Mercedes-Benz 2012 C250 Coupe Review
01-06-12, 02:27 PM
#1
Mercedes-Benz 2012 C250 Coupe Review
A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to receive a brand new 2012 C Class coupe from Mercedes to test drive for a week. During that week I was able to drive the car under different conditions and think it’s a very interesting car compared to the C sedan, BMW 3, and Lexus IS. Of course, granted it’s a relatively basic C250 coupe it doesn’t carry a lot of power, but I think it’s fair to look at the car for what it is and how it stands its ground against competitors.
Taking Out Two Doors the Right Way
Designing a coupe (on a lineup that’s sedan based) doesn’t seem to be as trivial as it seems. BMW always seems to get it right. Every generation they crank out both the sedan and coupe versions of the car and they all look smooth and sexy. They always have a very strong coupe line and that’s shown clearly in their strong sales.
For Lexus, their first attempt on the IS coupe (IS-C convertible) honestly haven’t been that impressive. It looks like a few Lego pieces put together, breaking the flow and just doesn’t look right. Same with Mercedes on the W203, the C230 Kompressor wasn’t very well received and it never got much traction.
Finally come the W204, Mercedes decide to push out the coupe version again, and they most definitely did their homework. The car carries a lot of the sedan DNA, but the missing 2 doors don’t affect the flow of the car, it still looks very proportional and slick. It catches your eyes right the way. The car also seems to have a wider and lower stance overall, especially when you look from the back, giving it an even more aggressive look.
The 2012 C coupe comes standard with the sport package around the car and I think that looks great. The newly designed headlights flows better on the coupe than the sedan probably because of the slicker hood and roof lines. And of course, with the now signature LED DRL on the bumper, it adds the modern and aggressive touches to the car. The rear roof line looks good, some people don’t like the way it slopes down but I think it has more to do with creating more rear cabin space.
Fitting You In
The doors on the C coupe are very solid and heavy, definitely need to watch out when opening and closing, but the solid feeling when closing the door is never something to forget about in driving a Mercedes.
The very first thing that catches my eyes is the gorgeous sport seats. They are so beautifully designed and executed, immediately give it a very sporty high end feel. The seats are quite comfortable too for what they are. After driving a few hours on long trip we did feel the stiffness due to the nature of the seats, but overall I give them very high grades.
The C250 I had was very basic so there was no navigation system, instead it’s just a small display screen showing radio / phone information. But the overall dash / console layout is very elegant, far better than the pre-facelift layout. The dash center cluster also has a high resolution LCD display that you can easily toggle between different menu screens using buttons on the steering wheel. For what it’s worth, the graphics and details on that are far better than that on my S550!
The steering wheel is a bit on the thin side for me but it does have good ergonomic touches right around the 3 and 9 o’clock position. It also has a flat bottom, so the first few times you do hard lock turns you will run into a funny feeling.
Even though this is a coupe, the cabin space inside is simply impressive, more than that of the 3 series and far more than the IS. The seats can go pretty low giving tons of head and shoulder room. The rear cabin has a 2-seat configuration, but it’s also very spacious! We were able to fit the baby car seat either front or rear facing no problem, with my wife still able to sit in the front with space to spare. That is impressive! The rear seats are also at an angle so you won’t feel cramped or “upright” sitting back there. We traveled 3+ hours in the car to Vegas and we all felt very comfortable.
The trunk size is also very respectable for a coupe. On paper it says only 11.7cu, but it’s the shape (very rectangular) that makes it useful. We were able to pack a lot of baby stuff in there without breaking a sweat.
Another few things I noticed about the front seats. The passenger side is a “hybrid” powered seats. The seat back is powered so you can recline easily, however the seat bottom is controlled through a manual lever. I found that quite surprising. I assume it’s a cost issue, but I would still expect it to be fully powered.
I love the part about pulling the front seat forward to gain access to the rear seats. There is no “latch”, so you simply pull it forward and the seat back will stay that way. On my M3, you have to throw it with some force to latch it, otherwise it will fall right back. And it’s not the best feeling when that heavy seat back falls on your head, trust me…
Powering It Through
There were quite a few things I noticed about driving the car. The car definitely feels underpowered and slower than the C300 (sedan). For daily normal driving it’s probably sufficient, but it does get a bit frustrating when you try to pick up on speed.
And I blame this on the slow transmission response time. In more than a few occasions, I had to switch lanes and immediately picked up on speed. I literally floored the car but it took a good second or two before the transmission down shifted (yeah, I was honked at…). It definitely takes some getting used to so you know how to “prepare”, but that’s not something I was able to adjust to after 1 week of driving.
The car actually handles pretty good for a base model. It doesn’t have the front heavy feeling that most Mercedes have, and I didn’t get a lot of understeer feeling when tossing it around. Whereas the C300 sedan I drove for a while, I felt more understeer and harder to turn (by comparison).
The biggest problem though, is blind spot. The b-pillar is so thick that literally the whole blind spot is blocked. Turning my head around and I simply saw nothing but b-pillar, I had to move my head position back and forth instead. That’s definitely something to be improved on.
The car rides pretty smooth and quiet overall, I have no complaints and I heard nothing from my wife during the 3 hour long trip. The steering is a bit disappointing, I expect it to be tighter especially since this is a coupe. At freeway speed I feel it’s a bit loose compared to BMW 328i.
Another pet peeve I have on the car is what I call the “60-70mph power struggle”. At thosecommon freeway speed, if you want to pick up on speed ever so slightly, the car will down shift. So I found the car shifting very often on my way back and forth to work, which was a bit annoying. Interesting enough, bringing the car up to 75-80mph and that’s the sweet spot. No more down shift, more reasonable power on pick up, and it was a very enjoyable ride.
While lacking on the power, gas mileage makes up for this car to be a great daily commuter. With mix driving I got about 26mpg, and one day I was stuck in stop and go traffic for 2+ hours, I got 21mpg. Given the cars I have been driving those numbers are unheard of! And on our trip to Vegas, we were averaging over 30mpg, that was incredible! The car has a big 17.4 gallon gas tank, giving a driving range north of 500 miles which is very impressive.
Hitting the Details
All C coupes come with panorama roof (glass roof) giving the car that much more cool factor. Operation is very straight forward and my daughter definitely loved staring at the open sky. While closed, there is a perforated screen that you can close. While it works most of the time, if you have a direct sun up top some light can still penetrate through. When the sunroof is open, the front wind deflector is a new design, which doesn’t create as much noise at high speed.
Bluetooth pairing has been improved (compared to my 2007 S550 at least) and it’s a very straight forward 10 second job. Not to mention with the new Bluetooth music streaming, I was able to stream songs from my iPhone very easily and sound quality was pretty good too!!!!
Most people probably won’t notice about this but I think Mercedes put in some good thoughts on the baby car seat latching system. For the bottom secure points, there is a very nice cover which you remove to latch the system. This is important because I notice that on other cars where you simply jam the latches on through the gap between leather pieces, over time it will deform the leather and affect the look when the car seats are removed.
Conclusion
Here’s what I think about the car. The C class audience is mainly younger owners, so emotion and hype are more important. I think Mercedes does a pretty good job in that aspect to create a car that’s “cool” and “exciting”. The panorama roof, the sport seats, standard sport package, iPod connection / Bluetooth streaming, those are all cool features that easily catch attention of younger crowds.
And of course, the fact that the C coupe looks this stylish and smooth helps a lot in boosting the image of the lineup as well. It gives up some of the practicality (cabin space and convenience), but again for the target audience, cool factor comes first.
Yes, performance might not be the focus here, but the C250 does come with impressive gas mileage to make it a good commuter. For those who wants the power, there is still the C350 or even the C63 (if not, go all the way to the C63 Black Series!!). That gives customers a good range of models to choose from.
Bottom line is, the C coupe opens up the door for Mercedes to better compete with BMW. I am not saying it will take over the 3 coupe (in fact I don’t think so), but I think this is the closest Mercedes (or any competitors) have come so far and it’s a great start. Having the C250 helps on the pricing and provides more choices for customers, potentially attracting more sales.
Looking forward, even more importantly is how Mercedes will continue the trend and create new successors down the road. That’s what Mercedes and other competitors need to do in order to make this an even more interesting market.
Taking Out Two Doors the Right Way
Designing a coupe (on a lineup that’s sedan based) doesn’t seem to be as trivial as it seems. BMW always seems to get it right. Every generation they crank out both the sedan and coupe versions of the car and they all look smooth and sexy. They always have a very strong coupe line and that’s shown clearly in their strong sales.
For Lexus, their first attempt on the IS coupe (IS-C convertible) honestly haven’t been that impressive. It looks like a few Lego pieces put together, breaking the flow and just doesn’t look right. Same with Mercedes on the W203, the C230 Kompressor wasn’t very well received and it never got much traction.
Finally come the W204, Mercedes decide to push out the coupe version again, and they most definitely did their homework. The car carries a lot of the sedan DNA, but the missing 2 doors don’t affect the flow of the car, it still looks very proportional and slick. It catches your eyes right the way. The car also seems to have a wider and lower stance overall, especially when you look from the back, giving it an even more aggressive look.
The 2012 C coupe comes standard with the sport package around the car and I think that looks great. The newly designed headlights flows better on the coupe than the sedan probably because of the slicker hood and roof lines. And of course, with the now signature LED DRL on the bumper, it adds the modern and aggressive touches to the car. The rear roof line looks good, some people don’t like the way it slopes down but I think it has more to do with creating more rear cabin space.
Fitting You In
The doors on the C coupe are very solid and heavy, definitely need to watch out when opening and closing, but the solid feeling when closing the door is never something to forget about in driving a Mercedes.
The very first thing that catches my eyes is the gorgeous sport seats. They are so beautifully designed and executed, immediately give it a very sporty high end feel. The seats are quite comfortable too for what they are. After driving a few hours on long trip we did feel the stiffness due to the nature of the seats, but overall I give them very high grades.
The C250 I had was very basic so there was no navigation system, instead it’s just a small display screen showing radio / phone information. But the overall dash / console layout is very elegant, far better than the pre-facelift layout. The dash center cluster also has a high resolution LCD display that you can easily toggle between different menu screens using buttons on the steering wheel. For what it’s worth, the graphics and details on that are far better than that on my S550!
The steering wheel is a bit on the thin side for me but it does have good ergonomic touches right around the 3 and 9 o’clock position. It also has a flat bottom, so the first few times you do hard lock turns you will run into a funny feeling.
Even though this is a coupe, the cabin space inside is simply impressive, more than that of the 3 series and far more than the IS. The seats can go pretty low giving tons of head and shoulder room. The rear cabin has a 2-seat configuration, but it’s also very spacious! We were able to fit the baby car seat either front or rear facing no problem, with my wife still able to sit in the front with space to spare. That is impressive! The rear seats are also at an angle so you won’t feel cramped or “upright” sitting back there. We traveled 3+ hours in the car to Vegas and we all felt very comfortable.
The trunk size is also very respectable for a coupe. On paper it says only 11.7cu, but it’s the shape (very rectangular) that makes it useful. We were able to pack a lot of baby stuff in there without breaking a sweat.
Another few things I noticed about the front seats. The passenger side is a “hybrid” powered seats. The seat back is powered so you can recline easily, however the seat bottom is controlled through a manual lever. I found that quite surprising. I assume it’s a cost issue, but I would still expect it to be fully powered.
I love the part about pulling the front seat forward to gain access to the rear seats. There is no “latch”, so you simply pull it forward and the seat back will stay that way. On my M3, you have to throw it with some force to latch it, otherwise it will fall right back. And it’s not the best feeling when that heavy seat back falls on your head, trust me…
Powering It Through
There were quite a few things I noticed about driving the car. The car definitely feels underpowered and slower than the C300 (sedan). For daily normal driving it’s probably sufficient, but it does get a bit frustrating when you try to pick up on speed.
And I blame this on the slow transmission response time. In more than a few occasions, I had to switch lanes and immediately picked up on speed. I literally floored the car but it took a good second or two before the transmission down shifted (yeah, I was honked at…). It definitely takes some getting used to so you know how to “prepare”, but that’s not something I was able to adjust to after 1 week of driving.
The car actually handles pretty good for a base model. It doesn’t have the front heavy feeling that most Mercedes have, and I didn’t get a lot of understeer feeling when tossing it around. Whereas the C300 sedan I drove for a while, I felt more understeer and harder to turn (by comparison).
The biggest problem though, is blind spot. The b-pillar is so thick that literally the whole blind spot is blocked. Turning my head around and I simply saw nothing but b-pillar, I had to move my head position back and forth instead. That’s definitely something to be improved on.
The car rides pretty smooth and quiet overall, I have no complaints and I heard nothing from my wife during the 3 hour long trip. The steering is a bit disappointing, I expect it to be tighter especially since this is a coupe. At freeway speed I feel it’s a bit loose compared to BMW 328i.
Another pet peeve I have on the car is what I call the “60-70mph power struggle”. At thosecommon freeway speed, if you want to pick up on speed ever so slightly, the car will down shift. So I found the car shifting very often on my way back and forth to work, which was a bit annoying. Interesting enough, bringing the car up to 75-80mph and that’s the sweet spot. No more down shift, more reasonable power on pick up, and it was a very enjoyable ride.
While lacking on the power, gas mileage makes up for this car to be a great daily commuter. With mix driving I got about 26mpg, and one day I was stuck in stop and go traffic for 2+ hours, I got 21mpg. Given the cars I have been driving those numbers are unheard of! And on our trip to Vegas, we were averaging over 30mpg, that was incredible! The car has a big 17.4 gallon gas tank, giving a driving range north of 500 miles which is very impressive.
Hitting the Details
All C coupes come with panorama roof (glass roof) giving the car that much more cool factor. Operation is very straight forward and my daughter definitely loved staring at the open sky. While closed, there is a perforated screen that you can close. While it works most of the time, if you have a direct sun up top some light can still penetrate through. When the sunroof is open, the front wind deflector is a new design, which doesn’t create as much noise at high speed.
Bluetooth pairing has been improved (compared to my 2007 S550 at least) and it’s a very straight forward 10 second job. Not to mention with the new Bluetooth music streaming, I was able to stream songs from my iPhone very easily and sound quality was pretty good too!!!!
Most people probably won’t notice about this but I think Mercedes put in some good thoughts on the baby car seat latching system. For the bottom secure points, there is a very nice cover which you remove to latch the system. This is important because I notice that on other cars where you simply jam the latches on through the gap between leather pieces, over time it will deform the leather and affect the look when the car seats are removed.
Conclusion
Here’s what I think about the car. The C class audience is mainly younger owners, so emotion and hype are more important. I think Mercedes does a pretty good job in that aspect to create a car that’s “cool” and “exciting”. The panorama roof, the sport seats, standard sport package, iPod connection / Bluetooth streaming, those are all cool features that easily catch attention of younger crowds.
And of course, the fact that the C coupe looks this stylish and smooth helps a lot in boosting the image of the lineup as well. It gives up some of the practicality (cabin space and convenience), but again for the target audience, cool factor comes first.
Yes, performance might not be the focus here, but the C250 does come with impressive gas mileage to make it a good commuter. For those who wants the power, there is still the C350 or even the C63 (if not, go all the way to the C63 Black Series!!). That gives customers a good range of models to choose from.
Bottom line is, the C coupe opens up the door for Mercedes to better compete with BMW. I am not saying it will take over the 3 coupe (in fact I don’t think so), but I think this is the closest Mercedes (or any competitors) have come so far and it’s a great start. Having the C250 helps on the pricing and provides more choices for customers, potentially attracting more sales.
Looking forward, even more importantly is how Mercedes will continue the trend and create new successors down the road. That’s what Mercedes and other competitors need to do in order to make this an even more interesting market.
01-06-12, 02:50 PM
#2
Lexus Test Driver
Part of the reason the door feels heavier is because it's huge! Much larger than the sedan door. If you park the Coupe next to the Sedan you'd be surprised to find that they're the same length! That's why it's such a spacious coupe. I agree with your viewpoints on the I4, but the rest of the car overall is really nice and a HUGE step forward from the C-Coupe hatchback from the W203.
01-06-12, 03:46 PM
#5
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Part of the reason the door feels heavier is because it's huge! Much larger than the sedan door. If you park the Coupe next to the Sedan you'd be surprised to find that they're the same length! That's why it's such a spacious coupe. I agree with your viewpoints on the I4, but the rest of the car overall is really nice and a HUGE step forward from the C-Coupe hatchback from the W203.
01-06-12, 03:55 PM
#6
Part of the reason the door feels heavier is because it's huge! Much larger than the sedan door. If you park the Coupe next to the Sedan you'd be surprised to find that they're the same length! That's why it's such a spacious coupe. I agree with your viewpoints on the I4, but the rest of the car overall is really nice and a HUGE step forward from the C-Coupe hatchback from the W203.
definitely tremendous step up from the w203, that car was totally off no matter how you look at it. this time they design the car right
yeah, given that we were driving it to vegas, definitely happy to see the gas mileage. if we drove the s550... haha....
yup, definitely agreeing with that. the sedan doors are lighter but still got the solid feeling. i am really loving that
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01-07-12, 09:25 AM
#9
While lacking on the power, gas mileage makes up for this car to be a great daily commuter. With mix driving I got about 26mpg, and one day I was stuck in stop and go traffic for 2+ hours, I got 21mpg. Given the cars I have been driving those numbers are unheard of! And on our trip to Vegas, we were averaging over 30mpg, that was incredible! The car has a big 17.4 gallon gas tank, giving a driving range north of 500 miles which is very impressive.
01-07-12, 09:41 AM
#10
Lexus Fanatic
Thanks, Henry....nice review. 
How did you manage to get it for a whole week?
Was this a loaner-car while your 2007 was in the shop?
I hope you can actually understand what you can hear over it, because that would be more than I can say for some other Bluetooth systems. When my brother calls me over his Bluetooth, for example (a hands-off system), I sometimes have to get back to him because the voice-quality is so fuzzy and indistinct.
How did you manage to get it for a whole week?
(compared to my 2007 S550 at least)
Bluetooth pairing has been improved
Last edited by mmarshall; 01-07-12 at 09:47 AM.
01-07-12, 12:51 PM
#15
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Great review henry, I agree with a lot of the points. Except that I think the rear window C pillar is a bit awkward...and they should have made this coupe pillarless as well.
What tires did the C come with? MB usually like to stick these contis on their cars and I am one who complains about them. When the contis are done in my C, I will go with the Michelins. They are a bit noisy and also keep getting bulges in the sides
I agree about the new interior, is a monumental step up. The rear LED lights are a nice touch as well. We already know it is possible to put them on the prefacelift C but it requires the STAR system to activate the rear fog lights correctly.
I agree that the instrument panel display is gorgeous.
Regarding the transmission, were you in C (comfort) mode? I know that after 2010, mercedes made the default transmission programming on C and you have to push the button to get it in S (sport) mode where as my 2009 remembers which mode you left it in. Unlike in Lexus models, that transmission button actually makes a huge difference. I also recently cleared my transmission ECU using some sort of secret pedal sequence and now when I stomp on the gas, it goes where as in the past, it had to think about it. I am wondering how many miles were in the car prior to you getting it? Usually the 7 speed transmission is a delight
also a random point. MB tex now gets contrast stitching which is a nice touch!
What tires did the C come with? MB usually like to stick these contis on their cars and I am one who complains about them. When the contis are done in my C, I will go with the Michelins. They are a bit noisy and also keep getting bulges in the sides
I agree about the new interior, is a monumental step up. The rear LED lights are a nice touch as well. We already know it is possible to put them on the prefacelift C but it requires the STAR system to activate the rear fog lights correctly.
I agree that the instrument panel display is gorgeous.
Regarding the transmission, were you in C (comfort) mode? I know that after 2010, mercedes made the default transmission programming on C and you have to push the button to get it in S (sport) mode where as my 2009 remembers which mode you left it in. Unlike in Lexus models, that transmission button actually makes a huge difference. I also recently cleared my transmission ECU using some sort of secret pedal sequence and now when I stomp on the gas, it goes where as in the past, it had to think about it. I am wondering how many miles were in the car prior to you getting it? Usually the 7 speed transmission is a delight
also a random point. MB tex now gets contrast stitching which is a nice touch!