverpudlian on my wife's Bikesafe course said..."eh......drive it like you robbed it"
|
They do have some brilliant ways of putting things in Liverpool. Years ago, a young lady from Liverpool reported to me at work. She was the northern area sales rep for a company I was ( allegedly ) in charge of at that time. We'd had some particulary difficult to sort product quality problems that year and our customers were not in the best of moods.
When I asked the rep how things were "out in the field" her reply was that most of her working days made her feel like Kate ( blanking ) Adie !
|
>> Damnit...
Nurse! Nurse! get the comb.
|
|
Well, Corax drove me to it. I wound up the temperature dial to full, then checked the vents to see what came out. Sure enough, the air from the vent by my door was too hot to put my hand in for long; the air from the centre vents, on the other hand, while not exactly cold, was certainly cool by comparison. So I think that answers the question. I can always shut off the centre vents, or direct them straight back, if the facial cooling gets too much.
|
>> I can always shut off the
>> centre vents, or direct them straight back, if the facial cooling gets too much.
That's what I would do if you find it's drying your eyes too much. It's the sort of system I like, keeping me fresh on long journeys and allowing me to cruise on the motorway without opening windows, but still remaining warm in the footwells. In colder months anyway.
|
|
On my 2011 Merc, if you select the option to send air to your feet it shuts of the centre vents but keeps the side ( window ) ones on. Which I find a bit odd. You can't get airflow to those middle ones and your feet at the same time. Even my Mondeo could do that ! I even asked the main dealer when it was serviced if it was faulty but they say not. Great car but a small flaw in my opinion.
|
Strange. Even a car with a simple set up should be able to do that. Personally I'd rather have manual controls. I like to fiddle with the set up occasionally depending on weather - I never have climate control set on Auto as it never puts the air where I want it.
Must admit though that I can't give the excuse that climate control systems go wrong. These days they're pretty reliable considering all the electronics and servo motors. On the older cars you'd still get the odd cable snap. Or a water valve play up.
|
Oh welcome progress.
My 1978 Peugeot 104ZS provided toasty air to the feet and ambient to the face. It could even cope with Mrs B being too hot when I was too cool and vv.
All done with manual flaps/vents.
|
>> All done with manual flaps/vents.
I do think that older cars had better ventilation set ups than modern cars.
And don't say it was because they had holes in the floors :)
|
|
Small observation that may throw a little light: I've been away again this week, and my taxi to the airport was a 2004ish E saloon. It was generally similar inside to my car, but there was a third control wheel, marked in blue, between the centre vents. I wonder if this was the cold sit option Corax was thinking of - and if so, why it was dropped at the 2006 facelift.
|
Off the pot, part 2: the Überwagen has landed - Boxsterboy
