geko29

The article goes into great detail about the urea injection and SCR, and notes that the AdBlue filler port is now behind the fuel door.

I'll bet this will actually do better than the rating. I know my 335d is rated for 23/36, and before I chipped it (500+ lbft bwahaha!), I regularly got 28-29 city and 40+ highway.

SteVTEC

wow that's awesome! It's a more advanced 4-cylinder diesel than what BMW brought to the U.S. for the 3-series. That ones numbers are 180hp/280ftlbs. Won't matter if the transmission is economy minded with 369 ft-lbs of torque on tap. 45 mpg is awesome. Definitely won't be a screamer, but should still hit 0-60 in around 7s which is more than quick enough.

spwolf

so does that mean that people wouldnt think that GS300h would be too slow for USA? As GS300h gets better MPG than European E220 Bluetec.

bitkahuna

iTrader: (20)

i think a gs300h in the u.s. would be a great move!

lucasb7

Coincidentally I have been renting a E250 CDI 4Matic Touring for the last week here in Germany.

I can attest to it getting pretty remarkable gas mileage. At 120 kph steady it would return 5 l/100km on the instant readout, which is a little over 45 MPG. For a cut out of one route (Stuttgart --> Berlin) it read 7l/100km (~33mpg) with an average speed of 116 km/h. Mind you a fair amount of that time was spent either in congestion from road work or cruising between 180 and 210km/h, so pretty brisk.

You needn't worry about the transmission's programming. It does shift down in the "E" mode but it was no problem at all. All the torque meant you never had to ask for a downshift. Seriously. It would pull in 7th gear (yeah, no 9 speed here yet) from 120 all the way to the limiter with authority. In fact I found the "S" programming would keep it about a gear too low. Also, no problem with the amount of power at all. It felt like plenty.

Now for the complaints: there is turbo lag and plenty of it. Once you're moving it isn't a problem but from a start it is terrible. Obviously, calm acceleration was no problem but trying to say pull out into a busy street you'll put your foot down, wait a second and then BAM it takes off. There was also a fair amount of vibration from the engine (especially at high RPM) that I found unbecoming of a luxury car. The chassis on the other hand was great. Super, super stiff chassis and very well turned suspension spring rate/damping. (Power steering was a different story... needless to say the 3GS is worlds better, which isn't saying much).

Oh and the super duper adaptive LED headlights were awesome. They would box out the car you were following leaving high beams everywhere else - I need them. It's self parking feature is WAY easier than the LS's too. Just drive by a spot, it puts an arrow saying you'll fit, then throw it in reverse, click okay and it does the rest!

Here's a pic of it in the German/Austrian alps!

TangoRed

To answer your question, it's because of the way emission standards are set up. The U.S. has stricter rules regarding NOx, while Europe focuses on CO2 emissions. The CDI's meet the total CO2 emissions standards, allowing them to keep producing non-urea models. That being said, Europe is tightening their standards every few years, so I'd imagine eventually it will require NOx levels to be down to a level similar to what's allowed in the U.S.

spwolf

Standard E250 CDI is 15% thirstier than this just announced Bluetec model... so quite likely, they will behave differently. Probably longer gearing, tires, etc, etc.

Blackraven

@lucasb7

Wow, the station wagon/estate bodystyle definitely looks more appropriate for the E class.

spwolf

Mercedes Wagons are usually looking like "worker" models... unlike BMW and Audi, which are designer... so they are bit ungainly, with ugly back.

Blackraven

Hehe

What I really meant though was that the wagon usually looks better than the sedan.



The rear sedan is okay........but nothing fantastic. Just a passing grade/mark

Also, it seems that the Coupe (2-door version) looks slightly better as well

spwolf

i hate wagons, so for me now:



but as I said before, while it looks ungainly from the profile, it is really useful. It is only truly useful premium wagon in Europe (MB ones).

Blackraven

Yup premium wagons definitely look nice.