First, the specs:
2.3 liter supercharged 4-cylinder. Output: 189hp, 200 ft-lb @ 2500rpm. 3200lb curb weight. Tiny.
It has power windows and manual everything else.
The car looks like this:
It has a MASSIVE a**.
It seats 2 and two halves. I would fit in the back seat if I didn't have a head.
Boot space is pretty impressive behind the seats even with the tonneau in place. The rear seats fold level with the rearward-angled cargo floor. The hatch opens WAY up. It also has split-glass (really plastic down low) which is neat but not particularly helpful due to the heavy color distortion present in the curved lower plastic.
The 2.3 is quite coarse and there's a lot of engine noise (not exhaust noise). Torque off the line is reasonable but it comes into its own above 2000rpm where it's not fast but certainly not slow. The supercharger's whine is pleasant and not invasive.
The 5-speed automatic is smooth but in absolutely no hurry. The manumatic design is worse than terrible. The transmission still does whatever it wants. You slap the shifter left for downshifts and right for upshifts. There's no separate manual-mode gate, just tilt in "D", which means there's no way to get back to full auto without dropping into neutral and back. Amazingly, astoundingly, frustratingly stupid. Shifts are slow and smooth, and dropping the hammer brings about shifts a couple months later, making spirited driving in the twisties unrewarding unless you use manual mode. Gearing seems excellent, with a fair amount of torque available at 75 without having to drop from 5th. There's a "Wet/Standard" mode switch which toggles 1st- and 2nd-gear starts--necessary because manumatic mode sucks and starts off in first regardless of the gear you've "selected."
I was able to break the back end loose with a little tossery even with ESP enabled and encountered no drama. An odd mix with the ABS, which seems WAY overaggressive...though that may be partially the tires' fault. But then again, perhaps not: there's actually a 30% vehicle safety discount on insurance for the car being a Mercedes-Benz, so that's not terribly surprising, and MB along with Chrysler is notorious for electronic nannies that are determined to get in the way.
The instrument cluster is terrible-awful-bad. A small tach and overlarge fuel gauge flank the MONSTROUS speedometer which, despite having a radius that's about half as big as one of Mars' moons, only has 5mph demarcations. It's empty and unhelpful. In the center of the that's-no-moon-it's-a-space-station-sized speedo is a medium-resolution amber LCD display which offers up quite a lot of useful info--and a lot of useless crap. It'll even report the oil level but only if the car's not running. Unfortunately, the steering wheel is laden with face-buttons to operate the thing. At least the steering wheel never blocks the gauges even a little, not even at the lowest height with a 6'+ eyeline.
The rear-view mirror needs to be a little taller. It's a hatchback, tall and narrow. The mirror shows too much c-pillar and not enough vertical glass.
European cruise control is stupid. It's on a stalk located above the signal stalk and I kept activating cruise when I wanted to signal right. The signal stalk itself is WAY too low on the wheel at about 8 o'clock and I had to constantly reposition my hand to signal. There's nothing natural about using either control stalk. It's not something I'd likely ever adjust to; it's something I'd end up having to tolerate.
And while we're on about stupid controls, what psychopath designed those seat controls? There's a knob on the INSIDE of the seatback to adjust recline, while you pump a lever to adjust cushion height and turn another lever for cushion pitch. Seems like a backward approach compared to the more common separate front/rear cushion height adjust. The MB way you need to adjust two things to make a small change in seat cushion adjustment. The seats themselves are comfortable, but not as comfortable as the LS8. The headrests suck fairly badly. The rear headrests fold down to allow seat folding or improved rearward visibility. Might as well leave them that way since only Gimli would ever have a head low enough to use one.
The seats do return to their original position after being folded forward for rear-seat access, though, which is nice.
The driving position is nice, and this car seems to be pre-bathtub-era, with window sills low enough to rest an elbow on. The doors are a little too close to the seats for my taste though. And the lack of telescope in the steering wheel adjust sucks, especially since it's basically resting against the gauges anyway. If you need legroom like me you're going to be reaching for the wheel a little awkwardly. The armrest is well positioned (something I've never experienced before outside my LS8's adjustable unit which blocks one cupholder in order to sit where I need it). Unfortunately the shift knob is too far rearward for anyone with proportional forearms to naturally rest a hand on.
Suspension is weird. It manages to be both floatier AND harsher than my LS8. It manages everything more poorly. Body roll is more significant, bumps large and small alike are felt more strongly, and there's a lot more oscillation than I'd like (though that may just be dying shocks). It doesn't really do luxury OR sport very well. It just sort of fails at both at some useless middle ground.
Steering's surprisingly quick and not as numb as I expected. The brakes stop really well (safety stuff again) and easily outperform my LS8's stockers. I just wish ABS would trust me a little more. Fighting ABS pulse in the inside front tire isn't particularly helpful. Turning radius is excellent.
I found it weird driving such a tiny car. The minimal length behind the driver seat threw me off most. But the whole car feels tiny and I'm just not used to that.
A neat little touch (perhaps to make up for the stupid seat controls) is that when you release the hood from the cabin, a small plastic tap pops out below the hood. No hunting for a lever in the hood seam. Grab the tab and lift the hood. I don't like that the main forward surface of the hood, where you'd naturally want to lift, is a plastic piece of the upper grille that feels like it isn't really up to repeated hood-heftings. I'd have extended the hood around the grille, or cut into the hood with the upper grille. Or just run a strip of steel under the upper piece.
I can't figure out why the rear side windows neither vent nor roll down. There seems to be plenty of room for them to drop into the sides and even if there isn't that for some reason there's still no reason they shouldn't hinge at the b-pillar.
The panoramic sunroof is inoperative on this car so I can only comment on the neat design of the wind deflector (wish my LS8 had that instead of the halfass springbar setup which is not likely to break but also not likely to help with turbulence at highway speeds. Oh, and why are the rolling sunshades (inside the cabin below the roof glass) black when the upholstery is all tan? Weird.
Anyway, that's my long-winded review of a decade-old Mercedes. I'll keep my LS8. But my sister loves it. I just hope I don't end up spending too much time under the hood.
