Gadgetory

what do you get when you strip away the obnoxious success of an s-class but not the poise and the presence of a Mercedes in general you get an eClass this one in particular let's try the 2014 revised 550 cab and check the test now the main thing I like about the e' is that it's part of the new look of Mercedes cabins this is a much flatter sharper a little more cornered off sort of a dash design I'm making a point of this because this is a car it's trying to print younger hence that more aggressive face now our cars got navigation that's optional our car's got a backup camera that's optional we'll go over the pricing at the end of the piece but not everything you see here is included even at the fairly lofty base price nothing new on the nav rig we've seen that before it's a good system it's not my favorite out there but it's definitely got things going for it then make it in the top tier if you will nothing surprising on the audio sources in fact there's actually more here than you want you're never gonna use the SD card or the 10 gigabytes of hard drive storage who are they kidding but everything you need is in here not all of these are based by the way I'm not a huge fan of the phone system for dialing simple things like going through the number and then going over to one end to pick up the call the other end to hang up the call it's a small thing but you deal with it a lot now one of the little globe icon you've got mercedes-benz apps the internet streaming radio and your serious weather as well as the ability down here in the corner to go to the web all this is well and good except it's dogged slow I actually don't have time to show you a web page on here because we don't have enough tape in our camera now obviously you're gonna browse the web but you're driving it doesn't work when you're doing that anyway but this is an example of how slow this cars connection and apparently processing are as well the various apps last time we use them were just as slow as they seem now Mercedes is a bad habit of sending out press cars that don't have the app thought their eyes so I can't actually show you those here what does work well on this car is an amazing rear-view camera look at the bird's eye view with trajectory not just for the rear haunches but also for the outgoing front fender and then over on the right-hand side you've got an almost mind-boggling number of views from low front to God's view front to side going one way side going the other way here is the overview of the rear and here's rear looking out this is the best entertainment on TV now the comfort controls in this car are manifold you've got your three level seat heater three level seat ventilation and cooling three level air scarf that's this nice little heater vent right here below the headrest very nice and of course you got a button here that will summon the seatbelt to you because it has these power retractors there's a lot going on now the drive controls in this vehicle you got this old mannish column shifter this tells you right here this car does not have real sporting pretensions you do have a sport efficiency and manual toggle switch here to change into your three drivetrain modes and over here is your adaptive suspension sport and comfort toggle those comprise the bulk of the drive controls with the exception of the eco button here which is really a drive control but that's where you defeat the auto start/stop will see if that's needed when we get on the road momentarily here's the problem with an eClass at least this convertible is once I get the seat back in the position where I would sit I sure can't sit behind me in fact no human can sit behind me that's a very tight gap this is definitely a larger car than a c-class but it's not a large car it's not back here now the convertible top on this II 550 ragtop is quite a thing of beauty first of all there's a lot to it you've got all these layers of canvas and sound deadening other kinds of padding and structure that make it like an inch thick the whole thing's goes from one direction to the other in about 20 seconds kind of industry norm and notice it doesn't necessarily go into the trunk but into a well between the second row in the trunk but that doesn't mean it doesn't impinge on the trunk now underneath this lovely clam shell opening hood I love that about a Benz we've got a 4.6 liter Biturbo v8 that means two turbos one on each bank of four cylinders the result is 402 horsepower 443 foot-pounds of torque real torquey because it's a turbo zero to sixty is five seconds which you might say it's okay that's pretty good pretty good indeed because this guy weighs nearly 4,400 pounds see my earlier comment about real Mercedes 7-speed automatic syou're only transmission choice we're talking rear-wheel drive here and the car gets 17 26 mpg which I suspects a little bit optimistic so this is not your most fuel-efficient car but see 4,400 pounds and see 5.0 I've got the top down now but this cars top is up I really think it's as quiet as a sedan it's pretty impressive when you have the top down like I do you really feel good about how they've managed the airflow over the top it's really calm and this air scarf dealio behind your neck it's a great thing I hate to get too excited about something silly but it's silly and green the power on this car is four digits not just how much there is but how it really breeds well once you tap into it once you get into that power whoosh off you go the downside is you've got turbo lag you've got computerized throttle lag and the 7-speed is silky not sharp the blind spot and lane departure tech are interesting sometimes it'll catch you drifting off the side of the road and y'all brake you hard back into the lane like that other times though when I'm in dis trying to cruise control and I want to just take me down the lane it's so subtle it almost lets me drift out of the lane ok lights turning green lift off the throttle and get right on let's see how it does that was a quick restart it took just that long as you could see in my paws and it also didn't rattle the whole car but that said I'm still not a big fan of auto start-stop not yeah this is as good as it gets but they still haven't got it smooth enough for me so I disabled what I'm also dusting in this car as I've driven over the last few days is I've got some cowl shake you can always tell because the mirror the rear-view mirror here kind of does this it kind of goes back and forth sideways on a chunky Road I'm surprised to see that in a car this day and age engineered in 2014 by the way when you come to a stop in this car you've got the option to use the automatic parking where you have to use the brake and pedals but it steers that's nothing new but they also have automatic parking spot exit technology where the car will get out of the space I didn't know that was hard I'm not sure it is but I think Mercedes looked at and said hey all we got to do is reverse the software and call it a feature so it's in there let's price this guy sit down a 2014 550 cabs a little over 68 bass then we start dialing it up CNET style package is almost 3,300 bucks that's how you get a hard drive that fantastic rear camera and the air scarf behind your neck 2,800 bucks gets you driver assistance which is adaptive cruise cross traffic and that active blind spot and lane keeping tech for 1500 you can get LED headlights and smart high beams almost 1300 for parking assist which includes getting in the spot but also getting help getting out of it then come services embraces 280 a year for a telematics app another 20 bucks a month gets you concierge speed alerts and location-based traffic and 14 bucks more per month if you want the apps to work while you're at it get the drive kit for your iPhone six hundred bucks gives you a unique iPhone specific interface and if you have absolutely no self-esteem another 500 more will get you an illuminated star on the grill all in word just over seventy eight grand for a car that really only holds two people and barely enough of their luggage to go away for the weekend so this is really one of the nicest second cars that the well-heeled can afford think of it as sort of a tender to go with your s-class yacht but I am unmitigated ly in love with it because it has real Mercedes DNA in a package that is livable and definitely memorable