C350e owners club

[Sraj]

On vehicle settings there’s an energy flow section. I clicked on that before charging and it showed 100%. From there I changed the battery setting to 10A and started charging at 1608. The charger stopped charging at 1700 and the plug was disconnected. Battery was at 100% prior to charging.

I’ve complained to Mercedes Loughton and Stratford about this in the past and no one was interested. They told me to fiddle about with the buttons. Didn’t know what they meant, which was why I joined this forum.

Do you have to charge your car up two/three times a day? I normally do 25 miles per day.

I’m sorry, I just don't understand what you mean there.

%age charge is an indication of the static charge state, not a rate of charge. “100% energy flow” is a reading of how much power is flowing....but I don’t recall seeing that metric anywhere?

If you mean it showed 100% charge when you put it on charge, and it then took 10A for nearly an hour,, then there is something very wrong. That energy has to go somewhere, the battery temperature management system won’t soak up that much I don’t think. At the end of a normal charge, you see the charge power drop down to about 900W for the last 15 minutes or so.

Cold engine, cold weather, 3 miles in charge mode, yep, not surprised it showed 13mpg, but that does presume it was actually putting some power into the battery.

Sorry to come across as a pedantic ****, but one needs to be very specific about the language or it just gets too confusing.

For now, ignore the guessOmeter. Concentrate on the battery charge level %age figure. Even that is a bit misleading as we don’t really know what 0% and 100% actually mean. Do MB force safety margins at top and bottom and fudge the figures, or are they really 0% and 100%?? Personally, I think there is a small-ish buffer at the top (indicated 100% is probably about 90% of actual battery capacity) and 0% is probably 5% actual, but the systems will never let it go that low anyway. These limits will be set to protect the battery as a genuine 100% charge level is bad for them, and a genuine 0% discharge level is very bad for them.

I absolutely agree with @Dodgy here, you want to have some solid data to hand before taking it to a dealer. I get the impression most of them have zero clue about hybrids, and care about the same amount. Do a few “empty to full” charge cycle tests, noting start %age level, time to charge to 100% charge level and the power setting of the charge (10A is good). That way you’ll have a good idea of actual battery capacity to present to them.

 

[Sraj]

Picture below is what I meant about energy flow.

 

[CaptainChaos]

Picture below is what I meant about energy flow.

That picture is to illustrate where the car is getting its drive from. It is nothing to do with charging.
When you start driving arrows will flow to indicate if power is coming from the battery and/or the engine. If you are coasting or braking it will show charge going back into the battery.

 

[Sraj]

Oh ok, I wasn’t aware of that at all. Now I understand why members were confused with my earlier comments.

That picture is to illustrate where the car is getting its drive from. It is nothing to do with charging.
When you start driving arrows will flow to indicate if power is coming from the battery and/or the engine. If you are coasting or braking it will show charge going back into the battery.

 

[Deleted member 126969]

OK, got it. So, the car was saying battery charge was at 100%, yet it happily took 10A for almost an hour. Something wrong there for sure.

 

[Smartn]

Well, my brief encounter with the 350e is due to come to an end in the next couple of weeks as I am going for an e-golf and going fully electric. I still think the 350e is a great car, but it is a poor hybrid unless you are prepared to charge very regularly and most of your journeys are very short. It's probably best to think of it a mild performance car with the chance of getting at least a reasonable mpg.

Over 3500 miles I've averaged 85.6 mpg but my commute is only 10 miles a day. Any journey up to 30 miles can obtain reasonably good economy and expect about 40mpg on a sensible motorway run but it would be easy to return a lot less than that at non legal speeds...

100% think something is very wrong with your car Sraj. Kick up some fuss at Mercedes, get them to fully charge it then take it out on an e-mode only journey and see how far you can get. This time of year in the cold may be as low as 5 - 6 miles but much less than that and its not right.

 

[Deleted member 126969]

Just had a nice letter from MB offering a warranty now it is getting close to 3 years old. Nice to see the list of exclusions is longer than the list of covered items. Based on the quote, don't think I'll be taking them up on it somehow. £449 p.a. I suppose it's just generic text and the price would go through the roof at the 7 year old mark but it does explicitly include the HV battery etc. (already covered up to 6 years anyway, although with a mileage limit). Might be a laugh to see how much they want in year 7.

Funny how they are oh so proactive when it comes to trying to extract more money from me but ignore any attempts to contact them with a complaint.

Booked the service and MOT the other day too. Asked them to put a map update on the worksheet and straight away got the 'Oh, sorry sir, the warranty period is nearly up so it'll be chargeable" I politely pointed out that the warranty would still be active on the date of the service and MOT and it was my understanding that I was entitled to up to three map updates within warranty (it's had 2). I also pointed out I won't be paying, so if they insist it is chargeable, not to do it. Honestly not sure why I even asked TBH, the nav in this car is a total idiot.


I truly regret buying this car - should never have strayed for the path of Bangernomics that served me so well for so many years. I'm just not suited to paying people to look after my car or suffering the depreciation of buying a new one. Never again.

 

[CaptainChaos]

I don't know if you saw my post last week Chris, but my four year old car failed it's MOT on suspension wear which would have been £900, but it was covered by the warranty so I was glad I had it. I've renewed it again.

 

[Sraj]

I fully charged the car last night and it had 12 miles next to the battery.

just come back from a 5 mile trip and my battery is showing 1 mile left.

although it’s a beautiful car to drive and has all the extras, this car is certainly not economical. I thought my previous car, BMW 320i sport, was shocking on fuel, but this car seems worse. Only had the car for 3 months.

Anyway, will charge the car up again.

 

[Sraj]

Mercedes quoted me £640pa. I don’t have any warranty on my car. I wanted to get extended warranty but don’t know which company to trust.

Just had a nice letter from MB offering a warranty now it is getting close to 3 years old. Nice to see the list of exclusions is longer than the list of covered items. Based on the quote, don't think I'll be taking them up on it somehow. £449 p.a.

 

[Sraj]

Correct, I was thinking that too.

OK, got it. So, the car was saying battery charge was at 100%, yet it happily took 10A for almost an hour. Something wrong there for sure.

 

[Smartn]

I fully charged the car last night and it had 12 miles next to the battery.

just come back from a 5 mile trip and my battery is showing 1 mile left.

although it’s a beautiful car to drive and has all the extras, this car is certainly not economical. I thought my previous car, BMW 320i sport, was shocking on fuel, but this car seems worse. Only had the car for 3 months.

Anyway, will charge the car up again.

Was the trip in E-mode? If the battery was at 100% when you left at this time of year I would say to me 5 miles with 1 left sounds about right..... Probably not what you wanted to hear.

 

[Sraj]

Yes, I drove on eco mode hybrid. To be honest, I don’t know how much it costs to drive 5 miles.

At the moment I’m using Sainsbury’s petrol and pay £1.22 per litre. Not sure how much it’s costing to charge up fully, but I do see the meter spinning very fast.

Was the trip in E-mode? If the battery was at 100% when you left at this time of year I would say to me 5 miles with 1 left sounds about right..... Probably not what you wanted to hear.

 

[Smartn]

Yes, I drove on eco mode hybrid. To be honest, I don’t know how much it costs to drive 5 miles.

At the moment I’m using Sainsbury’s petrol and pay £1.22 per litre. Not sure how much it’s costing to charge up fully, but I do see the meter spinning very fast.

If you want to find out how much electric only range you have got you will need to put the car in e-mode, not hybrid, as this will prevent the car from using the internal combustion engine unless you accelerate hard. Then put the dash display onto the screen that shows your % battery and watch it go down. If your battery is working as it should you will be able to drive about 6 miles at this time of year and see the battery percentage drop from 100% to 10%. It wont go below 10% as it always keeps this in reserve. Give that a go and at least from that you should be able to confirm if your electric motor and battery are performing approximately as they should.

 

[Herder000]

I worked it out at about 85p to charge from 10% to 100% on my 14.5p per kwh +VAT tariff when I measured charging consumption on my smart plug.

 

[Sraj]

That’s what I was thinking too. Is it worth 85p for 5 miles?


QUOTE="Herder000, post: 2821726, member: 143494"]I worked it out at about 85p to charge from 10% to 100% on my 14.5p per kwh +VAT tariff when I measured charging consumption on my smart plug.[/QUOTE]

 

[Sraj]

I started charging the car at 1508 and it finished at 1800.

 

[Dodgy]

That’s what I was thinking too. Is it worth 85p for 5 miles?


QUOTE="Herder000, post: 2821726, member: 143494"]I worked it out at about 85p to charge from 10% to 100% on my 14.5p per kwh +VAT tariff when I measured charging consumption on my smart plug.

[/QUOTE]

But it’s not 85p for 5 miles, is it?

If @Sraj had a mile of predicted range left, that’s at least 30% of the battery, 0.7*6.2*14.5*1.05 = 66p. That’s roughly what a really efficient petrol would cost, but in warmer weather, the C350e can go twice as far on the same amount of electricity.

My nighttime electricity costs 10p per unit. When I chose the C350e, it cost 5.5p per unit. There are still tariffs available in my area that have 5p per unit at night and 13.45p during the day. Nearly all my charging is done at night.

So, in winter, the 5 miles could cost 1/3rd what a petrol would cost and in summer it’s about 1/6th. It’s not a vast amount of money, but it’s roughly £400 per year.

If you add that to the winter pre-heating, which is brilliant (although, err, it costs money [emoji51]), and the fact you’re not pumping out as much CO2 or particulates, which would make anyone feel warm and fuzzy inside, it’s not a terrible package.

 

[Dodgy]

I started charging the car at 1508 and it finished at 1800.

That’s only slightly longer than I’d have expected (about 2.5 hours).

 

[Deleted member 126969]

I don't know if you saw my post last week Chris, but my four year old car failed it's MOT on suspension wear which would have been £900, but it was covered by the warranty so I was glad I had it. I've renewed it again.

A large part of my decision to pass on the warranty is the very low mileage we do. That, and all the exclusions. Surprised you got the work done under warranty TBH, they exclude wear and tear?? Maybe it comes down to creative definitions of failure mode by the dealer.