Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate E300de 2019 long-term review From £35,205

[Bandolero -]

Life with an E-Class Estate: Month 3

 

A toasty behind should be my choice - 8th January 2019

 

The best bum warmers I’ve encountered were in a Bentley Continental GTC. Those in the Benz are pretty good but sometimes stop working after a while. I’ve had this on other Mercs too. It’s almost like they decide to shut down to prevent excessive irradiation of the nether regions. If so, I think that should be my choice, not theirs.

Milege: 9651

 

 

Last time I wrote about the 300de, I promised the next report would be about anything other than the hybrid system. Which is going to be really difficult because, for reasons both good and bad, it affects everything from handling and ride through to performance and economy. And purchase price, running costs and practicality. But a promise is a promise, and so long as you don’t conclude that me explaining why I am not going to write about the hybrid system is in fact just a slightly cute way of writing about the hybrid system, it’s a promise I’m going to keep. I hope.

So here goes. The miles are piling onto the 300de, largely because it seems perfectly suited to both types of journey that characterise my life on the road. There’s the 20-mile school run round trip for one daughter, for which it’s perfectly suited because it can do it all very cheaply and in complete silence for reasons I’m not allowed to talk about. And then there’s the 500-mile return trip to Durham, where the other daughter is at university.

Or the 1000-mile round trip to Spa-Francorchamps, where, as regulars may recall, a few family members (actual and honorary) and I try to coax an old Ford Falcon into surviving the Spa Six Hours, far and away the best and best-known long-distance classic race of them all. We also always go to the little Friterie in the middle of the Masta kink on the old circuit, possibly the most terrifying corner in all motorsport.

 

We almost always fail to finish the race and usually do so in spectacular style. I crashed it one year, had a wheel fall off in another, grenaded an engine in a third and so on and on. A couple of years ago, Chris Harris brought it in with the back of the car impressively ablaze. But this was perhaps our most disappointing year: with just 20 minutes of the six hours remaining, and the old bus going better and running higher up the field than ever before, a wire came off the back of the alternator, forcing the car to coast to a gentle halt somewhere out on the circuit. We always say that if you’re going to retire from a race, at least do it with a little chutzpah by exploding or something, but if ever there was going out with a whimper rather than a roar, this was it.

So it was with a sense of overwhelming anticlimax and perhaps with the smallest of hangovers that the next day I loaded up the Benz and headed for home.

And on such journeys, it is outstanding. The air-sprung ride is terrific, the refinement beyond serious criticism and the seats among the best in the business. But it’s not perfect. Why, for instance, do you have to turn off the navigation prompts after every stop, however short? Why can’t it just accept I hate being talked at by a computer? And why do the seat heaters turn themselves down after a while? Also, I think I’d spend some money getting a better sound system, the existing stereo being the absolute definition of ‘adequate’.

 

Other than that, all is well. I’d like to tell you how cold weather affects the electric range, but that would be talking about the hybrid system, so it will have to wait until next time.

Love it:

Long-haul comfort The effortless ease with which it’ll transport you great distances and the splendid seats which ensure you remain pain-free throughout.

Loathe it:

It keeps piping up Having to silence the voice guidance after every stop, even if it’s just to refuel. Rivals can be set to permanently off. Why not this one?

 

Mileage: 7889

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Life with an E-Class Estate: Month 2
Long-distance touring a speciality - 27th November 2019

There are many cars that could have done the five-hour journey home from Britain’s Best Driver’s Car 2019 as well as the Benz but, I expect, very few that would have been significantly better. After all that insanity, when you climb aboard it’s as if you can feel your blood pressure subsiding. And cars that can do that are both rare and special.

Mileage: 7117