German Car Forum

Please tell me I didn't overdo it in this thread. I think the speechbubble comments were quite "tame" by my usual standards.

Besides, I noticed that random people were noticing the car and their facial expressions fascinated me. I thought the speechbubbles might "cheer things up" here...

Exactly! A good laugh never hurt anybody! I'd just be a little carful, seeing how most anybody can view these...But I'm overreacting..they were funny!

Lol...Considering how shaken up the camera was I can tell you were excited to see it too.

Nice photos as well!

I finaly got to see my car for the first time earlier this evening. It was sitting at the back of the Mercedes Dealer compound still with the delivery stickers and some protective covering. The dealer didn't have the keys so I could not sit in. Interior was still heavily covered in protective plastic and cardboard.

Since this was the first time since the Geneva show many months ago I had seen an AMG spec car in real life I was most pleasantly suprised. If it drives anywhere near as well as it looks I'll be more than happy.

Collection date has been set for 8am on Saturday 20th June so still som time away yet.

Oh well... at least I have the photo's of my baby to look at between now and then

congrats mate ..

this is one on the best looking merc's :|

Interesting thread....I'll take the sedan please. Same as before with the W211 and the C209 CLK.


M

Love the sedan and coupe. Verbier, great looking car, very striking in silver with AMG pack!.

The Nikon D90 takes videos in frame mode. I can hold the camera reasonably still but any small movement will look like the camera is shaking somewhat. I was also walking around and that means camera shake is inevitable.

Lol Oh ok...I was wondering. Thanks for the video!

Please, TELL ME YOU ORDERED A CGI INSTEAD OF CDI, because label shows clearly CGI...

In all your posts you have been talking about a 350 CDI version, haven't you?

It is for sure a CDI so will be drinking from the black pumps. The pictures I took with my iPhone, which as we all know does not have a very good quality camera. I've re-checked the photo's and to me it's actualy not clear if it says CGI or CDI. I think there is a refelection across the D which may make the letter look like a G instead of a D. Since I did not get to look under the hood or see the rev counter I have no other reference points apart from the badge which I actualy did not pay attention to when wandering around the car.

Hopefully late on Saturday or sometime on Sunday (bearing in mind it's F1 GB weekend so there will be other distractions... come on Button in your Mercedes) I'll be able to post some photo's and the first driving impressions... of the 350 CDI.

Have you already collected you car? Can't wait for your impressions...

I did indeed collect the car on Saturday and have covered 350km over the last 3 days. The weather has been pretty bad here with rain and high winds so not had much dry weather driving and haven't realy been able to take any good outdoor photo's. I'll post some photo's of the car in my parking garage but they are not the best quality. The weather is scheduled to be better next weekend so I'll post some outdoor photo's then along with an update of the ownership experience after one week.

Apart from the limited amount of time I've had with the car, another thing to remember when reading my below impressions is the car is in it's 1500km running in phase. I've been told not to use more than half throttle during this period and not to rev the engine more than 3000rpm. For this reason I don't have any imprssions of the outright acceleration for example as I've been keeping the car in Comfort mode and treating it very gently. I hope you understand : )

Anyway... down to business. First the good impressions. The car in Silver AMG spec looks amazing and judging by the amount of attention it's had from bystanders and other drivers it certainly doesn't fly under the radar. If you want to drive incognito then buy an A5... this car isn't for you. The look of the lights at nightime is particularly impressive, especially the rear LED's with their 3D floating effect which works realy well. Also, the front direction indicator lamps somehow light up the whole light unit. Not sure how, maybe using some internal reflectors or something.

The interior of the car is first rate. The materials don't feel any better than those in my Audi A3 (which I've upgraded from) though. Makes you realise how good Audi are having interiors of a similar or better quality than cars two and three times the price. The seats are fantastic and adjustable in so many different ways. Being able to adjust the side bolsters to pinch you into the seat is particularly good when your about to tackle a twisty road. At the flick of a finger they then release you for some less secure motorway driving. Nice touch.

The engine, even under the part loads I've experienced to date seems hugely strong. I've managed some realy rapid overtaking manouveres when only using small amounts of throttle opening so it certainly bodes well for when the engine is fully run in. The brakes I haven't tried in anger yet but they are nicely progressive (unlike the over servoed Audi brakes) and can be modulated nicely. The 7G-TRONIC is a peach. Shifts between the first couple of gears you can feel with a little drive train shunt but as speed increases it's almost impossible to feel the shifts, very impressive. The 'M' mode as I had hoped does provide for a fast response to manual shift inputs, however, at low speed the car does not respond to all manual gear inputs if it does not think the gear is correct for the speed. For this reason I think manual mode should only be used when you want to push the car when driving at higher velocities. When taking things slower, leave it in 'C' is my recommendation.

As for the handling and steering... well the ride is firmer than I expected which for me is a good thing and the Sports Parameter steering (part of the AMG pack) is a revalation. Only the tightest of hairpin bends require you to take your hands off the wheel to feed in more lock. All other medium and tight bends can be taken without having to move your hands from their orginal position on the steering wheel rim.

The space in the rear is limited as you would expect. The seats are great but somebody of average height will have very little head and legroom. Not a problem for me but if it is a problem then the suggestion is buy something else.

Since there is no spare tyre in my car there is a huge amount of extra storage space under the trunk floor. The trunk is already huge so this car can carry a serious amount of luggage.

The interior ambient lighting is nice but not as bright as I would like and the intensity can't be adjusted. Strangely there is ambient lighting in the driver and passenger footwells. I can only assume this is to help see the foot operated parking brake at night.

I've only had a few minutes of night driving with the intelligent lights and high beam assist seems to work very well. The cornering lights appear to be halogen so have a warm yellow colour whereas the driving lights being BiXenon have a cold white colour. It's therefore very noticable when the cornering lights come on as they have this different colour creating a bit of light tapestry as you drive. Quite entertaining to watch. High Bean Assist works well, however, since the camera needs to see the lights of the other car before it reduces the beam then this seems to invariably result in you being flashed by the other driver just as the lighting system is about to do it's job and reduce the beam. If the system ever gets confused or doesn't react quick enough then the other driver flashing his lights certainly makes sure the camera picks him up and nocks the main beam off so not realy a problem.

Well, so much to say so I'll try and keep this post short so now time for the negatives.

During the installation drive I took with my dealer before accepting the car I noticed a quite significant electrical problem. When indicating to turn left instead of the rear yellow (which in reality appear somewhere between yellow and green) LED's dlashing the brake lights flash instead. This only happens on the rear left of the car. Since it was a Saturday non of the workshop staff were on site so the car has been scheduled to go into the workshop for a fix on Tuesday. The car is apparently still legal to drive so no problems there. After all that's how most American cars signal a direction change by flashing the brake lights I believe.

There also seems to be a problem with the rear windows. The one touch lowering works but one touch raising does not. I can't believe this is normal so I'll be getting MB to check this also.

Unlike my old Audi A3, when moving the front seats forward to allow access to the rear, the Coupe's seats do not remember there original position which means the driver then has to go about re-finding his original driving position. Very inconvenient on a car of this price.

One of the biggest disappointments to date is the Harman/Kardan Logic 7 system. The BOSE system in my A3 sounded much better and more consistent. In the A3 all CD's sounded good. In the Coupe every CD needs to have the Base and Treble adjusted otherwise on some it is to harsh and others insuffucient. It seems the rearmost speakers in the Coupe are also not of a good quality which means that the sound is very forward biased and certainly not 'Suround Sound'. Additional to that the installation seems quite poorly done with what appears like secondary vibrations through the cars trim during base heavy tracks. This kind of thing should simply not be there in a so called Premium system. Before my A3 I had an A6 for a short while and the basic non BOSE system on that car sounded better than the Premium Harman/Kardan on the Coupe. Maybe my expectations were to high for this system, I don't know. I must admist it's a little strange that I've read a huge amount of reviews of the A5 Bang and Olufsen system but I hadn't found a single review to date of the Coupe's Harman system. I wonder why? Are MB removing them off the web

Well I could keep talking about this car forever so I won't.

If anybody has any questions then feel free to ask and any questions I can't answer I promise to do my best to find an answer.

The photo's I've posted are of the car parked in it's unfeasibly small and tight parking bay. Believe me, the parking sensors don't help here at all. Only luck and extreme skill on my part () have prevented scratches and scuffs in the first three days of ownership. Hence the reason for all the bubble wrap on the walls

For those of you with a keen eye this is the same car as in my earlier posts. I asked when ordering that the car be delivered de-badged. A request that MB very nicely ignored. So I had the 'Blueefficiency', 'E 350' and 'CDI' badges removed from the fenders and trunk respectivly and an 'AMG' badge added to the trunk on the right hand side. It's now not possible to tell externaly if this is a benzine or diesel car.

OK. Thanks to those of you who took the time to read this long post.

Cheers and Goodnight!!!

Thanks for this great review and first impressions of your new car!

With the first pics, I would like to move your post over here then:

http://www.germancarforum.com/my-car-owner-galleries/

Sadly, that's not a problem. It's a known issue which MB engineers don't solve (security reasons, maybe?). In fact, you have this problem even in C209 model. That's strange but true.

Anyway, there is a workaround for this: if you press and hold the air-recirculation key for about 2 seconds, all the windows and pano-roof (if opened) automatically are closed. If you press and hold again this key, windows and roof go back to its original position.

Of course, this workaround is only valid if climate control is on, otherwise it won't work.

I read this whilst sitting in the Coffee area at MB (whilst they fixed the problem with the rear indicator) and then 10 minutes later the Tech guy confirmed exactly what you say about the windows so good timing How crazy that something so simple on-touch raising and also something I would expect on a basic Kia or Hyundai does not work on a MB They say 'The beauty is in the detail' well I'm slowly finding that MB as a brand is missing a lot of detail which is making the ownership experience turn a little ugly. Oh well, it's a good job this particular car as a whole is such a stunner

On the plus side I discovered that the 'Rest' function which keeps the car warm or cool after leaving the vehicle is now available on the basic 2 zone AC system (which I have) whereas it was previously only available on the 3 zone system so this is a nice addition I wasn't expecting.

I've also discovered that all my CD's that are loaded into the head unit appear with Album name and track names which is a great feature. Not sure how this works exactly.

I've not done much driving since the weekend due to work but hopefully I'll add something after the coming weekend with regards to the operation of the car and any new things I find.

For those interested, my current fuel usage after 450km is 7.9litres/100km with a worst of 10.9litres/100km which I got on a short trip in town.

I think this will probably not improve as my driving will get a little more rapid as the engine loosens up.

Cheers

Does this mean I should not post any more photo's here on the E-Class-Coupe thread?

Could you please take a photo of your AC System? Just curious, because in Owner Manual the 2-zone climate control doesn't have the Rest function. Maybe it is available only in some countries...

Interactive Owner's Manual [In depth | Controls | Air conditioning]

Thanks in advance!

I just want to create an extra thread for your car, because this is still "Wimmers C207 spotting thread" and has nothing to do with your new awesome purchase and your experiences!

I'm more than happy to create another thread under the E-Class-Coupe section but not so happy to be relegated to the 'Owners Gallery' section as I believe that section should be more just for photo's and for more established models. Whilst this car is still so fresh i think a snall number of photo's and a discussions should remain here.

My apologies to Wimmer if it seems I have gatecrashed this particular thread with my new owner posts.

Sorry for the delay Alejandro. Here is a photo of the basic 2 zone system in my E-Coupe where you can see the 'Rest' function on the AC button. You are correct, this is not shown in the Online manual or the Paper Manual i received with my car so I can only assume it's a very new addition. My car is a Swiss specification but I would assume all mainland Europe Cars would get this.

I think this should be my last post in this section as it seems I've taken this thread off topic a little.

I would like to create a new thread for New E-Coupe Owners since I'm sure some members apart from us two have or will be placing orders and it would be good to share the ownership experiences and tips and findings on this car.

What do you think?