Geordie Amanda
Active Member
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2012
- Messages
- 158
- Car
- 350cdi Sport Plus
So, I have had my car for a month or so and have amassed around 3,000 miles. It seems customary to do a mini review at this point 
So in my best Vicky Parrot manner (she writes for Autocar and imho is the best female journo at the mo) and donning my petrol head reading glasses here are a few of my thoughts.
The car now seems to have bedded in nicely, the engine in particular has improved, mostly in fuel consumption, but also it seems to be a shade quieter (this might be my imagination). The motorway economy has now risen to around 42-45 on the motorway at an 80 cruise so I am more than happy and it is interesting to note this is the first car I have ever noticed a distinct improvement in economy after the running-in period. My previous 3.0tdi A4 didn’t really change it’s mpg from new. In fact the engine is silent at cruising speed, the only real noise is the tyres (which can be quite loud),as wind noise is extremely well suppressed.
I really like the Sport button, which unlike Audis’ version of this, really does make a huge difference to the suspension feel and the car feels a lot more lively cross country. The gear change on the flappy paddles also speed up quite a bit and makes using them quite useful. I found the in normal manual mode, the delay on the flappy paddles is too extreme to be useful and the fact it’s harder to tell what gear you are in without keeping looking at the display, makes the feature useless to me. Stick it in Sport and the whole thing comes alive. I had a similar gear change system when I had a car with a DSG gearbox and have the same quibble about the MB one. As the engine is pretty quiet and the gear changes being generally so good, it’s very hard to know what gear you are in. Sometimes the car doesn’t change up when you think it has and it is very easy to lose count of where you are in the gearbox. Also if you are pressing on and have the gearbox in auto, I found the car sometimes changes gear mid corner which is not only annoying, but a little dangerous. Obviously I accept this is normal to Autos, but it is something I have never liked. At least with a manual I have a wand to wave about and the advantage of always knowing what gear you are in because of the positions of the stick when you hand touches it and moves it.
I do have a question about the foot parking brake. It seems to let the car roll a bit, not unlike when you put the transmission brake on in a Land Rover (I love proper old Landies
). Is the foot parking brake also a transmission brake? Or am I being a bit mental
On the motorway the car is simply astonishing. Easily the best long distance car I have owned and rivalling any car I have driven. I include a friends Bentley Continental Speed in that too! (I have petrol head friends too, and can flirt for Team GB if it means getting a go with them….the cars that is).
The sounds system (HK and DAB) is great. Probably slightly better than the B&O system in my old Audi. I have even managed to play music from my HTC phone via Bluetooth streaming through it. Although you don’t get much more than stop/start/next-track in the way of controls. It’s a shame that I can’t get the MB apps to work with my phone (I have tried using BluDun with it too).
Air Con is powerful and fast to cool the car down, although it doesn’t seem exception in any way. Also the seat materials clean up well after a close friend who half an hour earlier sank in a swamp, sits on them (thanks Lesley).
Oh and the indicators are now on the top position and above the cruise control, which is so much more intuitive.
So to sum up, the engine pulls like a train, the gearbox works pretty well, only the occasional confusion while bimbling around town, the suspension is great in Sport and sometimes a little floaty around town in normal mode (I know many people don’t find this). Economy is pretty good considering the performance and so far there aren’t any rattles-apart from the sun visor squeaks’ a little when it is in the down positions. So would I have a petrol 350 over the diesel? Well I haven’t driven one yet, but the diesel is so quick and the pick up is very good with the Sport button pressed, that the only reason I could see I would have the petrol version would be if it sounded like a NASCAR. Interestingly enough, I just had a chance to compare a 180 petrol with mine. Now if only I hadn’t picked a black car, it is a lovely colour, goes dirty every single day and makes me look like drugs dealer-obviously a very glamorous and attractive drug dealer. I did receive one back handed compliment from a colleague who said “that’s too much car for a woman”. His limp has now healed……
I just picked up my car from the body shop (had a hit and run when the car was only 22 hours old!!!) and was given a C180 Petrol as a loaner. The main differences (mainly around town) between the two seem to be the economy and tyre noise. The run in to MB to pick my repaired car up, yielded 26 mpg in the loaner petrol car and in busy-ish traffic, and the return trip in heavy rush hour traffic yielded 33mpg in my much bigger diesel-so the gap could have been even greater if the traffic had been the same. Both trips started with a cold engined car and were of identical distance and route. The tyre noise on the smaller wheeled loan car was noticeable better as to be expected and to be honest I preferred it’s standard suspension around town. My auto dampers sometimes feel ‘floaty’ to me and they can crash over sleeping policemen, whereas the standard suspension and lighter engined loan car handled these things with aplomb. Another pleasant surprise with the loan car was it seemed to have standard ICE and it sounded pretty good on FM radio, not as good at the HK system in mine, but I could certainly live with it instead of the HK system The steering in the petrol car was much firmer and in town was a lot more hard work than my cars’, also the engine in the loaner was slightly quieter during acceleration, but produced more noticeable vibrations than my V6. Finally, the brakes on the standard car where much easier to modulate. The brakes on my car feel much more servoed, if also more powerful, but in traffic it does mean that the final bit of slowing down is a tad more abrupt than in the petrol loan car. The seats on mine are definitely more comfortable I think, the loaner having the standard Elegance seats in leather/artificial leather. Obviously I wouldn’t swap, but it goes to show what a big effect things like very low profile tyres do to ride and noise.
Oh and on a final and warning note. When I picked my car up, the nice people at MB gave me an umbrella, which whilst not smelling as nice as a bunch of flowers, was a lot more practical in Manchester’s usual attempt at drowning me. But can I add a note of caution………..if it is raining outside and you normally open your door, with the intention to put the brolley out of the door, open it and then step out under it's shadow……………………..don’t do what I did. Upon taking the nice MB brolley out of it’s nice MB sleeve, I found I couldn’t see the release catch to open the brolley. So sitting in the car I looked around the recalcitrant ‘protector of my hair’ and saw a small square built into the handle. Do not…..I repeat….DO NOT!!!!! press this button whilst sitting in the car, especially if you are parked just outside the MB reception. It is a hair trigger release for the automatic brolley opening. A light touch, a big whoosh that sounded like a 100kg bat had just landed on my head and Voila! You are pinned into your seat by a fully opened brolley. Not a good look I feel.
So in my best Vicky Parrot manner (she writes for Autocar and imho is the best female journo at the mo) and donning my petrol head reading glasses here are a few of my thoughts.The car now seems to have bedded in nicely, the engine in particular has improved, mostly in fuel consumption, but also it seems to be a shade quieter (this might be my imagination). The motorway economy has now risen to around 42-45 on the motorway at an 80 cruise so I am more than happy and it is interesting to note this is the first car I have ever noticed a distinct improvement in economy after the running-in period. My previous 3.0tdi A4 didn’t really change it’s mpg from new. In fact the engine is silent at cruising speed, the only real noise is the tyres (which can be quite loud),as wind noise is extremely well suppressed.
I really like the Sport button, which unlike Audis’ version of this, really does make a huge difference to the suspension feel and the car feels a lot more lively cross country. The gear change on the flappy paddles also speed up quite a bit and makes using them quite useful. I found the in normal manual mode, the delay on the flappy paddles is too extreme to be useful and the fact it’s harder to tell what gear you are in without keeping looking at the display, makes the feature useless to me. Stick it in Sport and the whole thing comes alive. I had a similar gear change system when I had a car with a DSG gearbox and have the same quibble about the MB one. As the engine is pretty quiet and the gear changes being generally so good, it’s very hard to know what gear you are in. Sometimes the car doesn’t change up when you think it has and it is very easy to lose count of where you are in the gearbox. Also if you are pressing on and have the gearbox in auto, I found the car sometimes changes gear mid corner which is not only annoying, but a little dangerous. Obviously I accept this is normal to Autos, but it is something I have never liked. At least with a manual I have a wand to wave about and the advantage of always knowing what gear you are in because of the positions of the stick when you hand touches it and moves it.
I do have a question about the foot parking brake. It seems to let the car roll a bit, not unlike when you put the transmission brake on in a Land Rover (I love proper old Landies
). Is the foot parking brake also a transmission brake? Or am I being a bit mental On the motorway the car is simply astonishing. Easily the best long distance car I have owned and rivalling any car I have driven. I include a friends Bentley Continental Speed in that too! (I have petrol head friends too, and can flirt for Team GB if it means getting a go with them….the cars that is).
The sounds system (HK and DAB) is great. Probably slightly better than the B&O system in my old Audi. I have even managed to play music from my HTC phone via Bluetooth streaming through it. Although you don’t get much more than stop/start/next-track in the way of controls. It’s a shame that I can’t get the MB apps to work with my phone (I have tried using BluDun with it too).
Air Con is powerful and fast to cool the car down, although it doesn’t seem exception in any way. Also the seat materials clean up well after a close friend who half an hour earlier sank in a swamp, sits on them (thanks Lesley).
Oh and the indicators are now on the top position and above the cruise control, which is so much more intuitive.
So to sum up, the engine pulls like a train, the gearbox works pretty well, only the occasional confusion while bimbling around town, the suspension is great in Sport and sometimes a little floaty around town in normal mode (I know many people don’t find this). Economy is pretty good considering the performance and so far there aren’t any rattles-apart from the sun visor squeaks’ a little when it is in the down positions. So would I have a petrol 350 over the diesel? Well I haven’t driven one yet, but the diesel is so quick and the pick up is very good with the Sport button pressed, that the only reason I could see I would have the petrol version would be if it sounded like a NASCAR. Interestingly enough, I just had a chance to compare a 180 petrol with mine. Now if only I hadn’t picked a black car, it is a lovely colour, goes dirty every single day and makes me look like drugs dealer-obviously a very glamorous and attractive drug dealer. I did receive one back handed compliment from a colleague who said “that’s too much car for a woman”. His limp has now healed……
I just picked up my car from the body shop (had a hit and run when the car was only 22 hours old!!!) and was given a C180 Petrol as a loaner. The main differences (mainly around town) between the two seem to be the economy and tyre noise. The run in to MB to pick my repaired car up, yielded 26 mpg in the loaner petrol car and in busy-ish traffic, and the return trip in heavy rush hour traffic yielded 33mpg in my much bigger diesel-so the gap could have been even greater if the traffic had been the same. Both trips started with a cold engined car and were of identical distance and route. The tyre noise on the smaller wheeled loan car was noticeable better as to be expected and to be honest I preferred it’s standard suspension around town. My auto dampers sometimes feel ‘floaty’ to me and they can crash over sleeping policemen, whereas the standard suspension and lighter engined loan car handled these things with aplomb. Another pleasant surprise with the loan car was it seemed to have standard ICE and it sounded pretty good on FM radio, not as good at the HK system in mine, but I could certainly live with it instead of the HK system
The steering in the petrol car was much firmer and in town was a lot more hard work than my cars’, also the engine in the loaner was slightly quieter during acceleration, but produced more noticeable vibrations than my V6. Finally, the brakes on the standard car where much easier to modulate. The brakes on my car feel much more servoed, if also more powerful, but in traffic it does mean that the final bit of slowing down is a tad more abrupt than in the petrol loan car. The seats on mine are definitely more comfortable I think, the loaner having the standard Elegance seats in leather/artificial leather. Obviously I wouldn’t swap, but it goes to show what a big effect things like very low profile tyres do to ride and noise.Oh and on a final and warning note. When I picked my car up, the nice people at MB gave me an umbrella, which whilst not smelling as nice as a bunch of flowers, was a lot more practical in Manchester’s usual attempt at drowning me. But can I add a note of caution………..if it is raining outside and you normally open your door, with the intention to put the brolley out of the door, open it and then step out under it's shadow……………………..don’t do what I did. Upon taking the nice MB brolley out of it’s nice MB sleeve, I found I couldn’t see the release catch to open the brolley. So sitting in the car I looked around the recalcitrant ‘protector of my hair’ and saw a small square built into the handle. Do not…..I repeat….DO NOT!!!!! press this button whilst sitting in the car, especially if you are parked just outside the MB reception. It is a hair trigger release for the automatic brolley opening. A light touch, a big whoosh that sounded like a 100kg bat had just landed on my head and Voila! You are pinned into your seat by a fully opened brolley. Not a good look I feel.
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and some new shoes 
