I had my MOT today so while I waited for the dealer to do that and kindly inform me another coil spring had cracked so needed an extra 45mins to replace I decided to make use of the free time and have some tea/digestives, post on IRC and have a test drive of a C250 CDI Sport across the road. It was the only demo C class they had so thought why not.
It's C250 CDI BlueEfficiency with 2.1litre twin turbo 202BHP and 369lb ft of torque (!). It was exactly the same as this in white with black roof:
It had the extra options like panoramic roof, nav and some laser guided key system.
I really really liked the auto box, changing up and down gears in auto mode you would never be able to tell the gears just changed unless you watched the rev counter, there is no engine noise to be heard when downchanging. In manual mode using the paddles have they employed some kind of rev syncro? I changed down from 5th to 4th and then 3rd but the car never blipped once like you do on a manual, the engine never made a higher noise as the revs increase then slowly decrease - it was smooth...too smooth.
The guy let me drive around a familiar bit of road with a long corner that is a good road to see body roll (if any) and it had nothing out of the ordinary, felt a bit like my E46 sport if I had to compare and I felt confident enough around that corner to not have to slow down considering it's the first auto of this type I've ever driven!
I also liked the foot operated handbrake engage pedal and hand operated release lever - quite good stuff.
I just wanted to know the technical side of the gearbox used as the guy knew everything else about the car bar the details such as this and their spec documents don't go into such detail (nor list torque figures either, only BHP).
I was really impressed, the car felt solid and that it was an extension of you when moving around the road briskly, the steering wheel was way too light at low speed though but it improved to what I'm used to with the E46 at higher speeds.
Most impressive was the lack of diesel noise even during foot down moments. Only during idle was there an ambience of diesel.
I now want to test drive a C350 :O
It's C250 CDI BlueEfficiency with 2.1litre twin turbo 202BHP and 369lb ft of torque (!). It was exactly the same as this in white with black roof:
It had the extra options like panoramic roof, nav and some laser guided key system.
I really really liked the auto box, changing up and down gears in auto mode you would never be able to tell the gears just changed unless you watched the rev counter, there is no engine noise to be heard when downchanging. In manual mode using the paddles have they employed some kind of rev syncro? I changed down from 5th to 4th and then 3rd but the car never blipped once like you do on a manual, the engine never made a higher noise as the revs increase then slowly decrease - it was smooth...too smooth.
The guy let me drive around a familiar bit of road with a long corner that is a good road to see body roll (if any) and it had nothing out of the ordinary, felt a bit like my E46 sport if I had to compare and I felt confident enough around that corner to not have to slow down considering it's the first auto of this type I've ever driven!
I also liked the foot operated handbrake engage pedal and hand operated release lever - quite good stuff.
I just wanted to know the technical side of the gearbox used as the guy knew everything else about the car bar the details such as this and their spec documents don't go into such detail (nor list torque figures either, only BHP).
I was really impressed, the car felt solid and that it was an extension of you when moving around the road briskly, the steering wheel was way too light at low speed though but it improved to what I'm used to with the E46 at higher speeds.
Most impressive was the lack of diesel noise even during foot down moments. Only during idle was there an ambience of diesel.
I now want to test drive a C350 :O
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