I’ve already mentioned how quiet this car is at highway speeds, and combined with the high-quality materials of the steering wheel and seats, the overall feel of this car was very good.ĭashboard and steering wheel on this 2015 E350 – very nice materials here, though a bit too much woodgrain for my tastes. The important thing to note here is that this car lived up to that expectation in every way. The interior of any Mercedes Benz is never a bad place to spend time, and I pretty much knew that even before setting my butt in that drivers seat of the E350 for the first time. It felt on the verge of being sporty, but it was just too big to be fun. Carving the mountain roads of Colorado in this E350 was interesting. Putting the car into “sport” mode and using the paddle shifters on the steering wheel made the experience somewhat more enjoyable, but make no mistake about it – she wasn’t designed to be a canyon carver. The bulk of the E30 reared it’s ugly head on the tight and twisty roads of the Colorado mountains however, and it was actually a bit of a handful on those tight switchbacks and hairpin turns. As much as I loved driving the Corvette Stingray across the USA recently, the quiet serenity of this car would make it perfect for a long road trip such as that. I always knew that Mercedes Benz prides themselves on building cars with quiet interiors, and this E50 was no exception. Torque was plentiful and there were no issues going up steep grades. Driving west along I-70 through Denver and up into the front range of the Rocky Mountains was a pleasant experience due to how eager this car was to gobble up the miles and climb over the hills. Other than that, the E350 is a great cruiser. The brake pedal had a very squishy feel that I didn’t like, and I learned very quickly that this car requires a lot of pedal pressure to bring it to a stop from highway speeds. I immediately thought they felt weak and unresponsive the very first time I stepped on them with a fair amount of force. If I had to complain about anything, it would be the brakes. It felt tight and controlled for such a big car, and the 3.5L V6 engine provided more than enough power to get it moving from a stop quickly. There wasn’t much I didn’t like about driving the Mercedes E350. It felt very high end, though a bit more luxurious than the BMW 3 series. Classy!įirst impressions of the interior were really nice as well. Slather this shade of gray on the Corvette and that would pretty much be my perfect car! This slate gray color is really fitting on this car. The slate gray color of this particular car really helped to enhance the high-class look, and I much preferred this color over the screaming Velocity Yellow on the C7 Corvette I recently drove. It looks good though, and the proportions are nice enough that I considered it to be very stylish and elegant. The E350 looks a lot bigger up close than it does from a distance, and my first impression was simply “wow, that’s a big car”. My very first view of this car – sitting alone and neglected on the Avis rental car lot at the Denver International Airport The E350 is a big car, but it still looks elegant and lean This was certainly the best looking car in this section of the lot, and I was happy to take ownership of it – at least for an afternoon. The “Mercedes” they gave me was a 2015 slate gray E350 that looked highly out of place sitting in the corner of the Avis lot surrounded by small economy cars, giant SUV’s, and sterile minivans. My alternate choices this afternoon were a “BMW” or a “Mercedes” according to the Avis agent, and having already driven a BMW 328i, I decided to go with the Mercedes. This wasn’t all that disappointing, because quite frankly, the XTS isn’t that exciting of a car and it was certainly nothing I was desperately looking forward to driving. I had a Cadillac XTS reserved well in advance of this trip, and despite several of them sitting on the lot when I arrived, they claimed that none were available and I would have to choose something else instead. Long story short, this was a rental car from Avis at the Denver International Airport. Driving this 2015 Mercedes Benz E350 for an afternoon was not something I had planned on, but I’m never one to turn down the opportunity to drive an interesting car.
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