Mercedes-Benz E350 vs BMW 535i

Posted in Car Guide on February 16th, 2010 by Admin

Mercedes Benz E350 vs BMW 535i

Mercedes Benz E350 vs BMW 535i

These two have been fighting for sales supremacy in the hotly contested executive-sedan segment for decades, and they’ve sparred in nearly as many magazine comparison tests as have the Mustang and Camaro. The lead has swapped back and forth from time to time, and just as the Camaro owns the winning record in the ponywars, BMW has finished ahead of Mercedes more often. But each time one of the players rejiggers its formula, it’s a brand-new game.

Last year’s E-Class reboot marked a welcome return to Mercedes-Benz’s “designed to a standard, not to a price” ethos, with vastly improved fit, finish, materials, and general solidity. In the bargain, it delivered world-class aerodynamics and held the line on weight, which helped improve performance and fuel efficiency. And yet in February’s eight-car match-up, the Mercedes finished two places behind the test-winning lame-duck 535i. So why read on? Surely the new and improved 5 is a slam-dunk winner, right?

Both cars feel sure-footed and stable while tearing down the open highway at a hundred and plenty.
Not so fast. If you’ll recall, the last redesign of the 5 was not universally acclaimed as a great leap forward. Some of its electronic chassis aids (like Active Steering) were accused of robotizing the driving experience, the Gen-1 iDrive drew criticism, and the Dame-Edna-bespectacled face and flame-surfaced styling did not appeal to all eyes.

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Mercedes Benz F800 Style Concept

Posted in Luxury Car, Sport Car on January 29th, 2010 by Admin
Mercedes-Benz F800 Style Concept

Mercedes-Benz F800 Style Concept

Despite its name, the most intriguing part of the Mercedes-Benz F800 Style concept isn’t its style at all: the Geneva motor show concept is also an amazing rolling showcase of the German automaker’s future alternative powertrain and convenience technologies. With the possible exception of its sliding rear doors, expect to see many of the gee-whiz gadgets on the F800 on an E- or S-Class sedan in the coming years.

But while most of the future tech will wow you, we think Mercedes has taken some of it a bit too far. Case in point: Traffic Jam Assist. The technology builds on Mercedes’ existing Distronic cruise control system that accelerates and decelerates by itself down to a stop. Traffic Jam Assist can follow vehicles ahead of it even into curves up to 25 mph. Mercedes assures us that the car won’t try to follow other commuters who suddenly make turns off the highway, but we’re still not keen on a system that essentially relieves its driver of the effort required to repeatedly turn a steering wheel. If you don’t have the energy to turn a wheel in stop-and-go traffic and want a Mercedes-Benz, you’d probably be better off hiring a chauffeur. When you eventually reach your destination, if you’re a rear-seat passenger, you’ll exit through one of the F800′s best ideas: rear pivot-and-slide doors. Entry-and-exit through small rear doors on a car with an aggressively sloped roofline can be difficult, but with no B-pillar and these van-style doors, slipping out of the car appears to be much easier. And since the rear sliding doors are suspended from an interior swivel arm, there are no unsightly track marks.

Mercedes says the F800 has a multi-drive platform, which means it can be fitted with either a hydrogen fuel cell or plug-in hybrid system. The fuel cell application, which is essentially the same setup employed on the B-Class F-CELL, produces 136 horsepower and 214 pound-feet of torque in the F800, according to the automaker. In years past, it sometimes helped to fit the fuel cell system to SUVs like a Toyota Highlander or Chevrolet Equinox in order to more easily to store the hydrogen tanks. In the F800, however, all alternative drive system components are hidden in the engine compartment and in gaps within the chassis. In the F800 fuel cell, two of the hydrogen tanks are beneath the rear seats while the other two are in the transmission tunnel between the front and rear passengers. The F800′s lithium-ion battery pack sits beneath the rear seats, though it’s unclear whether that has any effect on trunk capacity.

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Mercedes Benz S400 Hybrid

Posted in Car Guide, Luxury Car on November 17th, 2009 by Admin

Mercedes Benz S400 Hybrid

Mercedes Benz S400 Hybrid

Who says that blooming and affluence are two agreement that accept to be mutually exclusive? Certainly not Mercedes-Benz, which now offers the S400 Amalgam as allotment of its 2010 S-Class lineup.

Powered by a 275-horsepower 3.5-liter V-6 that gets a addition from a 20-horsepower electric motor, the S400 has the adeptness to shut bottomward the gas agent at a stop or while coasting, but it can’t advance from a stop on alone electric power. Lithium-ion batteries are acclimated to ability the electric motor, and the amalgam agent mates to a 7-speed automated transmission.

We had a adventitious to booty an S400 for a quick circuit in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, and we begin that with the barring of the amalgam powertrain, the S400 is like any added S-Class. That agency it’s smooth, quiet, and loaded with affluence aliment (it had added good be, to absolve its added than $90K bulk tag). On the road, the ride is bland as glass, with nary a bang abashing the chassis. The S400 is absolutely not a baby car, and it feels like it–the car has a stout alley presence.

It’s additionally quiet. Some of that is due to the gas agent shutting off, but the S-Class belvedere itself is accepted for its abridgement of exoteric noise. Indeed, the cockpit is so hushed that it’s about eerie.

The S400 has some absorbing features, including an auto-bolster arrangement in the driver’s bench that changes the bulk of bolstering in the driver’s bench as the car corners. Mercedes’ oft-hated COMAND audio and aeronautics arrangement interface is back, but during our abrupt drive, it seemed easier to use than in the past. Speaking of easy, it’s way too accessible to appoint the cruise ascendancy while analytic for the turn-signal stalk–this was the better ergonomic blemish we noticed in our ten account or so abaft the wheel.

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