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DaimlerChrysler Malaysia (soon to be Mercedes-Benz Malaysia), gave the media, and some rubber-necking commuters from Glenmarie to Cameron Highlands, a chance to get acquainted with the new C-Class, set to fill many an upcoming taukeh’s driveway from November onwards.
Shannon Teoh was there to fiddle with the Bluetooth Telephony. More after the jump.
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Competition in the premium C-segment market here sure is hotting up. The 3-series is still sitting pretty on top for now and is the only member of the club with GPS, the A4 is there with quattro whilst its cousins, the Jetta and Octavia are keen to contest in the value buy department.
And then, of course, there’s the C-Class, which, following hot on the heels of the CLS, B and R, takes a significant departure from the staid image of Mercs with the W204 platform.
MB have tried really hard with this car, you can tell. All the emphasis now is on being young and virile and uhh, somewhat Japanese. This all begins with the new look, which depending on whether you pick the Elegance or Avantgarde, is either a quantum leap or a nice game of hopscotch. The Avantgarde takes on the SL radiator grille, with the huge Mercedes tristar ensuring that on our drive up from Simpang Pulai, everyone up to Gua Musang could see us coming.
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The Elegance maintains the hood ornament instead and is somewhat more sedate, although still with a more contemporary look with a few cues from the E-Class, namely with the pentagonal grille and also the skirting down the front, where the ‘goatee’ inlet and fog lights give the car a wider look.
Not that it really needs it. The body is already wider by 42mm but the proportions have not been tweaked too much as the overall length has also seen a 55mm extension, resulting in a wheelbase of 2760mm, up 45mm. Comparatively, it feels nearly as spacious as a 5-series in the car, although the 5 has never been known as the car of choice for Shaquille O’Neal.
Despite this, the bodyshell is in fact, 8kg lighter than that of the outgoing W203, keeping true to Mercedes’ commitment to reversing the trend of increasing weight on the backs of our poor roads. This plays an itsy-bitsy role in bringing fuel consumption for the C200 Kompressor down to 8.2l/100km, saving you half a litre over that distance as compared to its predecessor.
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This is despite the M271 E18 1,796cc inline-four being beefed up by 21hp to 181hp at 5,500rpm with 250Nm usable from 2,800-5,000rpm. Power is delivered however, via a 5-speed auto ‘box instead of the 7G-Tronic, meaning the C200K checks in at 100km/h at 8.8s, improved by 0.6s and hits a top speed of 230km/h.
If this isn’t good enough for you, you’ll have to wait til next year for the 201hp C230 with the 7-ratio transmission, although that’s only going to get you to 100km/h 0.1s faster and just 3km/h faster at full speed. If this miniscule power premium isn’t all that important to you, then you’ll probably be quite happy with all that Mercedes has tried to do with this car.
The new innovations include Agility Control, which is the catch-all phrase for all their developments in terms of ride and handling. For the W204, this means adaptive shock absorbers which increase damping forces when driving more dynamically, to ensure maximum stability. Obviously, this means ride comfort also changes according to how you drive.
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I’m happy to report that even whilst tossing it about with mid-corner braking and being forced over bad surfaces, it’s all pretty comfy in there, with satisfactory electric seats and two zone Thermatic climate control. However, despite the car’s wider track and new, lighter shell, it certainly doesn’t feel that there’s that the grip has more bite to it. A shame since the steering is a bit more direct than in the W203 and it was tempting to push the car hard – harder than one should, perhaps.
Not as much bodyroll for sure, possibly due to the Agility Control, but that hasn’t really improved the handling, and the 3-series can probably rest easy with regards to this. However, there is the optional Advanced Agility package that is set to debut with the C230 and the small issue of the fact that there weren’t enough Avantgardes to go around.
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So I couldn’t personally get a feel of a slightly tighter suspension – the product planning guy put his thumb and index finger about an inch away from each other to describe the difference – and what effect the speed-sensitive steering might have had when taking high-speed corners. But overall, nobody came away thinking the Avantgarde was all that different – one even preferred the steering on the Elegance. Moving on to the other innovations of the more elegant sort – so simple, you wished you had thought of it as a Form Four student. When the car is on the move, air is sucked in from the underbody and is conducted behind the tail lights to flow out of the small ventilating slits in the lenses. As the tail lights are hermetically sealed against the vehicle body, the air is only able to escape to the side via the ventilating slits. This avoids turbulence behind the car, thus helping to reduce air resistance to a CD coefficient of just 0.27.
Also, there’s a twin rubber drainage channel which uses a two-piece rubber lip as a transition between the roof and the rear window. Without going into too much detail, it basically channels rainwater away from the rear window and downwards along the window edging, keeping the window clean even at high speeds, so there’s no need for a rear wiper.
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Beyond that, other niceties for your quarter million ringgit include Adaptive Brake which gives you ‘hill-hold’ assistance and also primes your brakes when you make a sudden liftoff from the throttle and also applies light contact to dry your brake discs in wet conditions. There’s also Bluetooth telephony which is easily controlled by the driver with steering-wheel mounted buttons and reception and mic pickup was clear enough that people on the other end were genuinely surprised that was not speaking directly into a headset. Otherwise, the passenger uses a central dial – similar to BMW’s iDrive – to control in-car electronics which was only slightly confusing as certain menus had to be accessed via independent buttons.
Overall, it’s certainly not a disappointing car and the only thing that really bugged me about it was the fact that from a side profile, the bonnet looked like it was slapped on last-minute whilst the rest of the car looks so monoform. And the prices haven’t really moved much from the W203, although, given the fact that about 1,000 advance orders had been placed, this hasn’t bothered many people. For the record, it’s RM258,888 for the Avantgarde and 10K less for the Elegance, on-the-road, without insurance.
All that’s left is for you to decide between three exterior (obsidian black, iridium silver and cubanite silver) and interior trims (grey, black and a two-tone beige only for Elegance) although DCM promises to give you any combination in the international brochure if you’re willing to wait a bit and well, pay the price.
Story and photos by Shannon Teoh.
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hey Paul,
when are you going to test drive this car? I wish to know the quality of the car. I heard Merc Bz is trying to improve their quality as previously, their e-class reputation fall bad for their reliability and quality. And I noticed that te dashboard is hard plastic. No leather or some high quality material for it?
what happened to the right foglamp? Bulb blown? Or can turn on individually?
what happened to the right foglamp? Bulb blown? Or can turn on individually?
n wat happened to the steering wheel……where’s the mercedes styling?…steering just looks ugly..
yeah, dashboard not so classy, any wind noise during the test,pls? thx
Nothing significant improve compare to old model!
Steering design to suite “uncle taste”, not target at young cuckoo sporty style like Gen-2.
_xXx_ said,
October 21, 2007 @ 11:12 am
what happened to the right foglamp? Bulb blown? Or can turn on individually?
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I’m not sure what the exact term for it is, but this is the cornering lights. when you turn the steering wheel left, the left fog lamp lights up to illuminate the direction you’re travelling to, kind of like BMW’s Adaptive Headlights.
merc..changes 2 frequently n 2 often..Bmeers much better,,,in Msia i will stick 2 Japan marques..easier 2 maintain..
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punisher said,
October 21, 2007 @ 12:18 pm
merc..changes 2 frequently n 2 often..Bmeers much better,,,in Msia i will stick 2 Japan marques..easier 2 maintain..
Amen.
_xXx_ said,
October 21, 2007 @ 11:12 am
what happened to the right foglamp? Bulb blown? Or can turn on individually?
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yeah xxx interesting,
i used to look at rear fog light of some imports (older but new still have that arrangementn) is on one side, probally they say its suffice enough to have one side in front as well,
i guess, they save a tiny little bit of alternator load
And what happen to the rear door handle…..izit misplace or what. Anyone can explain. Everything else is perfect i guess
paul, mispelling, u said blueooth! lol
anywhos, the real launch would be on 2nd nov, lol, im invited to test drive :D it will be held in subang jaya
merc is a brand where a typical Chinese businessman would buy…
sry… not younger generation taste .
soporific said,
October 21, 2007 @ 12:15 pm
……I’m not sure what the exact term for it is, but this is the cornering lights. when you turn the steering wheel left, the left fog lamp lights up to illuminate the direction you’re travelling to, kind of like BMW’s Adaptive Headlights.
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Yes, it could be a corner lamp but corner lamp doesn’t work in this manner! If it does, both lamps take turn to switch on when driving on a winding road. Like ambulance. Interesting huh.
The demo car could be a lemon.
This is the best looking C class ever…
best looking c-class, only expansive
Why don’t they bring in the C350 3.5 lit V6 version in Malaysia?
http://www2.mercedes-benz.com.au/content/australia/mpc/mpc_australia__website/en/home_mpc/passenger_cars/home/products/new_cars/cclasssaloon/design_lines_equipment/lines.0003.html
Will definitely sell well based on the three pointed star. I think the design is OK,typical merc,not particularly eye catching. I don’t get what punisher says about merc changing too often. Merc and BMW usually change a new model after 6-7 years which is longer than japanese models which can change after 4-5 years.
many other really like it, so i believe this would be the most attractive C-Class styling ever… and will attract some from either BMW/Audi & etc…
wat the……1k bookings for a 1/4mil car……
gov definitely wouldnt wanna reduce tax since so many taukeh kaya out there buying like hot cakes even at this price….
nice merc…..huge improvement over the predecessor but the dash really looks a bit cheap & plasticky….thats by looks only but feel might be different.
avantgarde definitely looks nicer with the SL grill compared to the E class lookalike elegance.
wow, looks like a downsized S-class! impressive looks but honestly, the steering and the dash is little degrading.
design ok lah, but still prefer E-class…..
this car looks pretty… And the price is reasonable too…
if my experiences with the current model SLK are anything to go by, i am guessing the new C dash has a rubberized soft touch to it. the SLK has it as well. looks like the same material. but it all looks a little bland to me.
alamak…. uncle look la..
ROFL LOL… who would’ve thought that a mercedes would have a defects already on its demo car. One of the foglight not working!
Anyway, nice exterior design, but interior wise look so PLASTIC and CHEAP looking. Too much plastic on the dashboard, not enough wood trim. And no central LCD display is a major turn-off, esp. when your centre panel have so many buttons.
I attended the C-Class launching a few weeks back, and I must disagree with one thing. The story by Shannon Teoh above mentions that the C-Class is as spacious as a BMW 5-Series. Now, I have never been in a 5-Series before, but I did sit in the C-Class, and I must say that the car is small! There was a W203 as well in the showroom and I compared both cars. The W203 was far more spacious compared to the W204. The back of the car is alright, but the front drivers seat felt cramped compared to the W203. Oh, and the W203 was slightly tuned, with F1-styled gear paddles behind the steering wheel. Very nice!
Europeans marques usually give you a feeling of “compactness” as the doors are thicker compared to similiar sized Japanese cars. Coupled with the fact that The C class is a baby merc and cant be compared to the family sized sedans.
It’s a towkay besar style or maybe suits very rich uncle…just look at the steering…very ‘otai’…
uuurrrggghhhh..yucks….even very buruk org tue 3 er better than this junk….i still prefer the alfa romeo 159 and upcoming audi a4…
paul..
review the new a4…kinda good ma…
its not available in malaysia yet and even if it was i doubt euromobil will layan me
Dont really like the new A4… Looks like A5 only… I like the previous A4… Better yet, the RS4…
M5 is much bigger inside than this car.
Anyone tell me where can i find the price of a X3sd please & the reviews.
Thanks
Dont know about u merc detractors but when my shillings grow up to become dollars, I m gonna buy me one.
This is the car that I’m waiting for. I read a lot about it from the net. Well, I think MB Malaysia is not treating us fairly by offering such a limb looking wheel for the Advangarde. I’m not sure whether they offer the AMG package, which the Brit and Aussie consumers would get. Frankly, the new c-class is a beauty by its own mean, especially with the AMG kits on and in white. There is no keyless-go (with engine start stop button) and xenon lights too. Wonder how one would feel if he parks the new c-class beside his friend beemer 3 while having a afternoon tea talk? DCM or Daimler Benz Malaysia, please read this forum and take note! You’ll have my cheque book ready when the things I requested are there.
LOL yeah they jump from tree to tree
guys, pls tell the what are the differences between Advangarde with other model specially for C Class. i plan to buy and i would appreciate if anyone here could help to me furnish more details bout this. pls reply to my personal email. thanks alot.