I am somewhat new to this forum, so please excuse if this may be a bit wordy. I recently traded up from a 2005 Acura TL to a2009 C300 and would like to get other owners impression of the same vehicle. I pretty much got all the bells and gadgets with this car. My main reason for purchasing this vehicle was that my commute to work is about 1 - 1 1/2 hours each way. My Acura TL was a stick vehicle and working the clutch for about 45 minutes of my commute was a bit tiring. Plus my wife could never get the hang of driving stick and refused after about a year of trying. I got the 4matic due to I live in Minnesotaand for a little bit more safety assurance with a 4 year old child. I just wanted to share my experiences to date and maybe get some feedback from others on if they feel the same on some PROS and CONS.

PROS
1. The ride, even on rough surfaces, is pretty comfortable for a low riding car.
2. The HK stereo system is excellent and has some good deep bass, when needed.
3. The 7-speed plays in very nice on keeping the RPM's down during highway driving at 80 Mph. Everyone will like this as the gas prices, even at $2.97 Gal, will help with some fuel economy.


CONS
1.Alot of the time when I get in the car I hit the emergency brake foot lever and get a warning after I begin my drive. I have to reach down and pull the lever to clear the warning. Would be nice to have them think about the more common method, near the center armrest area.
2.MAD that the navigation unit does not incorporate the real time traffic mode. Was told this by the dealer and noted on the Sirius website that is what not able to handle this function. Guess they can show you the real deal when they buy the car as it would require activation. 3. With the 7-speed auto tranny the usual kickdown when needed to pass someone turns into a high rev game. The gas pedal does not know to what level the tranny needs to change in order to meet our needs. The result is a two to three gear change at about 60 Mph from the 7th gear position. Some auto's you can feel the threshold on when the change will occur, I haven't been to sucessful on this car. I feel the same during normal city traffic as well............
3. Most people place their single child (bootser or Toddler) in the centerof the vehicle for safety reasons. This leads to the anchor points of the car seat overlapping the acnhor points of the child car seat. This makes it difficult when a toddler seat is now added as you must bring the center seatbelt under the anchor point. Difficult do due under a normal condition and makes me wonder how this would be under duress.

I figuered I would put three for three out how and test he waters. Please respond on what people feel that own this model and others who may add some additional value. Thanks for reading...Shane

 

I am glad you posted the honest comments. I am considering buying a 2009 C300 soon. Right now the main thing that bothers me is that the price increased nearly 20% within the last two years, no doubt due to the drop of the American dollar value. I am not interested in getting another CLK this time; the cars are fantastic but I want to be more down to earth.

 

I saw a C300 today when I went to the post office. You have to go to the post office in Georgia because mail theft is most likely if you use your mail box. I saw the car ANd I thought "YUCK, that's ugly". Can that be the same car I was test driving. Second thoughts again.

 

Ya know Blue thats the same way I thought about the new C's since day one. I test drove the C300 Luxury edition and I hated it. Uncomfterable seats, cheap looking interior and choppy ride and I too thought it was kinda ugly.(same as thewhat I think about the W202) But then I got into a C350 and eveything changed. The look grew on me, The interior just needs armoral and just set up the seats a different way. I actually kinda enjoyed it. But $40,000 I would buy another E Class hands down.

 

Hi guys. The C300 in the add at the right looks good to me, but the set-up I saw at the post office emphasized what I call a discordant design. It is a defiant break from classicallines, and I think it presents a risk whether I will "learn" to like it or not.From the most critical perspective, I still have issues with the front end looking like the parts came from different non-related cars, and the rear learning forward. I was quite pleased with the interior layout and functionality especially the panorama roof. Like I tell the poor salesmen, I never have buyer's remorse or cognitive dissonance because I work it out before I purchase the vehicle. But I never had a second doubt about my CLK, the 300CE, or the 190E, and that's what bothers me about the C300. To me the 2000CLK is a perfect design; I dropped the cash and never regretted it.
I am looking at the pictures in the brochure and loving the car. There is no way that the car I saw in the parking lot was a C300; maybe someone put a C300 grille and badge on a Camry.

 

I apologize if I seem highly critical; it comes from my line of work, and it is how products are scrutinized and improved. But In my case I get one shot every ten years for a new car, so it has to be just right.

Currently, I feel like MB has orphaned old-school preferences such as the simple manual tranny. Thank goodness the sport model has a manual. When I first bought my CLK, they said that the auto tranny was specifically designed for durabilty to ease my dread of tranny repairs, and so far in 200K miles, it has had 0 problems. But I still do not trust auto transmissions, no matter how new they are; they are too complicated to be practical in my opinion, and when they snap there is no limping home.

Sitting in the dealer waiting room for me is like being in the hospital waiting room. I can't relax and watch a ball game like the other customers. I am usually a nervous wreck no matter how many doughnuts I eat. Then when the service advisor comes at out and says, "I'm sorry sir. It's a serious transmission problem." And then I fall to my knees and cry "NOoo, NOoo, WHY? OH WHY? OHhh...."or this is how I imagine it, even though I have never had a Mercedes transmission problem.

Back to the C300 sport. I will probably visit the dealer again today. I have made a few firm decisions about the car, exterior color still being unresolved.

 

I have driven the 2009 C300 for going on a month now and am becoming a little more settled into it and how things operate. One thing is getting use to that the steering wheel left control pad can do alot of the functions as the normal center dash layout. You just have to get use to looking at the speedometer display on what functions and information is being displayed and not wanting to look at the center dash area. Dropping my eyes down slightly seems to be a bit better and a little more safety oriented than the usual pivot of the head towards the center dash. I can say for sure, that the looks driving this car seem to be very heavy, especially during the normal daily commute in traffic. I do agree with Blue in that the overall design seems to break from the traditional, but I think the design looks more sporty than the C230. I am glad they dropped the standing emblem off the hood as when I test drove a C230, I kept looking at it. When I compare the quality of the C230 to a new C300, the C300 shows improvements by MB to try and recapture the market they once held. I do admit that I am intrigued by the new Acura TL in that I traded in my 2005 TL w/Nav for the C300 and seeing the new features added to the TL. A display that shows you weather with radar imaging, but I begin to think more of the fact that we are placed in the car to drive, not manage our lives. This weighs more heavily these days when I look into my rearview mirror and see my son.

 

Senewman1,
Regarding your family, the car does seem quite sturdy. The hood, doors, and body, with the exception of the front fenders, feel very firm like the older MBs. That alone is worth the price increase to me; more metal hence higher price. I can justify that.

What color andinteriordid you get? I am having the hardest time choosing the color.

Blue

 

I did some comparisons, side by side at the dealership, and ended up choosing the Palladium (792) with the Black leather interior (101). You could go with the another color, but for me and my past experiences, the silver type shows off scratches less and it looks cleaner even when dirty. I choose the slightly darker colorversus the silver model. I have been seeing alot of the silvercolor carson the road. You want to stand out a little bit more than the others. I went with black interior as it also doesn't show dirt as much either and you can clean the leather a few less times a year. A lighter color interior shows the dirt easy and requires you to use a cleaner, thats if you want your vehicle to look nice in appearence. As for options, I can give some general suggestions based on my research.

1. Foremost is to skip the tele-aide package. You need to pay over $400 per year if you want the package that provides traffic information and assistance in things like reservations. Not worth the money in my point and the $650 can be spent elsewhere or used as a cost savings on the purchase price. Plus the costs for the service is very expensive compared to other service like Onstar (which my wife has in her Envoy Denali).
2. Ipod integration is not really needed as well and would save you $375. The car itself has a spot on the dash to slide a Type II media card in for music. I use this as my main music library. I put six movies my sons likes in the In-dash 6-disc CD changer for those waiting times. Remeber as stated by law that these movies can only play while the vehicle is in park for safety reasons. You can by a 2 Gig memory card for around $24 and download you own music onto it as you feel the need. No need to burn disc anymore. Plus if you have a nice disc with music, you can copy it to the internal 4 Gig of memory storage that the Navigation unit has set aside for copying of discs too.
3. Panorama sunroof may be skipped if you need too. To me I got the standard sunroof configuration over the fron cabin area. I just am not sure that I want glass over my sons head in the backseat area. I prefer steel over his head. Plus this also cuts down the cost as well.
4.Spend the $$$ to get the 4Matic for the all-wheel drive aspect. The cars handles very well even when in wet conditions and has yet to show a sign of loss of traction control. Plus just having a rea-wheel drive only seems to be OK if you are purchasing a new V8 powered type of sports car (ie Covertte, Mustang, etc...). This is a luxury car and should operate like one. The 4Matic, in my opion, seems to hold the pavement well in corners when you are going at above normal posted speed.
5. Get the navigation system if you want to spend it. You can alsways pass on it and buy the standard hand-held version and, once again, save some money.
6. Illuminated doors sills- go figure. For the cost of $680 did not even get on my list of things to consider.

Hope this helps you in your decision making process BlueSilver.

 

The three month update:

I will be providing a 3 month ownership update, but would first put out to anyone to ask some questions on the car before hand. This will allow me to tailor the responses to what is important to those at hand.