C350e owners club

[Dodgy]

I don't know what's happened to the C350e successor. There was all sorts on the rumour mill wasn't there? You see loads about, and BMW immediately brought out a 330e in their new 3 series so they obviously see a market for it. It's a shame.

I think the BiK bands in the UK mean you can’t easily fit enough batteries in a legacy platform to hit a low tax rate for company car drivers. If you do, the only role of the engine is a range extender and again, that presents platform challenges.

Fleets buy a huge proportion of new cars but from what I hear, lots of people are abandoning company car schemes to take advantage of depressed used car prices (and engines that aren’t 1.4 litre fuel sippers).

 

[Oldbarrack]

Fleets buy a huge proportion of new cars but from what I hear, lots of people are abandoning company car schemes to take advantage of depressed used car prices (and engines that aren’t 1.4 litre fuel sippers).

Fleets have always been biggest buyers, that's why CAP clean always base initial quotes on 60,000 miles/3 years.

The supply of cheap used cars will dry up, at least in those more desirable cars, that happened from mid 2009 to early 2010, then when they were all sold, average prices leapt by around £1500-£2000, almost all markets make everything cyclical.

 

[CaptainChaos]

I think the BiK bands in the UK mean you can’t easily fit enough batteries in a legacy platform to hit a low tax rate for company car drivers. If you do, the only role of the engine is a range extender and again, that presents platform challenges.

BMW manage it though. The second generation 330e has some very impressive figures for company car drivers. CO2 is only 38 even with the biggest wheels. Increased power and range. Talk of an estate coming soon too. It will sell like hot cakes. Why couldn't Merc have developed the C350e in the same way?

 

[Oldbarrack]

BMW manage it though. The second generation 330e has some very impressive figures for company car drivers. CO2 is only 38 even with the biggest wheels. Increased power and range. Talk of an estate coming soon too. It will sell like hot cakes. Why couldn't Merc have developed the C350e in the same way?

Very fair points;
I don't know how much it cost in R&D for that financially arguably pointless new AMG GT 4 door,
but that money could have been much better spent (IMO at least) on at least equalising, or preferably bettering the BMW example you quote.

 

[Smartn]

Still enjoying my 350e ownership and looking ahead a few months at the options for winter or all season tyres. Anyone got any advice? I'm on the 17" standard wheels.

 

[wivenhoe]

Still enjoying my 350e ownership and looking ahead a few months at the options for winter or all season tyres. Anyone got any advice? I'm on the 17" standard wheels.

I wanted to fit winter tyres to my standard 17” E350e but found only 2 that fitted both the front & wider rears. Both came out really poorly in Auto Bild reviews. I therefore bought a set of Merc alloys that allowed Continentals to be fitted that came out best in Auto Bild. Expensive option but I felt it wrong to fit winter tyres that were not really suitable. I have my winters fitted at a tyre depot and they store my summers and then switch over.
I bought the Merc alloys from Germany. Superb service and about 60% of the U.K. dealer price. The tyre guys could only offer Chinese wheels for the same price of the German Merc ones. As I say, an expensive resolution but the Continentals were great last winter although in all honesty, they weren’t really needed as is was so mild. Still, I intend to keep the car so they may well come into their own next winter !
I got the wheels from Kunzmann
https://www.kunzmann.de/shop/en/tire-wheels/rims/?currentCategory=14&baureihe[]=95&hersteller[]=17&pricefilter=0-20000&order=bestseller DESC#

 

[Dodgy]

BMW manage it though. The second generation 330e has some very impressive figures for company car drivers. CO2 is only 38 even with the biggest wheels. Increased power and range. Talk of an estate coming soon too. It will sell like hot cakes. Why couldn't Merc have developed the C350e in the same way?

I just came across the sales figures for the 330e: 7327 in Europe in 2018, down 28% on 2017. Commercially, it’s not worth the effort for MB to compete with it. If they can take a lead with the EQC, that might actually make a difference.

JLR have only sold 6294 I-Paces (in 2018). Audi are having problems with the e-tron. The door is wide open for Tesla at the moment, but MB has a different proposition to Tesla and there’s a growing market they could grab.

 

[CaptainChaos]

2018 and 19 figures are all over the place due to the delays caused by WLTP and of course it was the change over between models on the 330e. In fact I'm not sure the new one is out yet in the UK.
I'm sure Merc know what they are doing, but from a personal point of view I'm disappointed! A C400e would have been just the job.

 

[CaptainChaos]

Still enjoying my 350e ownership and looking ahead a few months at the options for winter or all season tyres. Anyone got any advice? I'm on the 17" standard wheels.

You can either try and find tyres that are direct replacements for the ones you have, or do the same as Wivenhoe and I did and get some dedicated winter wheels and tyres. I went for these with Continental TS860 tyres: Mercedes-Benz 17 inch rims set of | C-Class W205 | 5-spoke wheel | vanadium silver

Keep an eye on this site for reviews of 2019 tyres. Don't buy any now as they will be from last year. The new ones tend to come out around September time:
2018 51 Winter Tyre Shootout - Tyre Reviews

If you can't be bothered with all this, look at all season tyres and keep them on all year round. They would need to match your current setup in terms of size, loading and speed rating.
2018 27 All Season Tyre Shootout - Tyre Reviews

 

[grober]

There's a certain rational to this when you consider that a hybrid has in effect two powerplants in the vehicle as opposed to one with a pure EV or IC powerplant. You are effectively doubling your component count before even addressing the tricky problem of integrating the two to work together! On that basis alone a pure EV should be cheaper and more reliable than a hybrid? I assume the arguement centres round the cost of a larger battery/ motors but surely that's predicated on an assumtion of increased raw material cost rather than battery pack manufacturing complexity, so I'm not sure how that stands up to scrutiny?

 

[Dodgy]

2018 and 19 figures are all over the place due to the delays caused by WLTP and of course it was the change over between models on the 330e. In fact I'm not sure the new one is out yet in the UK.
I'm sure Merc know what they are doing, but from a personal point of view I'm disappointed! A C400e would have been just the job.

The 330e is on BMW’s configurator. Strangely, they use the NEDC for estimating range and emissions and the WLTP for estimating consumption. BiK is currently 16%, which from April simply won’t be competitive with a Model 3. For he most part, only travelling salesmen will consider them out of fear that they need more than 250 miles of range in a day and distrust of the charging infrastructure, despite Superchargers being reliable.

 

[C350ezoom]

Still enjoying my 350e ownership and looking ahead a few months at the options for winter or all season tyres. Anyone got any advice? I'm on the 17" standard wheels.

A couple of years ago I bought these from Black Circles, the reviews were OK at the time:
Goodyear UltraGrip Performance Gen-1 (Winter Tyre) 245/45 R17 V (99) 225/50 R17 V (98), Reinforced, Winter Tyre

 

[Masterstein]

Right, I finally bit the bullet. I'm fed up with the range and booked it into mercerdes. It's literally giving me 7-8 miles on the nicest of days.

Luckily (I think) there was 2 weeks left on the warranty, when I called up they didn't have appointments for 3 weeks so it's technically booked in after the warranty period ends. The lady said she would speak with the workshop manager and call me back, this never materialised so I'm going on the assumption that it's being done under warranty as I raised the issue within the warranty period?

Has anybody had anything similar previously? And if it needs further appointments for the same issue, I.e if they return the car and say its fine and I have the same issue, is it covered as I've raised the issue within the warranty period?

I know I'm never getting 19 miles but I would like to be able to achieve 10+ in nice weather. I genuinely think there is something wrong with it when I see what some of you are getting.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

 

[wivenhoe]

Right, I finally bit the bullet. I'm fed up with the range and booked it into mercerdes. It's literally giving me 7-8 miles on the nicest of days.

Luckily (I think) there was 2 weeks left on the warranty, when I called up they didn't have appointments for 3 weeks so it's technically booked in after the warranty period ends. The lady said she would speak with the workshop manager and call me back, this never materialised so I'm going on the assumption that it's being done under warranty as I raised the issue within the warranty period?

Has anybody had anything similar previously? And if it needs further appointments for the same issue, I.e if they return the car and say its fine and I have the same issue, is it covered as I've raised the issue within the warranty period?

I know I'm never getting 19 miles but I would like to be able to achieve 10+ in nice weather. I genuinely think there is something wrong with it when I see what some of you are getting.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk

The warranty period for the battery and hybrid system is 6 years or 62,000 miles soif there is a fault you should be covered. Have a trawl on here - someone had a right battle with a Merc over the same issue but succeeded in the end

 

[Deleted member 126969]

The warranty period for the battery and hybrid system is 6 years or 62,000 miles soif there is a fault you should be covered. Have a trawl on here - someone had a right battle with a Merc over the same issue but succeeded in the end

That was me, shout if you need a copy of the MB reply to the Motoring Ombudsman that I got back. It does indeed confirm that battery, power electronics and electric machine (motor) are covered for 6 years/62,000 miles.

 

[a4refillpad]

Anyone experiencing issues with optimised charging? The mercedes me say "individual charging settings temporarily ignored" every time I plug it in. Basically means I can no longer charge up off peak unless I stay up until 1am to plug it in now.

 

[Dodgy]

Anyone experiencing issues with optimised charging? The mercedes me say "individual charging settings temporarily ignored" every time I plug it in. Basically means I can no longer charge up off peak unless I stay up until 1am to plug it in now.

Yes - I got this recently:

 

[Dodgy]

I’ve been having a real go at their support guys ([email protected]) for months. I find the service very unreliable.

 

[Goldngin]

I’ve been having a real go at their support guys ([email protected]) for months. I find the service very unreliable.

The unreliability of the service meant I didn't bother to pay for the service when my car got to 3 years old. So frustrating that half the time it wouldn't connect. Decided it was a first world problem I could do without!

 

[S111dpc]

^^ came to exactly the same conclusion