SA Road Tests

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This is the home of automobile road tests in South Africa. We drive South African cars, SUVs and LCVs under South African conditions. It also just happens that most of the vehicles we drive are world cars as well, so what you read here probably applies to the models you can get at home.
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We drive the 2012 Mercedes-Benz C200 CDI Avantgarde sedan

Rebel in a dinner suit

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday November 2, 2011

Mercedes-Benz believes in annual changes and this year’s Spring upgrades to its C-class offerings were no exception. Apart from cosmetic alterations to front, rear and inside, the company reshuffled its engine lineup. In the petrol range, C180 and C200 continue unchanged but the C300 has been dropped in favour of a C250. There is still a C350, but its power has been increased to 225 kW/370 Nm from the old version’s 200 kW/350 Nm. On the diesel front, the old C220 numbering has disappeared, replaced by a C200 CDI and a C250 CDI, while the C350 CDI soldiers on. You will note that we said the numbering has changed – it’s still the same 2143 cc four-cylinder engine but liberties have been taken with the degree of turbocharging applied. We know; it flattens the editorial head too.

The car under review is the C200 CDI BlueEFFICIENCY that, unlike its C220 predecessor, is available only with automatic transmission. Apart from a bit less power and torque it has been gifted with a 7-Gmatic transmission in place of the six-speeder fitted to the old motor. John, this writer's business school marketing lecturer, always insisted, “Features are meaningless – sell the benefits,” so here we go: you won’t miss the small loss in power and torque, but you will gain a much nicer gearbox and an improvement in fuel consumption of about twenty percent.

To illustrate, quoted fuel consumption for the old C220 CDI was 5,8 to 6,4 l/100km while that for the new seven-speed model is given as 4,9. Before you sell your baby car to buy a C200 CDI, stop to think. These impressive numbers are recorded in windless, totally flat, laboratory conditions. Real life is full of hills and traffic, so hang on to see the actual number we managed, at the end of this report.

Cosmetic details include changes to the front bumper and its air intakes, headlamps, grille, rear bumper and taillights. The bonnet is now made of aluminium to save weight and diesel models have start-stop fitted as a further fuel-saving measure. This can be switched off, but it defaults back as soon as the engine is started again, so you will give up eventually.

Of more immediate interest to those of us who like music on the go and begrudged having to shell out over R3000 for a media interface cable, USB and auxiliary connections are now free as part of an upgrade to the standard Audio 20 sound system. Its enlarged colour display includes a “Cover Art” function showing title images of the music album currently being played provided its data is stored in the audio file. Nice, hey?

Settings for the air conditioning are also displayed on the telematics screen, as is fuel consumption over the past 15 minutes. Bluetooth functions have been extended: your mobile’s phone book can now automatically be transferred en bloc when connecting and wireless music reproduction is possible from Bluetooth-capable terminals. Text messages can be displayed too.

Part of the interior décor upgrade includes matching glossy trim panels on the doors, a strip across the dash and inserts on the steering wheel spokes. In the case of our dark grey test car, these were a creamy white that contrasted neatly with the overall blackness of the standard M-B interior. It reminded us of far-off days when most young men owned a dinner suit with the option of a white tuxedo and young women always had a few full-length evening gowns in their wardrobes. We attended lots of charity balls, with 20-piece orchestras and body contact dancing, back then and a smart C-class with tuxedo-look interior trim would have gone down well. Sigh. Enough – let’s get back to the present.

Part of the fun included with 7-Gmatic transmissions is the three-way selector with its choice of Eco, Sport and Manual modes, all of which allow manual selection of ratios by means of the gear lever or steering wheel paddles. The default hooligan option is Sport mode, using manual override. It unleashes the torquey diesel’s inner animal, creating for a moment a headstrong young rebel in the veneer of a smart dinner suit. There is little chance of hurting the hardware though; the computer selects a higher gear as soon as 4000 rpm is touched, to protect the engine from clumsy operator failure.

Apart from a R20 500 Avantgarde trim- and lighting package, the test car was treated to a R10 000 optional sunroof. We tried it out on a freeway at speeds between 100- and 120 km/h and found that while buffeting was practically non-existent, there was some wind roar. It’s probably intended for gentle cruising at 60 or 80, providing the illusion of open-air motoring without too much noise.

The numbers
Price: R380 000 basic, R410 500 as tested
Engine: 2143 cc, four-cylinder, turbodiesel
Power: 100 kW at 4600 rpm
Torque: 360 Nm between 1600 and 2600 rpm
Zero to 100 km/h: 9,1 seconds
Maximum speed: 215 km/h
Real life fuel consumption: about 7,1 l/100 km
Tank: 66 litres
Warranty and Maintenance: 6 years/120 000 km Mobilodrive 120 plan

What We Do

This is a one-man show, which means that road test cars entrusted to me are driven only by me. Some reviewers hand test cars over to their partners to use as day-to-day transport and barely experience them for themselves.

What this means to you is that every car reviewed is given my own personal evaluation and receives my own seat of the pants judgement - no second hand input here.
Every car goes through real world testing; on city streets littered with potholes, speed bumps and rumble strips, on freeways and if its profile demands, dirt roads as well.

My articles appear every Wednesday in the motoring pages of The Witness, South Africa's oldest continuously running newspaper, and occasionally on Saturdays in Weekend Witness as well. I drive eight to ten vehicles most months of the year (press cars are withdrawn over the festive season - wonder why?) so not everything gets published in the paper. Those that are, get a tagline but the rest is virgin, unpublished and unedited by the political-correctness police. Hope you like what you see, because there are no commercial interests at work here. As quite a few readers have found, I answer every serious enquiry from my home email address, with my phone numbers attached, so I do actually exist.

I am based in Pietermaritzburg, KZN, South Africa. This is the central hub of the KZN Midlands farming community; the place farmers go to buy their supplies and equipment, truck their goods to market, send their kids to school and go to kick back and relax.
So occasionally a cow, a goat or a horse may add a little local colour by finding its way into the story or one of the pictures. It's all part of the ambience!

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