neues auto - 3-month update

[Vinsanity]

5 months ago, I posted here speculating on buying a new car due to increasingly frequent problems arising with the trusty old Caddy. Within a few weeks of writing that post, the a/c compressor decided to crap out on me. Again. So this past weekend, I did it. After 9 years and 90k of my own miles, I've decided to part ways with the Caddy. It was definitely a bittersweet moment for me; ownership of that car spanned 1/4 of my life. That car held a lot of sentimental value for me. But for 5 months, there was an itch that I could no longer bear not to scratch.

Soon after I posted 5 months ago, I decided that the next car I buy would have adaptive stop-and-go cruise control, since 20 years of SoCal driving followed by the newly discovered freedom of lane splitting made my tolerance for sitting in traffic wearing very thin. This narrowed my car choices down significantly. Lexus adaptive cruise systems prior to 2016-2017 only operate above 20 mph or so. Nissan/Infinti's system will bring the car to a stop, but will shut off immediately after (as opposed to the driver being able to resume after being stopped for 3 seconds). I strongly considered a Volvo V60 that was offered for sale at a dealer in San Diego, along with a few fully-loaded 2015 Hyundai Genesises. Ultimately, I decided on this:





Car is a 2014 Mercedes E350 with the driver assistance package. Car was offered with 2 complimentary annual maintenance visits as well as the standard 1-year unlimited mile warranty. Odometer turned 23,000 miles on the way home. Which happened to be a 2 hour drive from the dealer. A 2 hour drive that was made from miserable to magical thanks to the adaptive cruise. This is the future, guys. And I'm pretty ok with it.

A few quick interior shots:




Quick driving impressions:
At close to 3700 lbs, the car has a curb weight similar to the Caddy, and honestly there's no hiding it. You're made aware of the car's mass every time you turn the wheel. But while the car would never be called nimble, it does wear its weight very well. The car is buttoned down in true Mercedes fashion, feeling like the chassis and suspension have full cooperation with the rest of the car to stay composed through corners as well as rough roads. Accelerating at partial throttle feels like the car is holding back as to not scare your passengers. Put your foot down, and the car wakes up like it suddenly realized it slept through 4 snooze cycles. Braking, aside from the soft pedal, is similar in that you don't get very much stopping power coming to a red light if you're trying to make a smooth stop. Stab the brake, and you fly through the windshield.

The adaptive cruise system (Distronic+ in Mercedes speak) is as good as non-Tesla cars get. The car follows at a comfortable distance without leaving too much room for other drivers to close the gap in front of you. It accelerates and brakes like my 70-year-old dad, which is how you want your semi-autonomous car to drive. Lane-keep assist doesn't steer the car for you, so much as it makes suggestions. However, it does want to follow the car in front of you even if they are switching lanes themselves. One neat party trick with Distronic is when you signal left to change lanes to pass a slower vehicle, the car will begin accelerating before you change lanes in order to shorten the time used to overtake the vehicle.

I'll gather more thoughts for later, but so far, my first impression is that the car is way too fancy for me. Hopefully I'll grow into it 

[mzziaz]

Nice retirement vehicle!

j/k, congrats, great car.

[cawimmer430]

Congrats on the new car! Nice words for the title - I knew you must have gotten something German! 

Digging the color and interior color combination. I do miss the four-eyed-headlight-design on the facelifted W212s, but that's a subjective issue.

I recently reviewed my father's 2010 Mercedes E350 CGI after it went past 120,000 km and the car is holding up great. No quality or reliability issues whatsoever - and you have the facelifted model, which should be much improved over ours.

You can read about it here: https://www.carspin.net/index.php?topic=33351.0

[12,000 RPM]

Nice. I like these facelifted W212s.

[Gotta-Qik-C7]

Nice! Did you take the 20s off the Caddy before you traded it in?

[CaminoRacer]

Slick

[Submariner]

Nice buy!

[SJ_GTI]

Can't see the pictures (at work), but I will give you a provisional congrats for now and will confirm final congrats at a later date. 

[Vinsanity]

Congrats on the new car! Nice words for the title - I knew you must have gotten something German! 

Digging the color and interior color combination. I do miss the four-eyed-headlight-design on the facelifted W212s, but that's a subjective issue.

I recently reviewed my father's 2010 Mercedes E350 CGI after it went past 120,000 km and the car is holding up great. No quality or reliability issues whatsoever - and you have the facelifted model, which should be much improved over ours.

You can read about it here: https://www.carspin.net/index.php?topic=33351.0

Nice review, great photos.

Yes, this is my first German car, as well as my first car since my old '84 Volvo posted in "Your first car" that isn't Japanese or American. Many of you may have noticed I have somewhat of a reservation on owning a European car, so it's good to know your parents' car is holding up well. The COMAND system is probably my least favorite thing about the car right now. Using the rotary knob reminds me of this old Onion video and the voice recognition doesn't seem to recognize many street names. I probably just have to keep brushing up on how to use it.

I agree with you on the transmission. I never noticed it having to hunt for gears; it holds gears just as well as the old 5-speed in the CTS in spite of having more ratios to choose from. Trip computer indicates 19.6 mpg since I took possession of the car, which isn't great, but most of that has been through the stop-and-go traffic going across 3 SoCal counties. Still better than the CTS would have fared, and it definitely feels faster in spite of the supposedly similar acceleration times (though having nearly 120k miles doesn't really help the Caddy's case)

[Vinsanity]

Nice retirement vehicle!

j/k, congrats, great car.

You're actually not too far off...it'd be great to hold on to this car until I'm 50 (14 years from now). Might be ambitious, but I'll take it one day at a time 😉

Nice. I like these facelifted W212s.

Same here, overall. I actually like the older headlights better, but I have to admit the integrated LED's look pretty sharp on the 2014-16 car.

Nice! Did you take the 20s off the Caddy before you traded it in?

I did, but there was almost no point. Those rims are actually pretty beat ☹ Driving on them every day was like wearing a pair of D&G Oxfords every day. Yeah, it looks cool for a while, then it just looks sad ☹

[Rich]

You're actually not too far off...it'd be great to hold on to this car until I'm 50 (14 years from now). Might be ambitious, but I'll take it one day at a time 😉

Jesus... seeing you put it this way really put my 50 year mark in perspective... I'm only 16 years away

[Vinsanity]

Jesus... seeing you put it this way really put my 50 year mark in perspective... I'm only 16 years away

Like I said...one day at a time 😉

[12,000 RPM]

Only 16 years... that's a long ass time bro, I wouldn't worry about it.

[Laconian]

The glories of adaptive cruise. Yours follows the lane too, right? That must be fucking awesome.

......I'm sure the rest of the car is really nice too.

Isn't it tragic how the grind of commuting turns us against our passion for cars?

[Vinsanity]

The glories of adaptive cruise. Yours follows the lane too, right? That must be fucking awesome.

......I'm sure the rest of the car is really nice too. [emoji317]

Isn't it tragic how the grind of commuting turns us against our passion for cars?

I know, I feel guilty about it, I really do. But the way I see it, all these driver assists actually help preserve the joy of driving whenever you do hit the open road.

Distronic is a lil weird in that it seems to follow the lane when it doesn't detect a car ahead, but when it does, it wants to follow the car instead.

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[Payman]

Jesus... seeing you put it this way really put my 50 year mark in perspective... I'm only 16 years away

Lol, I'm 14 months away.

[AutobahnSHO]

congrats!!   Looks gorgeous!

I'm assuming that the year warranty will give you a chance to find any issues. And lol at the woes of a 3700lb car.

[Vinsanity]

congrats!!   Looks gorgeous!

I'm assuming that the year warranty will give you a chance to find any issues. And lol at the woes of a 3700lb car.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I purchased an additional 2-year extended factory warranty. Unlimited mileage on both, so theoretically I should try to drive this thing into the ground over the next 3 years (no I'm not that crazy)

I definitely would have guessed that this car weighs closer to 4000 even, but then again, I don't think Mercs are really known for hiding their weight.

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[Lebowski]

Very nice.

[veeman]

Congratulations!

A black Mercedes in Southern Calif... So you wanted to go incognito

I have an hour long commute each way back and forth to work but thankfully it's usually not stop and go.  If it was, manual transmission would have gotten old real quick. 

[Vinsanity]

A black Mercedes in Southern Calif... So you wanted to go incognito

No kidding...I know confirmation bias is a real thing, but damn...I saw 3 of my car in black within a 10 minute span on my way home today. The last time I saw CTS's with that frequency were Las Vegas taxicabs, if you can even count that.

[68_427]

Jesus... seeing you put it this way really put my 50 year mark in perspective... I'm only 16 years away

Dave's about to hit that for the third time.  Relax dude

[MrH]

Dave's about to hit that for the third time.  Relax dude

On tapa talk, all I saw was this comment without the quoted text as context. Thought for sure you were talking about some Russian model.

[Raza]

Jesus... seeing you put it this way really put my 50 year mark in perspective... I'm only 16 years away

40's right around the corner for me.  Scary how fast time flies.

Anyway, congratulations Vin!  It's a good looking car.

But you should have gotten a Miata.

[Vinsanity]

40's right around the corner for me.  Scary how fast time flies.

Anyway, congratulations Vin!  It's a good looking car.

But you should have gotten a Miata.

Well, for the price of this car, I could've gotten the same year Miata plus a newish Civic with the Honda Sensing package...which I would've seriously considered if I had more room to keep cars

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[veeman]

Stop and go traffic for > 2 hours every day in a place where it doesn't snow.  Tank like heavy smooth quiet car with great noise insulation is what I would pick which is what you've done.

[Vinsanity]

Stop and go traffic for > 2 hours every day in a place where it doesn't snow.  Tank like heavy smooth quiet car with great noise insulation is what I would pick which is what you've done.

Just to clarify, the drive home from the dealer was 2+ hours. My daily commute is closer to 30-35 minutes. But still, point taken 👍

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[Eye of the Tiger]

Stop and go traffic for > 2 hours every day in a place where it doesn't snow.  Tank like heavy smooth quiet car with great noise insulation is what I would pick which is what you've done.

I would fucking quit my job and move far, far away.

[12,000 RPM]

O man. U guise are commuting wrong

[Eye of the Tiger]

O man. U guise are commuting wrong

I live in the city and work in the suburb. Reverse of traffic.
I drive west in the morning, and east in the evening. No sun in my face.
Versa. Mpjeeze.
I am the mastercommuter.