Well it's now 6 months since I bought my one-owner E320CDI Estate, and in the time-honoured way, I thought it was about time I posted my experiences.
I bought it from a franchised dealer who have incredibly high pressure sales tactics. I had been looking for a while when I saw this on their web-site. So I rung up. 'Sold - how about this other one we've got for £4,000 more'. Me: 'No thanks - that's the price/age/spec I'm after, I'll carry on looking.' Next day they ring up: 'It's available, give us a deposit over the phone and we'll get it down for a test drive'. Me: 'You get it down, and if I like it and decide to buy it, then I'll give you a deposit.'
Anyway having bought the thing for what I thought was a good price, how's it been? In a word refined.
Good points:
Comfortable. We drove all the way to Switzerland, and I never felt tired so as to swap drivers. Not something that I could say when we took the C8 previously.
Refined. Very smooth. It's the inline 6 cylinder not the V6, so it's a relatively old-tech lump, but it is still very refined.
Quick. The torque is tremendous and it pulls extremely well at all speeds.
Driving position. Very comfortable to me. What Car whinge about the pedals being offset but I think they must be refering to manual models (how many manual E-classes can there be? - not many). With reach and rake steering and multi-adjustable seat, the ideal position is easy to find.
Solid. The car feels solid and nothing has gone wrong with the body and fittings.
Roomy. With the rear seats folded, there is 1950l of space. Very practical.
Economy. The worst I've seen in haevy town use is late 20s mpg. On the open road 40+ is easily achievable. Not bad for a big old lump.
Not so good points:
Steering. Feels a little vague at times when wafting, but actually when you hustle the car it gets slightly better
Not sporty. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted a large comfortable estate. For that it fit's the bill perfectly. If I wanted harsh suspension I would have looked elsewhere.
Toys. It has leather, Parktronic parking sensors, Comand sat-nav/phone/CD changer, an iPod connection, xenon lights, 7-seats, auto lights/wipers, etc. Which is enough for me!
Faults. The brilliant brake-by-wire SBC controller packed up - luckily under warranty as it's £280 + 3 hours labour. I had the gear-changes re-set as for some reason they were a little jerky from cold (and yes, the tranny fluid had been changed).
Servicing. It's not cheap, nor did I expect it to be, nor is it any more than rival manufacturers, but it is good (at Tony Purslow in Guildford, anyway).
Overall it is a very calm and relaxing place to be. Very comfortable, practical, quick and satisfying to drive. No, it's not sporty, but that suits me just fine.
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I'm glad you are enjoying it. I sold my E320CDI estate in August 2008, rather reluctantly, but as I need the car for my work I was starting to fret - probably unnecessarily - about the reliability!
I have found that it pays to shop around when arranging a service - even MB at Brooklands can be reasonable about discounting. My car went up to 215,000 miles before I sold it.
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I have the grunt of these things demonstrated to me quite frequently by (lunatic) Amsterdam taxi drivers, and they really are a lovely car. Timelessly elegant and they seem to be very well put together if the well thrashed 300,000 odd km examples I see are anything to go by.
A friend has entrusted maintenance of his various Mercedes to the Guildford dealer you mention for the past 15 years or so, and has had sterling service. He has since moved, and opts to drive his current C270CDi 30 miles to get to them at service time.
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Yes, most Merc dealers seem to offer a sliding scale of discount on labour rates, depending on the age.
Forgot to say, mine was 3 years/55,000 miles old when I bought it. In 6 months I've done another 10,000.
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Steering. Feels a little vague at times when wafting but actually when you hustle the car it gets slightly better
My C Class estate is exactly the same - the faster it's driven the better it gets, it seems to sort of "hunker down". Quite annoying actually - I bought it to waft but it can be fidgety at normal speeds.
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> Refined. Very smooth. It's the inline 6 cylinder not the V6 so it's a relativelyold-tech lump but it is still very refined.
Id have the straight 6 over the vee any day, I have seen more vees in bits than the straights, and I think they sound loads better!
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