Car rental companies have come a long way since the bad old days of rent-a-wreck. Nowadays if you pay a little extra you get to try out cars that you probably wouldn’t own, and that’s what I decided to do last weekend for a road trip.
Initially I had booked an Audi A6, because I really wanted to drive an Audi. Even after confirming this car twice, however, I got the inevitable phone call the day of the pickup to inform me that they didn’t have the Audi, but that they had a Mercedes. Although I was a little disappointed to find that out, it was the baby Merc with four wheel drive — something that turned out to be absolutely crucial that weekend — so I couldn’t complain too much.
And it turns out that four-wheel-drive was an extremely important thing for me to have on that rental. My itinerary included going from Montreal to Boston, taking the smaller interstate highways that cut through the mountain areas of New Hampshire, so it was crucial to be at the helm of something very sure-footed. And then there was the weather.
It was a dark and stormy night… no, really. It was extremely stormy; in fact there was a huge snowstorm covering the entire northeast US that night, and my trip was made considerably worse by my choice of roads. As it turns out interstate freeways differ wildly, and the long stretch of i-93 I was on was about as similar to the more familiar i-87 as a dead-end alley is to a boulevard. The roadway is quite narrow, there is mostly no protection at all keeping you from driving into the ditch, there is a particularly perilous stretch in which practically only one lane exists, the freeway is 95% unlit and it has very little traffic, which of course means that I was driving the whole 6 hours on top of piled snow.
And then the darkness. I had a very poor view of where I was going. There were no lights on the motorway, the road had a surprising number of blind bends in it, and the falling snow made it impossible to use my high beams.
So, I had picked the ideal combination of the worst night to travel, and the worst road to take on that night. But you know what? It was kind of fun.
The Merc behaved absolutely beautifully. The 4matic four-wheel-drive system is pretty amazing, especially combined as it is with MB’s stability control system. Throughout the night I was handily passing large, high-riding SUVs like they were standing still. I did have a couple of scary moments when I felt the stability control system kicked in, but overall I never felt that my safety was in doubt, even in areas where Hummer drivers did not feel confident enough to go faster than 30mph or step out of the tracks left before them by the preceding vehicle; there I boldly shifted the car onto the snow and zoomed by the no-doubt-bewildered SUV drivers at 40mph.
I did go over 55mph in heavy snow conditions briefly, but frankly this was not the road to do it on. Had I been able to see the road far before me I could have gotten to Boston an hour earlier, but since i-93 does have lots of sharp curves and blind bends at its northern end I decided to cool my jets and make sure I got to my destination alive.
In that the MB really delivers. The 4matic system is fantastic. The stability control system does a great job of levelling a sideways-skidding car and putting it back in the driver’s control. And amazingly enough it’s really not that thirsty, considering that the car is permanently in four-wheel-drive mode and powered by a V6 engine; during my whole trip I averaged about 10l/100km, or 23 miles/gallon. It’s not bad at all for a trip in which I had to spend a lot of time constantly adjusting the throttle on the car to either respond to traffic conditions or go up and down hills.
The car’s interior is… well, it’s not bad, but it’s not exactly what you’d call great. The dark hand of Chrysler can occasionally be seen in the selection of plastics that are used on the dash, doors and steering wheel. While there *is* some leather on each of these elements its appearance is somewhat cheapened by the plastic that surrounds it. In fact as I drove yesterday I had to triple-check to make sure that the leather on the outside of the steering wheel was actually leather and not some imitation — BTW it is leather, you can see the stitching.
Another thing you’ll notice is that the interior is fairly small. It IS the baby Merc, after all; if you want something big shell out for an E-class. That being said I found it sufficiently accommodating for my burly frame. Again I found that the armrest on the door side was a little too low, but the steering wheel is adjustable.
The seats were OK. They’re fairly comfortable in many respects — and they are heated, which was a good thing on Monday when temperatures did not creep above the -20c mark — but I did find a couple of faults with them. For one thing the cushioning seems a bit thin; after sitting in the car for 7 hours I began feeling distinctly uncomfortable in the bum area. Perhaps I can blame this on recent weight loss caused by exercise (resulting in myself providing less of my own cushioning), but it was noticeable. Secondly, the seats are only partially electronically adjustable, which I felt was a bit of a disappointment. Tilt and pitch were controlled through handy buttons, but positioning and lumbar support required manual adjustments. It’s not that big a deal, but the Chrysler 300m I used to drive had seats that were entirely electronically controlled, so I was a little disappointed at finding that the Merc required me to yank on a lever before moving the seat forward or backward.
It’s said that there’s been a big drop in the quality of Mercedes-Benz cars since the Chrysler merger. I can’t really say whether that’s accurate (I never drove a pre-merger MB), but I did notice that there was a slight problem with the steering wheel — if you pushed on the buttons just a little too hard on the stereo or information buttons you would sound the horn.
Ergonomically I have only two nits to pick. First, the flasher lever, which also controls the windshield wipers, is positioned in such a way that it is almost completely obscured by the fairly large steering wheel. Thus it’s a little difficult to figure out how to adjust the wipers at first. Second, there is the cruise control, which is adjusted by operating a small, cheap-ish looking lever above the flasher lever. I really would have preferred steering-wheel-mounted buttons. Something like what’s used on the Volvo S40, which I have written about before. Little annoyances, but nothing major.
Aside from that it’s pretty much all good. The trunk is spacious and easy to get to, there seems to be plenty of space in the back seats (although putting in 3 headrests in the back shows a bit of what I think is unwarranted optimism), and the sunroof does brighten things up appreciably. Its not the enormous dome-like affair you can get with an E-class, but it’s good to have when driving about in the daytime. The stereo is excellent, and the speakers really deliver even when playing bass-heavy tunes. The inclusion of weather-band radio is a nice touch.
Now, this is not a cheap car by any means. Getting one of these will set you back roughly fifty thousand dollars (in Canada). The C280 is not only available in Canada in MB’s new “Avantguarde” edition, which basically means that it’s already loaded and that you’ll be spared MB’s usual novel-length options list with its equally imposing prices.
Is it worth $50k? I was sufficiently impressed by its snow performance to say yes. I very much like this car, and when you’re stuck in bad driving situations it’ll make you feel like you own the road. Besides that, you always notice the tri-star logo that sticks up from the hood — and indeed you have to wonder whether it wasn’t placed there as much for the driver to see it as for people outside the car. It is a Mercedes-Benz, and driving one makes you feel a little bit special.