I know what I like. I like compact sedans with enthusiastic six cylinder engines and slick manual transmissions. Unfortunately, there are few such cars for sale these days. The only American car that fit these criteria in recent memory, the Ford Contour (and its twin, the Mercury Mystique), was recently discontinued. It seems my tastes are somewhat rare in this country.

But there are some positive signs. A number of imported sedans still fit these criteria. I’ve already reviewed some from BMW and Audi, and will soon write up a pair from Nissan and Volkswagen. Perhaps the most positive sign is that Mercedes, which has not offered a manual transmission in an U.S. market sedan in quite some time, is offering a six-speed manual in the redesigned 2001 C-Class. The apparent intent is to acquire a piece of the sporty image BMW has long enjoyed. Is the new car worthy of this desired image? Will I want this car? To find out, I took one for a test drive.

Styling

The new C-Class looks much like the latest S-Class, only smaller. Much smaller—the S-Class continues to be a huge car even after its slight downsizing. I really like the styling of the new S-Class, the key element of which is a subtly arced beltline. It conveys elegance without the stolid slabsidedness of the 90s S-Class. Despite its bulk, it manages to look sporty and agile. These lines on the C-Class do not have quite the same effect. The car is attractive, quite a bit more so than the more conservatively styled old C-Class. But the reduction in length dampens the arced beltlines ability to convey grace and agility. Combined with the fairly tall bodysides, the short length also has a way of making the 16” wheels look too small. The car begs for 17” wheels, which are all but necessary if it is to look as sporty as the small BMW, which does have 17” wheels. Minor points, overall. Like shorter people, shorter cars are harder to dress well, and Mercedes has done a satisfying if not breakthrough job here.

Some in the automotive press have been critical of Mercedes for making the C-Class look so much like the S-Class. They argue that each car in a model range should have unique styling, and that S-Class buyers might now feel cheated. I feel this criticism is shortsighted. Strong brands are based on clear brand identities, which tend to be built on styling continuities. One large reason the Mercedes and BMW brands are so strong is that their models have tended to share the same styling themes. As for S-Class buyers feeling cheated, no one will mistake the new C-Class for the S-Class. The larger car retains an elegance all its own. Sometimes the press complains because it makes for a nice story. This could very well be one of those times.

Powertrains

While the new C looks like the big Mercedes, its target remains the same as always: the BMW 3-Series, BMW’s bread and butter. The cars have nearly identical dimensions. In the mainstream models they both offer two sixes, and these engines are similar in power output (the Mercedes engines are a little larger and a little less powerful). The similarities go on and on.

But in the past the C never quite managed to seem as sporty as the 3, with the partial exception of the AMG models. Even the AMG models were available only with an automatic transmission. It was as if Mercedes could not let its hair down even when it tried to. Though technically a small car, the C always felt like its big, grown-up brethren.

With the new C Mercedes seems to have gotten much more serious about competing with the 3 in terms of driving enjoyment. This fits with the desire to make Mercedes’ entire image less stuffy and more fun. Wacky ads can’t do all the work here, ultimately the products must be more fun as well. To this end, they’ve supposedly massaged the chassis to make it drive much more like a 3. They offer some off-the-wall colors, like amethyst. (There was a purple C 320 in the show room. Not for me.) And they’ve added a manual to the American line-up. This is the first manual available here in a Mercedes sedan in quite some time. I think the last was the 240D in the 1980s, which needed a manual to coax as much as possible out of the 67 or so horsepower diesel. This time the intent is hopefully to create a performance car, not a highly efficient one.

Unfortunately, old habits seem to die hard. While BMW offers a manual with every 3-Series engine, Mercedes only offers one with the smallest six, the 168 horsepower 2.6 liter in the deceptively named C 240 (like BMW until 2001, they want the size gap between the two engines to seem larger than it is). On first glance, this might not be too bad. I tend to like power, yet the 170 horsepower 2.5 liter in the BMW 323i felt sufficiently quick to me as long as it was paired with a manual. And the Mercedes manual has six cogs instead of five. This should allow for lower and more closely-spaced gears, which should give the Mercedes engine an edge. The bottom line is that the C 240 is your only choice if you want a manual in a Mercedes sedan. Since I strongly prefer a manual, this is the one I drove.

Pricing of the new C starts out reasonable and becomes less so quite quickly. The base price with destination is just over $30,000. For this you get a lot of standard equipment, including a real wood and partial leather interior, a full array of power accessories, and too much innovative safety equipment to list here. Yet the car I drove had nearly six grand in options, things like metallic paint (why does this cost $625 here when its free on Japanese and American cars?), full premium leather, a sunroof, heated front seats, split folding rear seats (a must have in my book), power head rests (gotta have those, right?), and a Bose sound system. Some avoidable fat here, but not too much. So I’d say that few of these will sticker for less than $35,000. This is about a grand more than a comparably equipped BMW 325i. (The BMW’s base price is three grand lower, but includes less standard equipment.) Overall, the prices are close enough that the car itself will be the deciding factor.

If I was interested in an automatic, which I emphatically am not, then things would get more interesting when comparing the C 320 with the 330i. BMW charges what I feel is an unreasonable six grand or so for the larger engine (adjusting for equipment levels). Mercedes charges “only” four. So the big engined cars are very similar in price, with the BMW maybe being a little more expensive. In either case the extra for the senior model is pure profit, since the larger engines cost about the same to make as the smaller ones. In the case of the BMW, I personally don’t think the extra power justifies the extra cost. Especially since the 2001 base engine is up 14 horsepower, to a total of 184, and makes more exhilarating noises now. As for the Mercedes, just read on…

Accommodations

The interiors of the Mercedes and BMW differ considerably in feel. While both are luxurious in their most recent incarnation, the BMW’s is much more traditional. Especially when the Mercedes is fitted with the Sport Package, which replaces all that nice wood with textured aluminum. Think small black dots on silver. Aluminum finish trim is available in some 3’s, but it’s much less prevalent than in the C and is untextured. I’m not a huge fan of wood, but aluminum of either sort doesn’t quite work for me, either. While the contours of the BMW’s interior surfaces are very conservative, Mercedes has included a number of interesting curves in the dash and door panels of the new C. For example, the cigar shape of the top of the dash especially manages to be both interesting and tasteful. Finally, Mercedes unlike BMW has decided to forego the supposed safety benefits of always making the top half of the dash flat black. Based on design theme alone, the Mercedes interior is the more pleasing place to be. I’d just avoid the gray interiors, because they’re a bit cold.

A great deal of innovation seems to have gone into the new C’s climate control system. It is dual zone like most of them these days. But you can also independently vary the temperature of the two center vents. There is a large vent on top of the dash for draft free ventilation while cruising. And rear seat passengers have their own pair of vents (though not their own controls).

Driving position is a mixed bag. I’ve long disliked the height of the instrument binnacle in BMWs, and that in the new 3 is no exception. The one in the Mercedes is considerably lower, providing a clearer view of the road without raising the seat up. On the other hand, that arc in the Mercedes beltline makes the bottom edge of the side window nearly the same height as that in the BMW. In either car I’d personally prefer a lower beltline. And the BMW has the edge in front seat roominess. The door panel in the Mercedes is much closer to you, in my opinion a touch too close. It makes the front seats feel a bit cramped. At any rate, the feel from the driver’s seat in the Mercedes is of a tall, narrow cockpit, a feeling absent in the BMW. More sporting for some, maybe, but I’d prefer a touch more shoulder room.

The front seats are quite firm yet generally supportive, in the usual Mercedes way. There isn't much lateral support, but with the door panel right next to your shoulder you don't really need any. If you do want heavily bolstered seats (and wider tires as well), just order the Sport Package (more about this soon).

The situation shifts heavily in the BMW’s favor in the rear seat. The rear seat in the current 3 is surprisingly roomy, supportive, and all-around comfortable. It may be the biggest surprise about the car, such that the 5 doesn’t make much sense in my opinion. No so with the small Mercedes. While there’s enough room back there for an average-sized man like myself, comfort is lacking. The seat cushion is lower than in the BMW, so there is insufficient thigh support. And the seatback felt overly firm down the center of my back, even lumpy. It felt almost as if the seatback was horizontally convex in contour. Weird. I personally would not feel comfortable in the back seat of the new C for more than a few miles, if that. I could ride all day in the back seat of the 3.

The Mercedes does have a substantial edge in trunk room, offering over 40% more volume. The rear seat pass-through is fairly small, however. Even so, I’d personally want this option, since I’ve used it often in my own car.

The new C should be a very safe car. It is after all a Mercedes. Like other Mercedes sedans, it comes standard with a side curtain airbag to best protect the head in side collisions. These are in addition to the more common side airbags. The brakes apply full pressure automatically when a panic stop is detected. Finally, Mercedes engineers its bodies to perform extremely well in many types of collisions.

One final note before describing the driving experience: I drove neither the BMW nor the Mercedes with their available “Sport” packages. While I found the stock tires adequate in both cases, I’d still opt for this package with the BMW, and probably with the Mercedes as well. In both, you get firmer suspension tuning, wider performance tires, more heavily bolstered “sport” seats, and tasteful side skirting. The tires can be a blessing or a curse. They would certainly be of benefit in highly aggressive driving. But they are not “all season,” probably make the ride more jittery, and wear out much more quickly. So be sure these compromises are worth it for you before springing for one of these packages. I advise driving cars both with and without the package to see how they compare. The BMW package costs a very reasonable $1200. The Mercedes package costs $2,950, but includes premium leather (in charcoal only), otherwise a $1,375 option. Not quite as nicely priced as the BMW’s, but still a much better value than many of the other options. My only reservation concerns the aforementioned aluminum trim. I suppose I could grow to like it, and for you it could be love at first sight. Heck, you might like your C in amethyst as well, which is only available with the Sport package.

On the road

Time to get it and drive. The feel of the shifter or the clutch has been the downfall of many manual powertrains. Few complaints here. The clutch is light and provides good feedback. Ditto for the shifter for the most part. There is a bit of lateral slop in the mechanism, but once you get used to it, which happens quickly, the lever effortlessly slides right where you want it every time. A light mechanical feel, pleasing overall. Based on what I’ve read, this has not always been the case with Mercedes shifters. They did their homework here. Get rid of that slop and it’d be close to perfect.

In casual, everyday driving the small engine does its job quietly and without strain. Push it harder and it remains quiet. Perhaps too quiet. Not much happens. The verve present even with the small BMW engine is altogether absent. The first time I floored it I banged the rev limiter at 6,000 RPM. It was a soft bang, and in hindsight easily explained. The engine remains so smooth and quiet up to the redline you don’t feel it approach. Not so bad, except there’s no rush of power to tell you you’re getting close to the redline, either. Frankly, I felt like I was still in the mid-range, say 4,000 RPM, when the fuel was momentarily cut off.

A second reason is that the fuel cut-off is right at the redline. In many cars, including my own, it kicks in a couple hundred RPM past the redline. Not here.

The third reason is the design of the instruments. It’s an awful, awful design, in many ways. Like in some very questionable mid-80s GM designs, only the last half-inch of the needle is visible. Though much more tastefully executed than the GM versions, it still looks goofy. Worse, it’s too hard to keep track of the needles without directly glancing at them. Then there are the absolute and relative sizes of the instruments. The speedometer is HUGE, perhaps because they are aiming this sports sedan at old geezers who can’t see, but I suspect because they used the area in the center of the speedometer for the trip computer readout. I’m sure this idea seemed brilliant when it was first conceived, but it just doesn’t work in practice. Not for the speedometer, which is just way too big.

But the impact is even worse for the tach, which is shoved into a small corner somewhat out of view. It used to be only American car companies would make the tach tiny and place it out of direct view. I recall the one in the 1983 Thunderbird Turbo, which replaced the clock in the center of the dash. Or the one in my first car, a 1981 Citation X11, which took the place of some minor instrument in one corner of the cluster. It seems American companies back in the dark ages thought enthusiasts demanded a tach for image reasons but didn’t really use it. Well, with a manual you use it. And for whatever reason, Mercedes has made this one too small and placed it too much out of the way to see it without way too much effort. They’ve been concentration on automatics for too long it seems. When I’m aggressively driving a manual, I want to be able to glance at the tach and spend most of my time looking at the road. This is not possible in this car.

Getting back to the engine, it simply lacks the oomph to make this a fun car to drive, even by my increasingly more realistic standards. I’d guess it takes about nine seconds to get to sixty when driven in a rational manner. (Mercedes claims 8.2, but I suspect getting to this figure required some flogging.) The larger problem is that this engine was no fun to play with. The 323i with roughly the same amount of power was fun to take through the gears, and I suspect the new 325i (same size engine, but more power and nicer noises—see my 330i review for details), will be even more fun (I hope to test one soon to check this hypothesis). Not so the C240. I suspect a combination of factors. The C weights about 150 lbs. more, the gearing despite the extra cog may not be as steep (I know I never got to sixth despite some highway driving), the torque peak is 1000 RPM higher, the redline is 500 RPM lower (only 6000 RPM). And the engine just doesn’t sound excited to play.

For the manual to serve its purpose in this car, the smaller six is going to have to be retuned or the manual is going to have to be paired with the larger six, which according to accounts I’ve read feels much more powerful. Whether it also makes nicer sounds and all-around feels more playful, I can’t know. You can’t get one that way. One auto journalist mused that maybe the manual cannot handle the extra power of the larger engine. I don’t see how this is the case, since a six speed manual is standard with this engine in the SLK. So it would seem that Mercedes still isn’t taking the driving enthusiast market seriously. It costs a lot of money to certify a car in the U.S., and someone decided they could only afford to certify one manual powertrain, and someone else decided that one should include the small six. Why? Do they think people who opt for the manual do so to save money? At these prices, I don’t think so. To save gas? The EPA City rating for the manual is two miles-per-gallon LOWER, 18 vs. 20. So why? Beats me.

The rest of the driving experience is anti-climactic given the performance of the engine. The handling is quite competent, even with the base tires. In hard turns the car leans very little and the tires don’t complain. Road feel through the steering wheel is not quite as good as with the BMW, but the steering is quite linear and accurate. The car goes exactly where you intend. The ride is quite smooth and well-controlled. The bump-thump concerto present in older Mercedes is largely absent in this new design: they listen to customers these days. Overall, I cannot say the feel of the chassis ever excited me, but this could be the fault of the powertrain rather than anything to do with the chassis itself.

I cannot really comment on road noise. The whole time I was driving the right front door sounded like it was cracked open, when it was not. The salesperson said it was because the car had not been prepped yet, and the door would be adjusted when it was. But is this the sort of thing they find when prepping the car? Do they take every one for a drive and listen for air leaks? This seems improbable. At any rate, why wasn’t this adjustment made at the factory? I’ve read that Mercedes quality is not what it used to be. Now that they pay more attention to the bottom line and keeping prices competitive, they no longer engineer their cars to death. This door could be a sign that these woes are spreading to the C-Class. Stay tuned to Consumer Reports and the like.

Last words

My conclusion should be clear by now. If you want an automatic, I have no problem recommending the C320 based on test drives in an SLK with the same powertrain. Compared to a 330i with automatic, the Mercedes and BMW each have their strengths and weaknesses, so you should look at both. But, if you like a manual transmission in a compact sedan as much as I do, and have $35,000 to spend, the BMW clearly remains the car to get. If Mercedes wants to rectify this situation, the smaller six must be retuned so it will come out and play. Or the manual must be paired with the 215 horsepower 3.2. Preferably both. And that instrument cluster has got to go. Not required, but definitely desirable, would be 17” wheels and a more comfortably contoured rear seat. Come on, Mercedes. If you really want to play, you’ve got to get serious.

Mercedes C240 Reliability

People often email me asking about the reliability of the cars and trucks they are considering. Existing sources of reliability information just aren't helpful enough.

In response, my website, truedelta.com, will more clearly identify what difference it will make if you buy a C240 rather than something else by providing "times in the shop" and "days in the shop" stats (among others). Those who help provide the data--which will require just a few minutes a year--will earn free access to the site's reliability information. To encourage participation, this access will otherwise cost $24.95.

For the details, and to sign up, visit www.truedelta.com.