2008 Mercedes C Class 200k with AMG Body Kit.
Neither ARUK or Mangoletsi could give me an Alfa, so they eventually swapped the billy basic Focus hire car for this Merc and he's my brief 1300 mile report.
Good points:
Looks - The AMG body kit, alloys, cross drilled brakes all look the part. Fat alloys/tyres at the back finish off the looks very well.
Seats - the most adjustable and comfortable 1/2 leather AMG seats I've sat in for a while. Held me in all the right places without feeling cramped. Suited my driving style perfectly.
Stereo - Sound quality is far better than my 159 standard setup.
Exterior paint finish - no swirl marks, no orange peel, no difference in colour from plastic to steel substrates, no stone chips - very good surface generally and this car has covered over 11k miles now.
The full auto boot opening function on the fob is a nice touch - same as our CLS.
The 'follow me home' headlights, auto folding mirrors and mirror mounted LED repeaters are good too.
Steering - direct, good feeling and lots of feedback.
Brakes - had a little 'play' from high speed a few times and they were faultless. Sharp at low speed but great overall.
Chassis and sports suspension solid as a rock. Hammered it down my fav road and it gave me similar levels of feedback albeit in a different way to my 159.
Rear wheel drive and adjustable throttle settings were great fun in recent damp weather
Not so good points:
Firstly it stank of cigars - not a great start
Gearbox - It's frankly awful.
5 speed paddle shift tiptronic automatic. It's so bloody slowwwww to change up or down, changes gear when you least want to (around a tight bend for example!
) and slushes through every cog. Even kickdown takes an age. Nasty nasty nasty.
Engine - It's ok, not great though. Good top end and above 70mph but the low end shove is appalling and muted. Not helped by the nasty gearbox. I drove a manual version of this engine in comfort trim a few months ago and pretty impressed.
The one good thing about the engine was, no matter how much punishment I gave it, I couldn't get under 31-32mpg!
Very impressive IMHO.
Plastics - Some of the plastics were cheap and very hard/shiney. Not good in a £27kish car.
The wing mirrors, LED lights aside are big and ugly slabs of plastic. Look like Prince Charles' ears....
Bluetooth - Good to see its not just Alfa who have issues with bluetooth connections. For the love of god, I couldn't get it to connect with either of my mobiles. Crap system. Hence the TomTom emergency microphone in the photos.
Positioning of the flappy paddles was stupid. You'd have thought that after over a thousand miles in a car I be used to using them, but no. I can't remember how many people Ive flashed by mistake, so close is the stalk to the flappy paddle down shift thingy. Maddening
Overall a 7.0/10 and I'm quite impressed (aside from the gearbox). A very different car to the 159, but worth a look once this new model have started to filter into the nearly new market.
It's a solid car and capable of refined high speed motorway munching with an understated style.
These Past Weeks I Have Been Mostly Driving A.......
