Back in June, Daniel, Marketing Manager of Jati Transport offered me to test drive the E200 (W213) when I bumped into him while picking up our children at school. I was reluctant at first because I am not planning to purchase anycar at that time. He told me there is no obligation and offered me to take the car home for 4 days just to test drive! How can I say no to that!
I am a big fan of W210 to W212 because of the quad head lamps design.
The new generation W213 took a different approach by combining them to
individual headlamp. So to speak I am not a very big fan of this new
approach. I had seen the W213 AMG E63 in brochure and damn it is one very aggressive car! This E200 doesn't come with AMG package. Its the standard version coming out of the factory so no aggressive AMG bodykit or performance package.
On delivery day I was brief on how to "use" the car. I am glad they
taught me because there was a few features that require first hand information for new driver. At the point of writing, this particular
version was offer for around BND$95K~$98K . Again please check with Jati
Transport for their latest update on pricing.
The first thing that caught my attention when I hopped into the driver seat was the beautiful layout of the interior design. Everything inside the cabin felt so modern and yet elegance at the same time. You will also be greeted by the new LED interior lighting. I am not new to this because my MINI Countryman was one of the earlier car to approach this type of interior lighting. The only differences is Mercedes Benz took their E-Class version a step further. You can control two different part of the interior with different LED lighting! It can be done with single color, dual color or continuously color changing!
The First drive : Once I am done with adjusting my
seating position, I pressed the START button and the half analog/digital
instrument came to life(The E300 version gets the dual LCD features). I
engaged the gear stalk located behind the steering wheel for Drive (I
am still not used to this type of gear stalk as it is similar to my mum
CLA200).
Once the car was engaged, I took the car home and during that period of
time with the car I can say it is quite an impressive car. Steering is
very light and easy to maneuver for a car this big. The performance for a 2.0(184hp) is actually quite impressive! I said this because I was so
disappointed with my mum CLA200 as it was sluggish. This E200 felt very
fast, as a matter of fact it felt faster then my MINI given they both have the same hp rating only the MINI is 1.6. I cannot
imagine the power of E300 with 245hp on tap. Handling is more or less
a typical Mercedes-Benz sedan. If you ever engage the Sports+ setting
it makes the car performance even more sporty.
The Tech : This car is loaded with lots of tech. My favorite was the
auto parking assist where the car will search a suitable parking spot
and help u parked the car without your input for steer and brake. All you need is engage the gear for the car! Is a very simple step and I think all car in the future should have this feature. And when you want to leave the parking space, the car will reverse out the parking spot like how it was parked in the first place!
The steering wheel has touch sensitive buttons for easy control. All the buttons are beautifully lay out in the center console.
The LCD also display many 360 angle for your vehicle when parked.
Here you go, my view on the new E200. Would I buy it? Hell yeah if I got the money but I will probably go for the E300 with AMG Line. I give this E200 a score of 7.5/10 based on my experiences on medium size executive sedan.
