Mercedes-Benz C-Class Final Long Term Review

  • Mar 15, 2016
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Road presence, niggles and joys and dismays of using a luxury car on an everyday basis. And some more... Read on.

Mercedes-Benz C-Class long term review

As I bid adieu to the Mercedes-Benz C-Class long term test car, the list of experiences that I got out of the few months that we had this car as a part of our long term fleet is quite a mixed bag. Of course, India and Indian people have an immense respect for the Mercedes-Benz logo and the C-Class immediately changed people’s approach to how they treated you. For example, the VIP parking at High Street Phoenix was by default available when I would drive up. But that then is the positive side of things and as with everything in the world, there is a negative.

I don’t know whether it is the Delhi registration plates on the car or the fact that the Indian mentality today is averse to any symbol of wealth and success, but driving back from our office in central Mumbai to my house in the suburbs seemed to take unusually long in the C-Class. This was mainly because of the fact that until you precariously stuck your nose out (or in this case your bumper) into slow moving traffic, not one car would let you enter the stream. And even after you made it through, half a dozen dirty looks were a standard feature. And this behavior is not only present with Mercedes-Benz cars. We have had similar experiences driving the other European luxury brands too!

Mercedes-Benz C-Class long term review rear shot

Anyways, coming back to the car, the C-Class has been faithfully delivering a comfortable and yet fun to drive experience in its few months here with the exception of a few niggles. One of the biggest problems of course was the fuel filler flap, which is inside the filler neck and needs a particular size filler stem (the thing that you put into the car at a petrol pump) to pop it open. Sadly, Indian fillers are slightly smaller which means that the flap does not open completely and hence the act of filling the car with a tank full of diesel takes a staggering half an hour as there is a very small gap for the fuel to go into the tank! Of course, once filled up, the tank would last strangely longer than expected with the C-Class actually returning 19kmpl on one trip from Mumbai to Pune and back. Naturally, we were driving extremely sedately to try and eek out the best mileage we could manage. Even with general usage, the C-Class regularly returned fuel economy figures in the early teens despite my reputation for having a very heavy right foot! 

Mercedes-Benz C-Class long term review badges

All said and done, driving a luxury car like the C-Class can end up being quite a pain in Mumbai’s legendary start-stop traffic, but when the roads are empty and when you have your favorite Johann Strauss symphony playing on the excellent infotainment system, it does feel great. We would have ideally loved to drive the C-Class a lot more than we actually got down to and now that it is gone, it is certainly one of those cars that I will miss a lot!

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