Test drive Mercedes Benz C-class W204 since 2007 sedan

How difficult it is to be simple!

Now the Mercedes-Benz sedans with different configurations differ in the face. Well, what is the character? He was known by Sergey Kanunnikov.
 
Spain is warm, sunny country. Axiom? There are exceptions to any rule. But that the rain would pour without a break for almost three days, no one could have imagined. The serpentine leads higher to the mountains, the fog seems to be soon hiding and the three -beam star on the hood. Winter cleaner brushes work in the fastest mode. For photography, the worst conditions cannot be invented. And for acquaintance with the car it can, and not bad.
Rain car
The turn turned out to be cooler than I expected, and the ruler’s argument is sharper than we would like. The car is fast, clearly, but he did not fussy at all at the optimal trajectory, so that the dozing passenger seemed to not notice anything. And I thought again: this car does not so much obey me as it helps. For example, the same wipers, obeying the rain sensor, turn on independently and run with the most reasonable intensity; And the road along Andalusia is prompted to me in Russian. Not only navigation all the menu is transferred to the great and powerful!
Mercedes and I understand each other at a glance. Unlike other contemporaries, he is far from removing the driver from management, to create a certain electronic laying between him and himself. The reaction to the steering wheel and pedals is just the way you wait, but sometimes the car as if as if asking for: are you sure you have made the right decision? And delicately corrects errors. Let's say a two -stage gas pedal: at a certain moment, the leg overcomes an additional effort. When doing this, you need to understand that a reduced gear will turn on very quickly and a 272-horsepower 3.5-liter sedan will jump to the next turn.
Wow! The suspension, which had just seemed sports, perfectly holding the car on the twists flooded with water, bravely ate a rather impressive ditch. Hurring, almost without discarding speeds, attacking a murked for a lying policeman, however, not very pot -bellied. Now there will be a big boom! Nothing like this passed the obstacle painlessly.
Old and good
Make a car very different from its predecessors, preserving the branded features, the task is no less complicated than creating an absolutely original body. The current C-class sedan does not look like the previous or older models, but from any corner, with any light remains a Mercedes.
The branded philosophy is traced in everything. The salon is rather conservative, although it does not turn to call it archaic. By the way, about traditions, after all, sometimes sometimes from them, I think, you can move away. Several times, instead of a turn indicator, a cruise control turned on. The handle under the wheel on the left is probably well familiar to the owners of the Mercedes. But for beginners who come to hand at the wrong time, causes a light irritation.
Management of navigation and entertainment devices is an example of how long the specialists have already gone through electronics and how to go for a long time. A pen, an analogue of a computer mouse, is generally good. But a separate button for returning one step back is not very convenient. It’s great that Mercedes writes and even speaks Russian, but making the voice of an iron lady more carefully, it is very, very difficult to get a menu and a substitution.
However, all this is excusable of automotive computerization does not yet have rich, proven traditions. Where they are a car on top. Say, the sensitivity of the rudder of the Mercedes in any conditions in the close parking, mountain serpentine, and the speed highway is exactly what you wait. Firm he is in no hurry to abandon the hydraulic power steering in favor of the electric steering wheel. The motivation of experts is reasonable: the design with hydraulics has been worked out to the smallest detail, tested for decades, and fuel consumption can be reduced by improving almost to the same indicators as the analogues with an electric fire.
I deliberately entered this turn faster than necessary. So the electronics worked, correcting the trajectory.
It turned on quickly, clearly, unobtrusively, and did the job. Still, one of the main features of the current C-class simplicity. Yes Yes! It is easy and comfortable with him, he does not impose his opinion, it does not force to guess the puzzles, does not demonstrate superiority. It is not arrogant, but by the worship of it. It will always help delicately, in a friendly way.
Cure for boredom
In Russia, the Sedan Mercedes-Benz C-class will cost from 30,500 to 47,800 thousand euros ($ 40,80064,000). Basic versions with a six-speed gearbox (options of five- and seven-speed machines), with the exception of the modification of C350, it has seven steps in the database
Of course, in the world there are many more luxurious, fast or spacious cars that can overcome off -road or ready to slide in prolonged drifts. All this is not about the C-class. Boring car? In my opinion, confident, calm, but energetic riding in heavy rain and fog on the sophisticated mountain serpentine, not remembered by extreme situations and did not lead to a finish to fatigue, an excellent medicine against boredom.
Do not forget the traditions, but sensitively follow the trends of time, easily solve complex problems, help, and not impose the main features of the character of the new Mercedes-Benz S.
The history of democracy
The company has been counting the annals of C-class since 1982, when the sedan with the body of W201 has started, we have better known as one hundred and nineties.
In fact, the history of democratic Mercedes can be conducted from models with bodies of W114 and W115 of 1968 and even from the Mercedes-Benz of 170, 1931. But it was the Mercedes-Benz 190 quarter century ago that became the most important milestone in expanding the model range to the nationality. By the way, a compact, relatively inexpensive car was distinguished by advanced technical solutions, for example, a multi-link rear suspension or a 16-valve engine version of the 190s 2.3.
At the forefront
Cars in the configuration Classic and Eleans Emblem over the radiator grille. The sedan avant -garde has a huge branded star center of the cladding. This version can be made even more expensive by ordering the finish by the AMG tuning atelier: bumpers, wheels, rugs, sports seats with powerful lateral support.
By order, the so -called Advanced Agility package will be set. It makes it possible to press the Sport button to change the characteristics of shock absorbers and steering, the reaction of the car to press the gas pedal. The car really becomes sharper, but a little with the prefix. The most noticeable is the faster transition to a low gear with a deep press of the accelerator. But only a sensitive and prepared driver-gourmet will be able to evaluate the changes in general.
 

Source: The magazine "Driving"