OK - My Atoll Blue B200 5sp (non-turbo) has reached 7500 kilometers.
First off, I bought it for a car that could travel with 2 adults 2 kids and 2 dogs, had 4 cylinders for fuel economy; as I have about an hour commute, and still had "decent" cornering and performance. For that job, over all it is successful.
Before my likes and dislikes, if I could give M-B one recommendation, it would be: Get rid of the default model and price, make the Premium Package & price default & add a few touches to the interior (ie leather wheel / shift / variable wipers etc)
What I like -
For a small car - it is amazing the amount of room - a press article I read claimed that the back seat has more room than all Benzes up to the S Class. I don't know if that is accurate - but there *is* a lot of room.
Fuel Economy - Primo fuel is hovering up and down from about 1 CDN dolar per litre - and in the first 2000 Km when I was taking it easy - I was getting 8.1 L/100 Km. Even now (I have a heavy right foot!) it is still at 8.7 l/100km - which is probably twice as good as my last car.
While accelerating from 0-60 is fairly slow, I am not a boy racer anyway - I find that the passing acceleration (about 80 Km to 110) is quite good for a small car. I regulary drive 2 lane roads between Ottawa and Montreal (apprx 180Km) and use the "passing" acceleration a lot.
The five speed shift is really smooth & the clutch very light.
What I don't like:
To keep the price down - there is zero insulation under the hood - so acceleration engine noise is very loud (highway cruising road noise is pretty good)
While clutch / shift is smooth & light - the shifter throw is very long - so you lose a lot of acceleration when changing gears - a shorter shift would be nice.
I know M-B has always hated cup-holders etc - but the cup holder & parking brake handle are just about mutually exclusive. And other than the mesh net - there is absolutely no where to put any thing. Even my cell phone has to sit in the cup holder (unless a cup is there - so then it has to sit on my lap)
The head light controls are blocked by the stearing wheel - In Canada this is a pain because Daytime running lights are mandatory - so the green headlamp icon is *always* lit - you have to feel the switch to see if you have the headlights turned on. So if you are in Canada get the lighting option and leave it on Auto.
I detest the front window defroster. I get a lot of snow /ice / freezing rain etc here - and even with front defrost set to maximum - at least 50 or 60 % of air flow still comes through the main vents. This means setting three climate control wheels to defrost then manually closing 4 vents to force maximum air to the windshield. - this one I absolutely DETEST!!!!
The deeply inset front window - again because of Canadian winters - wipers can't push stuff of the side of the windshield - a bit of an annoyance that you have to manually clean out all the snow the wipers are pushing into there.
1 speed intermittant wiper ?? - a Honda Civic has more - nuff said.
Mainly an annoyance - my last car (Infiniti) had genuine automatic climate control - I don't cosider this to be "automatic"
So there you have my 7500 kilomter 2 cents worth :-)
Good to see your report. Yes it's a great car. Those reports are right about roominess. I measured: - the front seats are bigger than an ML; the rear seat is wider than an E class. Legroom front and rear is huge -much more than an R class (yes really). And good as an E class at least. My wife called ours an S class you can park. Boot at 500 litres is approx same as S class or a Porsche Cayenne.
WE collected ours from the factory. Great trip, wonderfully organised by MB. Drove 5200 miles in first 3 months. No faults of any kind and from the automatic 200cdi we get 40 round town and over 50 on a run. The diesel is gutsy too (0-62 in 9.6 which for an auto is pretty tasty)
There is an option for fully automatic air con at £450 in UK. We had it and it's really good. Good luck.
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