The MB 220d

Lets start with the exterior. The color was selenite grey. It looked very nice. It is a metallic color but in the night-light it looks like a matt ghost. In the front it has got a nice 8-shaped bumper and the new lights just look awesome. The grill is a 2-barred silver grill. Moving to the back the car share the light from the s class and boy, do they look good? Below that the feather shaped reflectors and the twin exhausts look good. Overall, well done Mercedes with the exterior but I wish they had the pop out Mercedes logo in the front similar to the spirit of ecstasy in the Rolls Royce. Also, the e220d could have done with better looking wheels. The design doesn’t exactly suit the car. Now lets move on to the interior. The first thing that strikes you when you get inside is the humongous high-resolution 12.3-inch display. Everywhere you look there is soft touch fabric and the new wood trim texture is just out of this world. The back seats are one of the most the most comfortable seats I have sat in. The soft pillow attached to the headrest is sublime. The back seats are recline-able. The head room and knee room is plenty. Of course for a car of this class there is a separate climate control for the back. There are lots of glass spaces including a panoramic sunroof, which can be controlled from the back as well as the front. I wish Mercedes had made the front seats a little more comfortable they are not the same seats as the rear ones and are not up to the mark for a car of this class. Also the front manual headrests are very fragile and after a few adjustments it became vertically lose in its hinges and moves as you rest your head on it. The part now needs replacement and has to be shipped in from Germany. It turned out to be a very expensive affair. It is possible that this could just be a one defective piece but it’s worth noting. In terms of engine, it is one of the smoothest engines. It just wafts around at 2000rpm not giving any noise from the outside. It is totally comfortable and relaxing inside the cabin. The moment you put your foot down it downshift and you hear the innova type roar of the engine as the 400nm of torque kicks in and the car increases speed in a linear fashion. It has uniform acceleration throughout and doesn’t have any sudden spots. The cherry on top is the renown 9G tronic gearbox which shifts cogs extremely efficiently irrespective of conditions or throttle input. Mercedes has really loaded this car with first in class features. It has from cruise control to the automatic rain sensing wipers and lights to ambient lighting with different colors. Though there are some features that are worth taking about, on the 12.3inch display you have load of features including web searching, mobile apps, apple Car Play and android auto. For some reason Mercedes decided not to make it a touch screen do for the first time you do find it a little fiddly bit you get the hang of it. There is an app that you can download on an iPad in which you can control most features of the car. Though this is a very good feature that Mercedes has introduced, the app isn’t user friendly and surprisingly you can do everything else control the volume of the music. The best feature of all though is its automatic parking. It works beautifully even in the tightest spots and is easy to use. I am still iffy about the practical use on this car sice it will mostly be driven by a driver in India. I can’t describe in words how good it is to have even this much self-driving in India. The owner of the car is not a very good “Parker” and he is extremely happy with letting it park itself and the self parking hasn’t got a single scratch or mistake. They offer a burmester surround sound system in the e350d and they have given a very bad ‘Mercedes sound system’ that is extremely bad compared to its rivals. Also I wish they had a better system for the climate control and a separate off button since it is very fidgety and if you are a little quick it fails to respond. Now, the ride quality. It is very good at slow speeds but as you touch 3 digits the car feels a little floaty, switch to sport mode and that decreases the floatiness a little bit. On large potholes the car is a little soft and takes 2 bounces and then returns to normal so it could have done better with a little stiffer suspension setup. Otherwise, beautiful car to chauffeured around in. One thing that I really wanted to emphasize in in this car was its space saver tire. It has no compartment so it takes up all the boot space and there is enough space in the bottom for it just a few more mm of width would do the trick. Mercedes please please please fix this. And with the end of my first review I need to celebrate and would like to sign off. Bye Armaan nanda