Looks like the guys at Edmunds are doing all what they can to find something wrong or bad in that car but can't, and finally have to criticize things like the position of the hood-release handle...

2008 Mercedes-Benz C300 Sport: Armrests/Console Storage Bin



Let's talk about front-seat storage. That red arrow points to the button on the driver side which opens the center console storage area in our long-term Mercedes-Benz C300 Sport. There's an identical button for the front passenger. The placement of the button so far back makes pushing it rather awkward, which is my main nit-picky complaint, but it works just fine (unlike our long-term BMW X5's).

When closed, the armrests (which serve as doors to the storage bin) are comfortable enough, though I personally never really use armrests when I'm driving, so they could be covered in stinging nettles and angry jellyfish and I wouldn't notice. But that's just me.



Pushing the button makes the armrests open from the center, causing the driver or passenger to have to peer over the door if he or she wants to see what's in there. I recommend exploring by feel, as long as you don't regularly keep double-edged razor blades in there.

The main bin has a flocked surface and is roomy without being cavernous. It hits a good balance between annoyingly small and useless storage bins and black holes of roominess that require a professional organizer to save you from your Starbucks receipts. There's also a smaller, deck-of-cards-sized space (below the cupholders in this picture) with a rubbery, removable insert for easy cleaning. Perfect for parking lot tickets and change.

Bryn MacKinnon, Senior Editor, Edmunds.com @ 12,497 miles

2008 Mercedes C300 Sport: Door Lock Blues



This weekend our long-term 2008 Mercedes-Benz C300 lost one of its door lock plunger trim pieces. Don't know how, and neither of my kids is owning up to it, but it's not where it's supposed to be.

Worst part? I vacuumed the little piece of plastic up off the carpet at the car wash yesterday. Thought it was a pen cap, and it didn't occur to me what it was until it was too late.

So instead of just snapping it back in place, we'll get a new one installed at the car's next scheduled service, which according to the Benz's computer is a short 500 miles away.

Scott Oldham, Inside Line Editor in Chief @ 12,603 miles

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From what I have heard this is a known issue on the rear door locks on the C.

2008 Mercedes-Benz C300 Sport: Fuel Economy Update



Correct me if I'm wrong, but my research shows we have yet to publish a lifetime average on our long-term C300's fuel economy. Sure, we've given you data from a couple of road trips, but not a snapshot of how we've done since purchasing the car late last year.

I'd say it's about time, so here you go: 19 mpg. The EPA estimates for our 7-speed automatic-equipped sport sedan are 18 city/25 hwy/21 combined.

Looking over the 50-some fill-ups we've had, best tanks are in the mid 20s, and someone managed to go 372 miles before having to stop and give the C300 a drink. That tank garnered 23.3 mpg.

Bryn MacKinnon @ 14,000 miles even

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2008 Mercedes-Benz C300: Wild Wild West

For the holiday weekend, I decided to get out and do a little camping and stay at my family's cabin in Tahoe. In the far reaches of Nevada I set up my tent only to be assaulted by nature.

A gentle breeze soon escalated into a dust storm that raged for seven hours. My tent wasn't built for such forces. It was so bad at times I couldn't see the sun or the hood of our Mercedes I had taken cover in.



The holiday fun had ceased to be. Nature won by ripping up my high-summer seasonal tent and filling it with ten pounds of fine silt. A few items inside the now violently flopping tent took off into the sky like rockets. I ran out into the gusting dust clouds to recover as much of my equipment as possible. When I jumped back into the car I sneezed mud and dust came pouring out of my ears like upturned bags of flour.

I drove the four hours back to Tahoe in the middle of the night to recover at my family's cabin. In the morning I got a good look at the disaster that was our C300. It was white, not the original dark gray and the interior was tan, not the original black. I vacuumed out the engine bay and interior as best I could. I found a coin-op car wash on my way back to LA and hosed off the outside. I was further depressed when flows of mud ran out of the cracks and crevices from the massive quantities of hidden silt I drove off. The long drive back to LA was a snifflely one as dust still saturated the interior.

The first thing I did when I arrived was to dropped it off at the local car wash for a well deserved detail. Hopefully that $150 will do some good.

Scott Jacobs, Senior Photographer @ 15,130 miles

2008 Mercedes-Benz C300: Eeeeeeeeeek...



This past weekend was my first time back into our C300. I was worried the dust storm that ravaged our Benz would come back to haunt me. It has.

I turned the wheel of the car as I backed out of the parking space down in our garage and a low "squeeeeeak" followed by an "eeeeeeeeek" as I turned the wheel back to center came out of the steering column. It didn't do that before.

This sucks.

Scott Jacobs, Senior Photographer

2008 Mercedes-Benz C300: Jumpin' Jack Flash, it's a Compact Flash



I must have looked past this a dozen or more times, but it didn't register. But this week I'm having trouble with the PCMCIA card slot in my laptop, so the little light bulb above my head finally went on. Our 2008 Mercedes-Benz C300 Sport has exactly the same sort of PC Card slot in plain sight, fiddly eject button and all.

Because I have a laptop, it just so happens that I have Compact Flash cards and a PCMCIA card. We use them to transfer data from our VBOX data logger on track days. And I have CDs. So I ripped a few tunes onto a CF card and gave it a try.



After plugging it all in, I needed to do nothing as the audio system recognized the memory card and began playing my tunes striaght away. A couple of flicks with the COMAND dial later, and I'm seeing a logical folder sturcture with album titles and track names.



Song titles show up on the multifunction display on the instrument panel and can be stepped through using the left-hand steering button, too. But, curiously, the cell phone hang-up button does not allow one to "zoom out" to change artists or albums like it does when an iPod is connected. Here, you do that with the COMAND wheel. Consistency would be nice.

And just like the slot on my laptop, there is a fiddly little eject button to get the card back out.



It works great, and 4 GB or 8GB memory cards are cheaper than MP3 players and iPods. But only laptop owners are liable to have the PCMCIA card adapter necessary to use it. You can buy one at Best Buy, of course, but it seems silly that this is a two-part process. Mercedes-Benz must think so, too, because a newer Benz I drove last week had a smaller SD card slot insead, no adapter required.

Discuss...

Dan Edmunds, Director of Automotive Testing @ 15,462 miles