Mercedes-Benz E 250 CGI 2011 Review

Price guide (recommended price before statutory and delivery charges): $95,300
Options fitted to test car (not included in above price): Metallic paint $2100; Vision package (Harman/Kardon surround sound audio; sunroof; keyless entry/ignition electrically operated bootlid) $6200; mixed width alloy wheels $2300
Crash rating: Five-stars (Euro NCAP)
Fuel: 95 RON PULP
Claimed fuel economy (L/100km): 7.2
CO2 emissions (g/km): 166
Also consider: Audi A6 3.0 TFSI Quattro; BMW 525i; Lexus GS300

About our ratings

Germany has in recent years spearheaded a trend towards finding equal or superior power from smaller engines, and for those unacquainted with the results, a test drive will prove a revelation.

As one of the early beneficiaries of this downsizing trend, Benz's mid-sized E250 CGI is a case in point. Here is a 1735kg sedan of near-Commodore proportions being shunted around by a 1.8-litre four cylinder petrol engine. Sounds a bit tragic, doesn't it, or at least crook value for around $100K?

Far from it. What you get are power and torque numbers most would happily pin to a V6, with economy and cleanliness similar to baby hatches than biggish prestige models.

On first booting up and taking off, that makes for a strange incongruity between sound and sensation. While good for a sprightly 150kW at 5500rpm, more telling is the E250 CGI's torque band, which sees its peak 310Nm arriving at a diesel-like low of 2000rpm and remaining on tap up to 4200.

Officially it's good for 0-100km/h in a respectable 7.8 seconds. But the engine's flexibility, the intuitive silkiness of a well-matched five-speed auto transmission and the absence of NVH make it hard to notice velocity.

Inside, it's a big car, good for four grown-ups on a long trip, even a fifth if they're prepared to straddle the transmission tunnel.

It's light and airy with room aplenty for legs, hips, shoulders and heads, while the boot holds a hefty 540 litres. One might have thought with all that bootspace they might have found room for a full-sized spare, but no – you get a space saver.

The engine remains unruffled even with a backside on every seat and three-bags-full in the boot. It rarely works hard, and even though the standard Avantgarde spec includes paddle-shifters, the smarter-than-thou auto overrides orders on the brink of redline to make sure it stays that way.

We put much of this self-contradictory performance-economy equation down to the BlueEfficiency package alluded to in the badging. This is Benz's interpretation of that increasingly popular suite of gizmos optimising each element of the car's operation, and the machine overall, to minimise what goes in one manifold and what comes out the other.

The 'CGI' stands for 'charged gasoline injection', a mix of turbocharging and direct injection. Helping out are variable valve timing and, on this Avantgarde spec, Benz's five-speed auto.

It's all housed inside super-slippery bodywork yielding a drag coefficient of just 0.25 – that's Prius territory (and the payoff for not being the prettiest thing Benz has ever rolled out).

There's also brake energy regeneration and on-demand ancillaries, like the sensor-guided steering pump and air conditioning compressors that shut down when they're not explicitly needed, minimising their energy drain from the engine.

On the downside, whatever money you save with all this technology you spend on 98 RON premium unleaded. But we're not in this for the money, are we? It's all about Mother Earth.

In keeping with another trend among German prestige brands, for your spend you get a fair box of goodies, including 17-inch alloys, daytime running lights and bi-xenon headlights with Benz's intelligent lighting (ILS), which varies the shape and intensity of each beam with changes in conditions.

Inside an E is, by and large, a nice place to be. In Avantgarde spec it's very nice indeed, with its ambient pelmet lighting across the facia and along the door-trim strips. The leather chairs are supremely comfortable, although I find the couch in the rear a little too obtuse in its rake.

There's plenty of interior storage throughout, including decent sized door pockets and drawers under each of the front seats. Rear passengers want for little, with their own HVAC outlets, cup holders and so on.

The optional Vision package on our test car delivers extra niceties: a glass sunroof, keyless entry and ignition, an electric bootlid and an AV upgrade to Harman Kardon Logic 7 surround sound – digital/analogue TV, DVD audio and video, MP3, USB and iPod compatibility, all poured forth through 14 speakers including a sub woofer. All Es now get full LED taillights.

It's often not that easy to document a Mercedes-Benz's safety kit because they're given to upgrading without hoo-hah. Once, everything arrived in the S-Class and trickled down; now, however, technology upgrades are appearing so fast they're likely to debut on whatever new model appears next. For example, watch the telematics and other safety upgrades launched in the new C-Class trickle up to the E in a matter of months.

Suffice to say the E-Class' enormous and complex safety kit, already well documented elsewhere, matches or exceeds most anything on the market. Beyond the 11 airbags and extensive electronics layered over the ABS and ESP systems, not so well known highlights include driver fatigue detection systems, an active bonnet for pedestrian safety and anti-whiplash active head restraints.

The big, powerful brakes are supplemented with drying and fade compensation functions.

On the road, this engine does nothing to diminish the E's reputation for hoovering up miles with almost meditative serenity. Avantgarde-spec models get a sports suspension upgrade, hardening the ride a bit over lesser versions, but it's still far from harsh.

Combining steel coils with adaptive damping, it serves up one of the best ride/handling balances on the market, capable of soaking up bumps and thumps and quelling body roll with equal aplomb.

Engine, wind and road noise suppression nears the Lexus benchmark. Which leaves me wondering: While I love a V6 growl as much as the next man, in the case of Benz's little four how important is it really?

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*Mercedes-Benz E 350 shown for illustrative purposes.