Dad's C200 Elegance (W202)

[DeDe]

Just a quick review.

This is my familys first Mercedes-Benz. Well, it's the first MB I've ever driven. Sadly it is a manual one. Why sadly? Because there's only one big problem with this 1994 Merc and that's the gearbox. The gearchanges are absoultely ridiculous. It's the most imprecise gearbox I've ever seen.
Fortunately, the car has pretty good torque at the low-end revs, so after you put it in 5th, you don't have to touch it again for the next town. The 2,0 litre, 136-hp-engine comes alive at around 1200 rpms, it starts to pull at 1500 and after it reached 2000 rpm the car starts to accelerate quite impressive (impressive for a 1,4 t car, of course). It's easy to overtake in 5th gear from 70-80 km/h anytime. Over 3000 rpm it's starts to sound and accelerate pretty good.

The interior. That's the best part of the car IMO. This red interior looks much, much better in real life. After 16 years it still feels new and fresh.
The sound-comfort is perfect, too. There's absolutly - believe me - no wind noise under 100 km/h, the engine is very quiet, too. The only noise you can hear everytime is the tirenoise. But that is very moderate, too.

The suspension is unusally comfortable. Unusally for me.

My conclusion: driving this car puts a very big and very proud smile on my face everytime. It's so relaxing, so comfortable. I've learned very fast the meaning of these two words: Mercedes-Benz.

Some quick shots. Hopefully I'll do some better shots later. The car screams for some proper light-alloy wheels... I know.

 

[ree]

Thanks for the review!! Absolutely classy colour combination. How many kilometres did this car - seats looks fresh and new and the interior is in a good condition.

 

[DeDe]

Thanks for the review!! Absolutely classy colour combination. How many kilometres did this car - seats looks fresh and new and the interior is in a good condition.

Thank you, ree! 140.000 km.

 

[cawimmer430]

Nice car and review.

MB manual transmissions were always junk - and still are. Ok, so they've gotten better but they lack the smoothness and precision of their competitors. On the other hand, Mercedes automatics are some of the best in the industry.

It's ironic that the best Mercedes manual transmissions I've ever experienced and driven can be found in the current A- and B-classes: cars with zero sporty pretensions (especially the B-Class). These transmissions were smooth, precise and you could actually speed shift properly to!

 

[Kowalski]

Very mint condition. I like it!

 

[DeDe]

Hi guys.

Today I did some flexibility tests with the car. With my dad onboard we got surprisingly good numbers. After the tests I did some research in my scan-database and it seems that our car pulls much better than a normal C200, it's even faster in 4th and 5th gear than the more powerful C220.
Also, our C200 somehow got the shorter final drive of the C180-model, because at 100 kph in fifth gear it revs 2800 (just like the C180) instead of 2550 rpm as a normal C200 does. Our car has stock wheels and stock tyres.

Anyway, here are my results in comparison with AMuS-numbers from the 90's.

 

[mini_cooper4]

You shouldn't be sad for it being a manual. My C220 CDI has the worst AT I've ever experienced. It has plenty of issues too. It gets stuck on gears every 5 minutes and you have to restart the engine tho it doesn't even work every time.
About the ride: My opinion is that the E190 rides FAR better than the W202(I was surprised)
The brakes on the W202 are really bad. The interior on the other hand looks great no matter the age, I agree. You could say the same for the exterior too.
The engine is OK but the AT ruins the whole experience.

Pros: Looks solid both inside and out. Doesn't show it's age...
Cons: ...until you drive it. The transmission is the worst part of that car. Brakes are a close second.

 

[DeDe]

Today I did some proper 60-100 and 80-120 km/h flexibility runs with the C200.
Because of the cloudy weather I had to mount the GPS-antenna on the top of the car for best GPS-receiving. According to Qstarz (the guys who made my receiver) for a precise measuring you need at least 8 connected satellites. With the antenna onboard (under the windshield) the highest number was 7. After mounting it on the roof I got 10-11 available satellites.

With the assistance of my girfriend we measured 60-100 km/h in 4th and 80-120 km/h in 5th gear, in both directions. The average times are even better than my previous one-direction numbers were. This time we had the advantage of cold air and less load (ca. 60 kgs weight difference between my girfriend and my dad... ).

Here are the numbers:

 

[klier]

^ You're better than most 'journalists'.

 

[DeDe]

Weak result during a 100-0 kph panic-braking test: 47,7 metres with modern Goodyear EfficientGrip tyres...

But the 0-100 kph time with slow shortshifts and without any wheelspin is still 11,9 seconds.

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[DeDe]

Today I managed the same 0-100 kph time with our 20-year-old C200 than what AMS did back in 1994: 11,4 s.
Considering the shitties gearbox ever (both of my 1-2 and 2-3 shifts were 0,4 sec) it's a fine result IMO.

Traction was very good off the line as well (0-30 kph in 2,0 s with a peak G of 0,68).

 

[Giannis]

@DeDe

I just installed RaceChrono on my mobile phone and paired it with a 10Hz GPS receiver. What software do you use to process the data?

 

[DeDe]

@DeDe

I just installed RaceChrono on my mobile phone and paired it with a 10Hz GPS receiver. What software do you use to process the data?

Racelogic's PerformanceTool is perfect for analyzing, you only have to export your Travelled route (in your RaceChrono Session) into a .vbo file.

I use an old Sympian Nokia phone for testing, because one of the older versions of RaceChrono had an optional straightline-performance measuring tool. Newer (Android) versions of RC lacks this feature.

 

[Rolf]

Very cool Dede, that car must be a pleasure to drive! Not bad performance for a 20 years ole
Merc!

 

[Giannis]

I use an old Sympian Nokia phone for testing, because one of the older versions of RaceChrono had an optional straightline-performance measuring tool. Newer (Android) versions of RC lacks this feature.

Same here. I installed it on my old Nokia E51, which I still use today. I'll try to find and install this software from Racelogic. It should be interesting.

Thanks!

 

[DeDe]

Same here. I installed it on my old Nokia E51, which I still use today. I'll try to find and install this software from Racelogic. It should be interesting.

Thanks!

The same old version of RaceChrono is also available for Windows computers, I use it on my laptop to analyze data measured with the phone.

It also works great if you connect the GPS receiver via USB-cable to the laptop.

 

[Giannis]

Gergerly thanks a lot. I just installed the software and reviewed a log of my usual commute I had recorded a few weeks back. Now I need to find some time and measure some actual performance!