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KONTAK PERKASA FUTURES - What you see with the
2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 4Matic coupe is clear, crystalline, even. It’s
elegantly beautiful with a long, smooth fastback roofline. Every detail
is made to extremely high standards, and the fit of every part, inside
the cabin and on the exterior, is flawless. The seats are handsome and
comfortable, its twin-turbo V-6 engine with 329 horsepower and
nine-speed automatic gearbox work with panache and precision. So
naturally, you expect a typical Mercedes melding of hardware and
software, a perfect execution of the driving dynamics. But it’s not
quite there.
Instead, numerous driving aids, digital gadgets, and
not-quite-finished software conspire to make this very good-looking and
extremely well-made car surprisingly disappointing — for a Mercedes,
that is. Many other companies would be delighted if they could attain
half the qualities the E400 displays. But we expect any product from
Stuttgart to be completely ready for regular use without cavil and this
one doesn’t measure up. We suspect Mercedes knows that as they chose to
present the car on Spanish roads so smooth, perfectly maintained, and
free of any surface corruption that it was impossible to judge its ride
qualities precisely.
All cars on test by Americans were equipped
with Benz’s optional, well-proven 4Matic all-wheel drive system. While
both standard steel-spring chassis and cars fitted with the optional Air
Body Control pneumatic suspension were on hand, differences between
them were all-but-imperceptible on the splendid roads around gloriously
sunny Barcelona. Driving in such conditions should have been an
unalloyed pleasure, but the imperfect driver’s aid systems tended to
temper our end-of-winter good humor.
The
Mercedes dynamic select system allows the choice of five settings:
Comfort, ECO, Sport, Sport +, and Individual, in which a driver can
adjust throttle response, the start/stop function, and the way the
steering responds to various dynamic inputs. Steering wheel position,
rate of movement, chassis side-loading, and rate of
acceleration/deceleration (and perhaps the phase of the moon?) are taken
into account by the software, which then integrates the sensor inputs.
But not perfectly so at times, as the force feedback at the rim varies
enough that the driver often senses unpredictable variability under
cornering and other maneuvers.
There are shift paddles for the
9G-Tronic transmission, but the Mercedes-built unit is so perfectly
adapted that there really isn’t much point to using them. Just as there
isn’t much point in burdening this excellent and very comfortable grand
touring car with a wide variety of inappropriate sports-oriented
features that are clearly antithetical to its true purpose, which is
surely long-distance travel in great comfort.
Bigger in every
dimension than its predecessor, the 2018 E-Class coupe is genuinely
tailored for four full-size adults. The rear seats are spacious and
headroom is adequate for adults up to six feet or so, although
passengers with very long legs might not find the rear compartment a
place they’d choose to be for a day-long journey. It is probably useful
to think of the E400 as an affordable S-Class coupe rather than as a
true sports model, a role more likely assigned to AMG derivatives.
An
example of good idea technology that’s not quite up to Mercedes
standards is its Magic Vision Control windshield wipers. The arms are
pierced with multiple outlets for washer fluid, flooding the glass with
liquid just ahead of the wiping blade on the upsweep and pushing the
fluid into the well at the back of the hood on the back stroke, leaving
the glass clean and dry. Except when we tried it, there was a patch of
droplets in the middle of the windshield. Will they get it right? Of
course. In the meantime, it’s just more fancy gadgetry that doesn’t
quite work as well as claimed.
Or, as in the case with the front
seats, does work as intended, but only after an excruciating fuss with
multiple controls requiring both hands. The driver’s left on Mercedes’
brilliantly conceived door-mounted analog model of the seats themselves
adjusts height, reach, and backrest angle. But to handle the heaters,
adjust the lumbar supports up-and-down and in-and-out, or activate the
massage function, the right hand must be on the console-mounted COMAND
controller for the infotainment screen. It’s the perfect example of too
much of a good thing.
We found it hard to determine whether the optional Drive Pilot is a
good thing or not. Its Distronic function allows the car to follow
another at a fixed distance, right up to the electronically limited
U.S.-market 130 mph top speed. The Steering Pilot function, activated by
a double-pull on a column-mounted switch, allows the car to steer
itself up to that same speed in ideal conditions (i.e., well-marked lane
limits for the sensors to “see”) or up to 81 mph if the marking is
unclear or non-existent. There’s an active lane-change assist
camera-and-radar-based system that will steer the car into an empty lane
by itself after two seconds of turn-signal operation. All this is aimed
toward an eventual autonomous operating mode, but it is more than a
little disconcerting to have the car make moves that you intended to do
yourself. On the road, the car feels good, but it also feels heavier
than it actually is, although it’s far from a lightweight. Agility is
not part of its repertoire.
We
found the exterior styling to be very good except for the painted patch
of roof that starts behind the C-pillar, sticking out visually like an
air brake. We would pay extra to have it painted black like the forward
portion of the roof for a more harmonious line. There is a little
outward blip at the bottom front of the front wheel opening that was
made to align with a similar outward change along the sills. It
subliminally suggests that the car is so heavy that the body has
squeezed out at the bottom. The almost-invisible break in the rear side
glass, required so the forward section behind the door can be lowed into
the body side, is slightly awkward, but there’s no practical way around
it.
The interior is a mix of very good design and clumsy German
kitsch. It is apparent from the press material that the six
radial-bladed round AC outlets on the instrument panel are thought to be
especially stylish, but they look all too much like kitchen sink
drains. They are set into a well-organized panel that can be of many
finishes, from wood to metal to carbon fiber (or its simulacrum), but
they’re just over the top. Although not quite as much as the starter
button surround, which has its blades in a spiral pattern.
Make no
mistake. The 2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 coupe is a very, very good car,
but until all the gadgetry is fused into a traditional Mercedes aura of
faultless superiority, it’s not a great one.
2018 Mercedes-Benz E400 4MATIC Coupe Specifications |
|
| ON SALE | Summer 2017 |
| PRICE | $58,000 (base) |
| ENGINE | 3.0L twin-turbo DOHC 24-valve V-6/329 hp @ 5,250-6,000 rpm, 354 lb-ft @ 3,500-5,250 rpm |
| TRANSMISSION | 9-speed automatic |
| LAYOUT | 2-door, 4-passenger, front-engine, AWD coupe |
| EPA MILEAGE | 20/28 mpg (city/hwy) |
| L x W x H | 190.0 x 73.2 x 56.3 in |
| WHEELBASE | 113.1 in |
| WEIGHT | 4,057 lb |
| 0-60 MPH | 5.2 sec |
| TOP SPEED | 130 mph |
Source : automobilemag.com