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Even the e class can be improved
ghstudio
Member Posts: 972
I am a new Mercedes customer....I leased a 2011 e350 BlueTek and I love the car....26+ mpg around my city is just terrific...the car is a Premium 2 with some additional bells/whistles.
As much as I am enjoying the car, there are some questionable design decisions that I've found.
1) Given the average age of the drivers of Mercedes...those who are now wearing bifocals of some sort. To us, all those buttons overhead are not readable. My near reading distance is looking down, not up. I don't have a solution for this, but for a company that is so safety conscious, etc. they need to find a better way to place those buttons so they are readable.
2) The manuals are pretty much terribly hard to read. No worse than most car manuals I guess, but the e350u is not simple...and having to wade thru features I don't have or features that are on body styles I don't have is almost impossible.
3) I am somewhat shocked that if my battery dies and I have to be towed, I am in serious trouble...there appears to be no way to put the car in neutral without a functional battery. To me, this is a very serious design flaw.
4) Having read the manual, I am convinced that my car will be permanently destroyed if ever towed from a parking spot for a variety of reasons pointed out in the manual.
5) Did I really buy a car that normally might use .9 quarts (or more) of oil in 600 miles.? That is a somewhat troublesome statement that suggests that I better carry a quartor two of mobile 1 of the right grade with me at all times. Is this Mercedes quality?? I haven't owned a car in the past 10 years that ever needed a quart of oil between oil changes.
6) I am very confused about where to put my iphone 4....the cord in the center console (not the glove box) is only long enought to allow me to put the iphone IN the center console which certainly won't help reception. I would prefer to keep it in the drink holder or some place where the antenna might actually work.
So help me out in understanding these "quirks"....or add your own that I haven't yet discovered.
As much as I am enjoying the car, there are some questionable design decisions that I've found.
1) Given the average age of the drivers of Mercedes...those who are now wearing bifocals of some sort. To us, all those buttons overhead are not readable. My near reading distance is looking down, not up. I don't have a solution for this, but for a company that is so safety conscious, etc. they need to find a better way to place those buttons so they are readable.
2) The manuals are pretty much terribly hard to read. No worse than most car manuals I guess, but the e350u is not simple...and having to wade thru features I don't have or features that are on body styles I don't have is almost impossible.
3) I am somewhat shocked that if my battery dies and I have to be towed, I am in serious trouble...there appears to be no way to put the car in neutral without a functional battery. To me, this is a very serious design flaw.
4) Having read the manual, I am convinced that my car will be permanently destroyed if ever towed from a parking spot for a variety of reasons pointed out in the manual.
5) Did I really buy a car that normally might use .9 quarts (or more) of oil in 600 miles.? That is a somewhat troublesome statement that suggests that I better carry a quartor two of mobile 1 of the right grade with me at all times. Is this Mercedes quality?? I haven't owned a car in the past 10 years that ever needed a quart of oil between oil changes.
6) I am very confused about where to put my iphone 4....the cord in the center console (not the glove box) is only long enought to allow me to put the iphone IN the center console which certainly won't help reception. I would prefer to keep it in the drink holder or some place where the antenna might actually work.
So help me out in understanding these "quirks"....or add your own that I haven't yet discovered.
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7) Mercedes Benz Diesels are used worldwide as taxis that are driven heavily in cities in stop and go traffic. How is it possible that there is a warning in the manual that if I use my e 350 BlueTec in city driving, I must drive it for 20 minutes on a highway every 300 miles or I can damage the particle filter??? Is this the same Mercedes Benz?