Written by: Martin Ward
Wednesday, March 18, 2009 

Mercedes-Benz chose the centre of Spain to launch the latest in a long line of the E Class Saloon. Madrid at this time of year is almost guaranteed to have good weather but the city is easily accessible from most parts of the world and when they are flying in around 100 people per day for nearly four weeks, ease of access is paramount. The sun shone the whole time we were there and made the lines of the new car even more appealing. The last time we saw the new E Class, it was in a semi-darkened room which did not do the car justice but the bright daylight in Madrid seemed to completely change the appearance of the car.

 

Most people do not realise that within one hour’s drive of the city, you can be up in the snow covered mountains skiing! We drove the E Class up some fairy twisting roads to get to one of the summits around 2,000 metres up and found it to be as agile and manoeuvrable as a car half its size. The views from the top were breathtaking and it felt a bit peculiar that one hour earlier we had been driving around Madrid, very odd. On the way back down you could really throw the car into the corners as the braking system was excellent; it felt so safe and solid on the road.

 

The current E Class is good, there is no denying that but the new one is just so much better in all aspects. The engines are more fuel efficient, the average Co2 is lower, the quality has improved a great deal and the styling, once seen in the right light, is very attractive and distinctive. The rear wings are very reminiscent of the 1953 version of the E Class, the original 190D. Since the original E Class predecessor was launched in 1947, over 12 million vehicles have been sold worldwide. Not all of these have been called E Class but still, this is a lot of executive Saloon sales.

  

The new E Class has undertaken more testing than ever before, with over 36km of road and track testing. Much of the testing has been done on local roads where it will be sold and not just the usual frozen Antarctic wastes or in +40 degree centigrade desert locations; this was real life driving.

 

Not all engines will be available at launch as some such as the 200CGI and 250CGI will go on sale in September. The 220CDI (139g/km), 250CDI (139g/km), 350CDI (181g/km) and 350CGI (201g/km) will go on sale in June.

 

The best selling year of the previous E Class was in 2003 when 15,568 units were sold. Last year had the lowest sales volumes with just 6,903 units sold in the UK. This is not a bad result considering the financial market and the model being on run-out. Mercedes admit that sales of E Class manual transmission models are very low so they have now introduced hill start assist which is certainly better than the previous, almost dangerous, foot brake system. We tried it numerous times and it seemed to work well while facing uphill but worked intermittently while facing downhill. Never the less, it is a huge improvement.

 

We also drove an E200CDI fitted with the Mercedes-Benz stop/start system and it worked in a similar way to the other stop/start systems we have tested recently. The Mercedes system, unlike others, will start if the accelerator is pressed or for some reason, if the steering wheel is slightly moved. We found it to be reasonably quick on start up but not as quick as some other manufacturer’s systems. It was however, much quicker than one system in particular. We asked the chief engineer about the stop/start project and he admitted that the system was not as good as others as they had not yet developed the ultimate engine stopping position. This is where the pistons stop in exactly the same place every time by using a small motor. The motor moves the crank to ensure the pistons and fuel are in the prime position for a quick, quiet start up. He told me that they were working very hard on it and that it would be part of the stop/start MK2.

 

Prices start from around £28,800 for an E220CDI 5 speed auto or an E250CDI 6 Speed manual.

 

The German registered cars we drove all had a ‘speed sign recognition system’ fitted which detects a speed road sign and displays it in front of the driver. However, in the UK this is not yet possible as the system does not yet know whether the national speed limit is 60mph or 70mph. The engineers are still working on this.

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