DITTRICH
MB Enthusiast
I have had the use of the above 11 plate car for 2.5 weeks whilst my w124 was at the dealership being dealt with and I thought I would share my experience. So in no particular order.
In london traffic it is quite possible to achieve 40mpg without any great effort. On longer journeys, it is possible to see in excess of 55mpg by cruising sedately in 7th gear. My overall average mpg was around 43mpg over around 600 miles.
The driving position, compared to the w124 and w202 is way up high, though not high enough to see the extremities of the bonnet which kind of makes the parktronic essential.
The gearbox was very very smooth and some changes almost undetectable even when keeping an eye on the rev counter. However, on moving foot from brake to accelerator when standing, there seems to be a definite but light clunk at which point movement commences. In the w124 and w202 there is no detectable jerk or clunk and you just start moving. In 5 speed cars, it is easy to keep track of which gear you are in and manipulate your foot to invoke kickdown. Here you never really know what it is going to do and when it changes up or down. Maybe I just didn't get the feel of the car, but there is very little feel to get from what I could tell. My older cars and gearboxes give much more feedback.
The engine, being rather small, did not feel alive, even when in sporty mode. In comfy mode it changes up so quickly. It felt somewhat gutless to be honest.
The steering is so light I had no real idea where the wheels were at all and my w202 with the fat tires seemed quite an effort when I changed back. Don't like the steering at all in the B.
The car, having smaller wheels required alot more care around london streets and sleeping policemen and I had to pump the tires up in order to achieve a slightly better ground clearance. Also improved the economy I suspect.
The interior fittings and gizmos are as one would expect. They work and do what they are supposed to. But I still missed having the central locking switch on the centre console so the passenger can easily lock all the doors too. All the switches are now in the drivers door. The telephone bluetooth worked well enough but I will retrofitting something in my w202 and w124 anyway to take care of this. Deleting my phone contacts was a pain as I never discovered if I could delete them all at once, so I had to spend a considerable amount of time deleting them 1 by 1.
The internal ambiance was however, not a mercedes that I recognise. A 3 pointy star is supposed to make one feel special!!! and this felt just ordinary. In short, it did not feel like a "proper" mercedes. Difficult to describe.
How was the B class sir he asked?
Okay, I said, but it's not a mercedes.
I will be sticking with the w124 e300d and the w202 c230k.
In london traffic it is quite possible to achieve 40mpg without any great effort. On longer journeys, it is possible to see in excess of 55mpg by cruising sedately in 7th gear. My overall average mpg was around 43mpg over around 600 miles.
The driving position, compared to the w124 and w202 is way up high, though not high enough to see the extremities of the bonnet which kind of makes the parktronic essential.
The gearbox was very very smooth and some changes almost undetectable even when keeping an eye on the rev counter. However, on moving foot from brake to accelerator when standing, there seems to be a definite but light clunk at which point movement commences. In the w124 and w202 there is no detectable jerk or clunk and you just start moving. In 5 speed cars, it is easy to keep track of which gear you are in and manipulate your foot to invoke kickdown. Here you never really know what it is going to do and when it changes up or down. Maybe I just didn't get the feel of the car, but there is very little feel to get from what I could tell. My older cars and gearboxes give much more feedback.
The engine, being rather small, did not feel alive, even when in sporty mode. In comfy mode it changes up so quickly. It felt somewhat gutless to be honest.
The steering is so light I had no real idea where the wheels were at all and my w202 with the fat tires seemed quite an effort when I changed back. Don't like the steering at all in the B.
The car, having smaller wheels required alot more care around london streets and sleeping policemen and I had to pump the tires up in order to achieve a slightly better ground clearance. Also improved the economy I suspect.
The interior fittings and gizmos are as one would expect. They work and do what they are supposed to. But I still missed having the central locking switch on the centre console so the passenger can easily lock all the doors too. All the switches are now in the drivers door. The telephone bluetooth worked well enough but I will retrofitting something in my w202 and w124 anyway to take care of this. Deleting my phone contacts was a pain as I never discovered if I could delete them all at once, so I had to spend a considerable amount of time deleting them 1 by 1.
The internal ambiance was however, not a mercedes that I recognise. A 3 pointy star is supposed to make one feel special!!! and this felt just ordinary. In short, it did not feel like a "proper" mercedes. Difficult to describe.
How was the B class sir he asked?
Okay, I said, but it's not a mercedes.
I will be sticking with the w124 e300d and the w202 c230k.