RE: New 2.0-litre Mercedes-AMG C63 officially unveiled

[DonkeyApple]

That's where, to date, the 3 series estate with a big engine scores. If you want an innocuous, reliable hack that has some life to it via RWD, overly powerful engine and also some seriously clunky Victorian tech like not having a 20" council TV stuck on the dash for managing Deliveroo orders while tracking one's Uber business, a clunky, big lever to pull for the hand brake instead of some seriously cool, tiny button that has some weird and pointless time delay that only exists to wind you up and has dials that show you information without needing to focus and buttons and dials that allow you to do simple tasks simply instead of the ultra cool and modern way of doing really simple tasks really unnecessarily long windedly and bafflingly backwardly, then these technophile's worst nightmare and objects of utter fear and loathing are really good wagons of simplicity.

As for whether the badge has 335D or 340i on it is down to personal taste, unless one opts for the manual when obviously the higher Rev range and sound of the 340 trumps over the abject pain and misery of manually changing gears on a diesel every three seconds as you work endlessly to keep a constant 1500 rpm

That said, I dumped my 340 earlier this year because it was boring. While it was bought to be a hack the engine was chosen to add fun. It failed. The car was an exercise in sensory depravation from far too much isolation and insulation from the real world. Nothing through the pedals, wheel or seat, nothing from the engine. Absolutely no point at all in paying the fuel premium for petrol over diesel.

The current thinking is to step back generations until I find a 3 series 6 pot petrol that has feel and is fun to drive. I think I'll also go manual as part of a pre planned midlife crisis.

But as always when looking at modest estate cars, the V8 C63 is always there and always tempting. If only for that bark and feel on firing up that superb engine.

Edited by DonkeyApple on Wednesday 19th October 06:52

[cerb4.5lee]

otolith said:

I know, I’ve seen the history

Nice one! I just wanted to make sure that you were in the loop with things that's all!

FWIW I think that the 35d engine offers a fantastic performance/economy mix, and I loved that about the 640d I had for sure. The engine is a good match to the ZF8 auto as well I reckon.

[cerb4.5lee]

DonkeyApple said:

As for whether the badge has 335D or 340i on it is down to personal taste, unless one opts for the manual when obviously the higher Rev range and sound of the 340 trumps over the abject pain and misery of manually changing gears on a diesel every three seconds as you work endlessly to keep a constant 1500 rpm

This brings back really bad memories of the manual E61 520d Touring that I had! You had the shortest powerband in history in that I thought. You only seemed to have a 1500-2000rpm window of performance, and it would boost up and then basically fall of a cliff with the power, so you were constantly changing gear for absolutely zero reward for me. Not a very enjoyable experience that is for sure!

I decided that an auto is definitely the way forward with diesel engines after that experience. The auto generally keeps you in the sweetspot of the engine for most of the time I reckon.

[otolith]

Wandering some way off topic here! I did seriously consider the petrol car - it wasn't quite strong enough a pull to get over the lack of choice of cars (and specs). I liked the idea of the petrol engine and was willing to swallow the higher fuel costs. I have a weak preference for having the X-drive (and don't consider the softer suspension coming with it a demerit). There were loads of diesels and hardly any petrols, and while a lot of the diesels were silver paint/black leather/few options, the very few petrol cars tended to be loaded with irrelevant glitter and overpriced as a result. It came down to a my pick from a handful of diesels at one dealer or a couple of long drives to view individual petrol cars with panoramic roofs, etc.

Back to the AMG, circuitously - my long list did have the C350e estate on it, which is a 2.0 turbo petrol automatic plug in hybrid with air suspension all round. After how unreliable my last E class was, I just couldn't face the bork potential of that. Also, it looked a bit cramped in the back and looking at it made me sad. I'm not sure a well depreciated out-of-warranty AMG 2.0 C63 has the appeal of the V8s, it sounds like a nightmare of complexity and overstressed mechanicals.

[911hope]

fwaggie said:

476bhp from a 2L engine?

So many of these are going to be going back to MB with grenaded engines, and those that don't after 2+ years are going to smoke like a smelting factory.


Also I so, so, SO want to hack into MB servers and replace the V8 engine noise with Shaun the Sheep bleeting at a frequency and speed that matches the engine revs, and volume that matches throttle position...

I have a hunch that MB may have done some reliability testing when developing the engine.

Plus, in real life these engines will output 476bhp for about 1% of their lifetime at most.

[DonkeyApple]

otolith said:

Back to the AMG, circuitously - my long list did have the C350e estate on it, which is a 2.0 turbo petrol automatic plug in hybrid with air suspension all round. After how unreliable my last E class was, I just couldn't face the bork potential of that. Also, it looked a bit cramped in the back and looking at it made me sad. I'm not sure a well depreciated out-of-warranty AMG 2.0 C63 has the appeal of the V8s, it sounds like a nightmare of complexity and overstressed mechanicals.

Yup. As someone who always buys cars with the intent of simply keeping them for more than a decade, I find myself considering many modern cars and thinking they're ticking time bombs.

This C63 has a really interesting way of using electric power and the 4 pot engine is a brilliant bit of engineering, to the point that I think it's the best petrol 4 pot on sale but for me, the older, normally aspirated C63 is the one to own, at which point I'd probably favour the normally aspirated E class with that V8.

Pretty sure Merc know their customer base better than anyone else and this car will sell just as well as previous C63s but it's not really my bag and I don't think they should have given it the C63 tag as the heritage of that number is a V8. This car ought to have its own name and the C63 put to rest.

[cerb4.5lee]

I feel like I've missed out because I've never experienced the 6.2 V8 NA engine. I love the noise they make, and I love the idea of a big 6.2 V8 in a relatively small car with the C63. I'm also a big fan of the V8 4.0 twin turbo AMG engine as well, and I'd love to experience that one day too.

Merc AMG have always known how to make a nice "emotional" engine in the past I reckon. That is what I personally really dislike about full EV's...and they seem to be about as exciting as opening your fridge door at home for me. Plus I always have a little chuckle at folk trying to plug their EV's in at service stations too. It looks like a right ball ache, and it never looks very straightforward to me(or the owners just make it look difficult anyway). Sod that for a game of soldiers.

[Julian Scott]

DonkeyApple said:

Yup. As someone who always buys cars with the intent of simply keeping them for more than a decade, I find myself considering many modern cars and thinking they're ticking time bombs.

But haven't we been saying that for 30 years now? The indy garages have just kept up.

[DonkeyApple]

Julian Scott said:

DonkeyApple said:

Yup. As someone who always buys cars with the intent of simply keeping them for more than a decade, I find myself considering many modern cars and thinking they're ticking time bombs.

But haven't we been saying that for 30 years now? The indy garages have just kept up.

For me, I don't care one iota whether anyone can fix it. That's not of any particular relevance. It is the impingement on my time. It's why I don't have a new Range Rover. I no longer live at a location where they will come and remove it and bring it back when it's working again.

More gubbins generally means I dump it sooner that I had planned. A car like this is just a utility vehicle, if you have to spend your own time taking it to the garage more often than necessary then it is no longer a utility but a parasite. Something that is part and parcel with weird and wonderful cars but not at all worth it on a generic, mass produced estate where all you've done is tick the box for the silly engine for a bit of fun.

[otolith]

Julian Scott said:

DonkeyApple said:

Yup. As someone who always buys cars with the intent of simply keeping them for more than a decade, I find myself considering many modern cars and thinking they're ticking time bombs.

But haven't we been saying that for 30 years now? The indy garages have just kept up.

Yes and no - I think we've been saying "this new technology is witchcraft, nobody will be able to work on it" forever, and of course the indy garages figure it out. ECUs and fuel injection and CAN Bus and sensors up the wazoo - and it turns out that in some ways it's simpler to fix than what went before, it's just a better way of doing something.

But then there is also an accumulation of technology which is additive rather than substitutional. The emissions controls tech we keep adding is new and something else to go wrong. Catalysts and filters and gas recirculation and for diesels additive dosing systems. Additional mechanisms for clever valve timing and lift. We added turbocharging, then clever electronically controlled turbocharging, and then in this c63 really clever electrically assisted turbocharging... Hybridising, with electric drive motor and batteries and liquid battery cooling and two speed gearbox and a 400V electrical system, combining that with a sophisticated automatic transmission and an electronically controlled LSD and then orchestrating the whole thing. Adaptive damping, active rear steer, variable steering ratio on the chassis side.

It's not so much that the tech is beyond understanding, it's just that there is an awful lot of it.

[Julian Scott]

DonkeyApple said:

Julian Scott said:

DonkeyApple said:

Yup. As someone who always buys cars with the intent of simply keeping them for more than a decade, I find myself considering many modern cars and thinking they're ticking time bombs.

But haven't we been saying that for 30 years now? The indy garages have just kept up.

For me, I don't care one iota whether anyone can fix it. That's not of any particular relevance. It is the impingement on my time. It's why I don't have a new Range Rover. I no longer live at a location where they will come and remove it and bring it back when it's working again.

More gubbins generally means I dump it sooner that I had planned. A car like this is just a utility vehicle, if you have to spend your own time taking it to the garage more often than necessary then it is no longer a utility but a parasite. Something that is part and parcel with weird and wonderful cars but not at all worth it on a generic, mass produced estate where all you've done is tick the box for the silly engine for a bit of fun.

Do you think cars are getting less reliable? Or is it just a perception.

I've had cars for 3 decades. Each decade has seen less trips to the dealer/garage outside of routine servicing, indeed, I can't think of any time in the last 10 years where my car has needed work outside of regular servicing time.

I'd go as far as to say, there is less impingement on my time as cars have gotten newer, perhaps because tech controls so much, the resolution is either automatic, or done via a 10 min connection to a laptop?

[DonkeyApple]

Julian Scott said:

DonkeyApple said:

Julian Scott said:

DonkeyApple said:

Yup. As someone who always buys cars with the intent of simply keeping them for more than a decade, I find myself considering many modern cars and thinking they're ticking time bombs.

But haven't we been saying that for 30 years now? The indy garages have just kept up.

For me, I don't care one iota whether anyone can fix it. That's not of any particular relevance. It is the impingement on my time. It's why I don't have a new Range Rover. I no longer live at a location where they will come and remove it and bring it back when it's working again.

More gubbins generally means I dump it sooner that I had planned. A car like this is just a utility vehicle, if you have to spend your own time taking it to the garage more often than necessary then it is no longer a utility but a parasite. Something that is part and parcel with weird and wonderful cars but not at all worth it on a generic, mass produced estate where all you've done is tick the box for the silly engine for a bit of fun.

Do you think cars are getting less reliable? Or is it just a perception.

I've had cars for 3 decades. Each decade has seen less trips to the dealer/garage outside of routine servicing, indeed, I can't think of any time in the last 10 years where my car has needed work outside of regular servicing time.

I'd go as far as to say, there is less impingement on my time as cars have gotten newer, perhaps because tech controls so much, the resolution is either automatic, or done via a 10 min connection to a laptop?

It obviously depends whether you're holding the vehicle up to the lifespan of the components. At which point, the more things there are to expire the more you'll be replacing them.

For example, I have a pair of 2009 diesel runabouts outside. One has done 30k miles and the other 130k. Both have been completely trouble free to date. But once the 130k Golf starts throwing up issues due to component expiry I'll just Vin it as once they start you're into that endless decline. The 30k 1 series will probably warrant a couple of fixes before that gets binned as it's still like new, other than the panels which are all battered as it's used by an Italian.

The 50 year old Rangie is all new and has very few parts to go wrong, many of which can be fixed at home should they decide to break.

I've recently sold everything else into the silly market and am waiting for the correct moment to replace. I usually have an estate car and these cars always have silly engines. Would I entertain this new C63? No. Why? Because it is loaded up with an absolutely enormous array of things that will go wrong. Not may, will. Because of the length of time that I hold cars for. It is an u deniable fact that the more gubbins the more eventual failures.

At the other end of the scale would be someone who repeatedly leases new cars. You wouldn't expect them to have any issues for the reasons you proffer.