SA Road Tests

Welcome

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.
*To read one of our road tests, just select from the menu on the left.
*Please remember too, that prices quoted were those ruling on the days I wrote the reports.


This is a launch report. In other words, it's simply a new model announcement. The driving experience was limited to a short drive over a prepared course chosen to make the product look good. We can therefore not tell you what it will be like to live with over an extended period, how economical it is, or how reliable it will be. A very brief first impression is all we can give you until such time as we get an actual test unit for trial. Thank you for your patience.


2012 Mercedes-Benz CLS class 250 CDI first drive

Pics supplied

Doing more with less

Published in The Witness Motoring on Wednesday October 10, 2012

Who’d have thought that a R700 000 Mercedes-Benz could ever be referred to as “entry-level?” The team at MBSA obviously avoided such language during the local release of the E-Class-based CSL range’s newest entrant recently, but your scribe has no such qualms.

Traditionally powered by six-cylinder engines, a four-cylinder diesel was added with the overseas launch of the second generation, or W-218 series, in August 2010. This engine has now joined the line-up in South Africa, alongside the existing CLS 350, CLS 500 and CLS 63 AMG models.

It is the 2143cc, twin-turbo diesel found in other Mercedes ranges. Developing 150 kW of power and 500 Nm of torque, it hustles the big sedan-coupé up to 100 km/h in 7,5 seconds and on to a maximum of 242 km/h, while consuming a claimed 5,1 litres of fuel every 100 km. We could live with that.

The main difference between the new series and its predecessor lies in more aggressive frontal styling although a few other tweaks were introduced as well. One of these is the adoption of (whisper it) electro-mechanical powered steering. Before any hide-bound traditionalists run away screaming, know this. Mercedes-Benz did its homework first. Thoroughly.

One hundred test drivers, from both sides of the Atlantic, evaluated over 250 parameters and were found to have remarkably similar preferences. The bottom line is that Mercedes customers want precise steering which, on the one hand, offers relaxed driving at speed and therefore high levels of stress-free comfort on the motorway. On the other hand, features such as high manoeuvrability with few turns on winding roads are also appreciated.

As with many other modern engines, eco stop-start is part of the package, to avoid wasting fuel when power is not required; stopped at traffic lights for example. Once again, the company did its homework, so the car won’t suddenly switch off while manoeuvring around your front yard for instance, or just when you really need the air conditioner to keep working, or any one of a dozen other little moments when you would prefer it to keep running.

Further fuel-saving measures include improvements to the 7G-Tronic Plus automatic transmission. Improved dynamic response, reduced slippage, friction-optimised bearings and a change in the gearshift program all play roles. A new automatic transmission fluid with lower viscosity and improved additives only requires changing at 125 000 km intervals provided cooling limits have been observed.

The Mercedes-Benz COMAND APS multimedia system with hard drive based satnav, DVD playback, voice control, Bluetooth and eight speakers is standard, although an upgrade to a Harmon-Kardon Logic7 system is available. An interesting feature that can be called up from the menu helps train drivers into more economical habits. It is a three-bar display that monitors acceleration, consistency and deceleration while driving. A progressive readout in percentages, with 50 as average and 100 as exemplary, shows you how you have been doing.

Journalists were encouraged to make use of this device during the evaluation run, with most faring rather well. There were a couple who politely requested a second launch programme the following day in order to have a chance to drive the cars as they were designed to be driven, but we were ignored. Pity about that.

The numbers
Price: R700 000
Engine, output figures and fuel: See text
Tank: 59 litres including 8 litres reserve
Boot: 520 litres
Warranty: 2 years, unlimited km
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 they can see 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!

Comments?
Want to ask a question, comment or just tell me you thoroughly disagree with what I say? That's your privilege, because if everybody agreed on everything, the world would be a boring place. All I ask is that you remain calm, so please blow off a little steam before venting too vigorously.