Merc advise S,E,C,CLK, petrol or diesel ????

[Joel93]

Hi I'm in the market for a mercades I'v never had a luxury car only had sports cars or hot hatches.
I like all the models I'll be looking within £5000 budget and want less than 120k on the clock. I do 30miles a day on a mix of by passes and A roads. Running cost I want to be as cheap as possible but performance is also needed, for diesels I was thinking of remapping a 270cdi or 320cdi and petrol the 500. Any advise on the best all round model and engine weigh up the running cost and performance.

Thanks

[anonymous-user]

The 320cdi is a great engine, smooth, fairly powerful and pretty efficient. The 500 will obviously be in a different league, performance wise, but will drink petrol.

[nickboazracing]

I'd avoid any petrol if you want economy, especially any 500!
I'd go for a c220 cdi. Enough power you can get it mapped if you want and you'll still get sensible mpg. The 203 is easy to run, but do go through suspension bushes pretty quickly. Have a look on mbclub forum. Any info you can't find there, is info you don't need to know!

[gvij]

Disagree with the above advise. The 500 v8 petrol is the one to go for and is leagues ahead of any other engine petrol or diesel even the V12 600. WRT fuel you only live once so If you can afford it go for it.

The 3.2 diesel is the next best choice. Huge torque and power for what it is along with good economy
Which of the classes you go for depends on requirements ie S is luxury family saloon, CL is GT coupe, CLK is economy GT Coupe, E is mid level exex family saloon, C is low level exec family saloon.

The 200 and 220cdi are not good and feel like domestic appliances like washing machines imho but haven't driven a mapped one to be fair. Then again why not just go 320 cdi used and be done with it best of all worlds.

[crosseyedlion]

If it helps, im running an e500 in very mixed driving and frequently enjoying the acceleration (not driving for economy at all) and I get about 23-24 mpg, which is 24-25 pence per mile.

[Mr E]

The leviathan with a 5.5 litre v8 tells me it's returning low to mid twenties in normal mixed use.
Near thirty on the motorway.

Neither of us are shy of the loud pedal.

[Sheepshanks]

gvij said:

The 200 and 220cdi are not good and feel like domestic appliances like washing machines imho

I've got a late 2004 (so facelift) C270CDi. People rave about the 270 (5 cyl) engine and it is very good at what it does - effortless long distance cruising at close to 50MPG. I've had since it was 5mths old. But describing it as a "luxury" car would be stretching it quite a bit.

35MPG would be good going around town. One thing is these lumps take a lot of getting warm - there's a powerful electric block heater (which only works when moving) so you get warm air pretty quick, but the engine takes 10 miles or more to warm up, unless you put it under a lot of load. So they're not great for shortish journeys in winter.