I've come to Mercedes after 14 years of Audi ownership. It wasn't my intention at the time to change marques and I actually had my eyes on an A6 S-Line 3.0TDI Quattro. The reason for the change...well my very first Audi which was a B6 A4 sport was unreliable. I took it as bad luck and then bought my B8 A4 S-Line....biggest mistake ever! Absolutely lovely looking car and fantastic to drive, but boy was it a 'massive' money pit. I spent another £1200 on it in January to repair other common issues, before I had enough and got rid of it. So why Mercedes? Because I'm not fussed on BMW's...they never seem to change their design, it's just one face lift after another imo.
While my car was in the garage I was given the A6 I wanted as a courtesy car, so I can give you a bit of a comparison, but only having it for two weeks and owning my E for one month its limited.
The Quattro system gives you reassurance, particularly cornering with the hammer down, whereas I've had a couple of squeaky bum moments in the Merc (this is my first rear wheel drive car) The performance, even in Economy mode is good fun in the E; The A6 isn't far off. I also think the tyres are rubbish on my car...Bridgestones.
The S-Tronic system is absolutely seemless, you can hardly tell it's changing gear, whereas the 7g can be a little lumpy on occasions but the vast majority of the time you wouldn't realise it's a single clutch system. I personally don't have any issues with it other than on occasions you can make a cup of tea between flicking the paddle and the gear actually engaging. Doesn't bother me though, I hardly use them. If you go onto
www.audi-sport.net you will hear the horror story of someone with an A6 who payed £8,400 to rectify an issue with his S-Tronic box. He then had to fork out another £1,500 for an engine issue not long afterwards!
In relation to styling, I'm really happy with my E. It's taken a bit of time to get used to the Command system, but all in all its good. My only criticism are the parking sensors and the wheels. I don't like the silent parking system and the 'larger' 18 inch AMG wheels are too small imo, particularly when the A6 S-Line are equipped with 20 inch shoes as standard.
The ride is probably helped by the smaller wheels, although the handling isn't as good as my A4. You could drive over a pea in my A4 and would get the clunk clunk feeling, whereas the E just glides over things, but still has sufficient rigidity to keep you out of trouble. I wasn't expecting the E to be as good as my A4 anyway because of the difference in size, so again this doesn't bother me.
The E boot capacity is fantastic!
All in all I'm happy with my change and if the car is good to me during ownership, I could see me spending more time on this forum.
After slating Audi, I have to say the best car I've ever owned and still own is my wife's 18 year old V6 Audi cabriolet.
