Rear head room much?

I think we’d all be better off if automakers gave us more practicality, even in a coupe such as this. I know style sells cars initially, but I’m not sure the original owner doesn’t come to have buyer’s remorse for the trade-offs involved.

And let’s hope MB has worked out the electronic and electrical gremlins that had many of their cars listed as least reliable for the several last years.

The sedan is a much different vehicle (and i’d say nicer).

The problem is the E class coupe is E class priced but made from a C class.

if you sit inside them back to back you know they are the same. THe E class coupe for example has the same width, the same switch gear and even the same transmission selector.

THe E sedan actaully has a column one with paddle shifters and you can feel taht its a different platform.

If the E coupe was $10k less and called the C coupe, I think it would be fantastic. But just like the CLK it is $10k more but based on the same platform as the C sedan. It sort of ruins it that its expensive I guess.

That being said, all I see in the MB tail lamps is a dash of Avalon and Lexus LS-series. That does look like the weak point of the design.

I’m also glad to hear that MB is not offering AMG on everything now. Maybe the economy or wretched resale values (or both) has a lot to do with that…or maybe they are waiting to watch the upcoming BMW disasters called the M-series X6 and X5 and laugh their butts off.

The true MB test will be a year or two from now when solid quality scores start coming in. Hopefully the 2000-2008 timeframe of bad quality scores will be a bad memory.

As I am an owner of the S550, I recognized right away what changed between the S550 and the E-class.

They’ve taken the S class interior and when they ported it over to the old E-class design, THEY SCREWED UP and left too many buttons around.

My S550’s button design is clean and neat. The Eclass’ is so ridiculously complicated that most of the features go unnoticed.

The worst of all is if you don’t buy every single feature. Then you end up with huge plastic space buttons that do nothing. Mercedes should have kept most of the functions inside the COMMAND system so that we could elleviate this problem.

Why the hell do you take the S550’s phone dialer and add it to this car if you are just going to put the phone buttons on the center stack?

The steering wheel clutter is ridiculous – especially if you have the 550 with its sport shift paddles.

As for the Coupe…the size of the interiors is so great for the E sedan that when you get into the coupe, you end up in a smaller car than the C-class the E-coupe is based on. This is a car for SMALL people. The Sedan is fine though for taller drivers.

All the safety features and advanced driving dynamic features go completely unnoticed. That’s actually good. THEY WORK. The ride is SOFT and its ultra quiet. I also love the Coupe’s Pillarless design because it basically allows you to get $109,000 CL class style in a $50,000 package.

And boy do these Benzes depreciate. Even a $100,000 S-class drops to $60,000 with 20,000 miles on it. This car’s resale is going to take a NOSE DIVE like Air France.

IIRC a Mini Cooper S earned five stars a while back.

One would be inclined to think used camrys are a poor deal while a used Mercedes is a much great deal.

Surprised to hear about the “heft and directness” of the steering. Is the steering that much different than that of the C-Class? I found the current C-Class a thoroughly boring car to drive.

Based on responses to TrueDelta’s Car Reliability Survey, the current C-Class is about average in reliability so far–good for a Mercedes.

http://www.truedelta.com/car-reliability.php

IMO the new E-Class looks even more like a Hyundai Genisis. The interior is a definite improvement, but the exterior does not do it for me.

According to the MB reps, expect to see a E Class 4-Matic CDI this fall.

Twotone

What do you mean by that? Does it need to be activated somehow from the menus.

Also how much can the hold function cost because I sorely miss it when I drive an automatic other than a Mercedes.

“it’s drag coefficient beats that of the Prius”

There’s also rolling resistance, frontal area, etc. to consider. But overall you’re right – the new Prius is ugly with a capital UG!

however i do think the rear was designed by someone else, and since I’ve always been a rear person i like to look at it from the aft quarter rather than the fore..