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Thread: Samoht - Mercedes C55 AMG Estate

  1. #11
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    No CarPlay!

  2. #12
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    A Christmas visit to family in Yorkshire, and a walk near Blakey Ridge yielded a chance to drive back from the Lion Inn to Hutton-le-Hole, favoured moorland road of Brit car mags. The V8 was relatively little-needed due to the mostly downhill slope, but the handling was good, it finds a nice rhythm with the road and has a good balance of bump absorption and body control, being forgiving when you need to brake into a corner.

    Sorry no pics, it was blowing a gale and freezing up on the ridge so I didn't want to take my gloves off to faff taking photos.

    It was also pretty comfortable on the three-hour drive to and from Cambridge, cruise is good too. I'm still loving the power and how smoothly it accelerates.

    I did manage to flatten the battery once, I think it's perhaps got a bit of a current drain. After a little google I'm guessing the malfunctioning CD player is the most likely culprit, so replacing the head unit has moved up the priority list. Anyway I've now got a jump-start pack and a charger so can manage the issue for the time being, it's only needed help starting once so far.

    Overall I'm finding myself with a distinct 'Mercedes feeling' behind the wheel, a mixture of comfort, wellbeing, satisfaction and (to be honest) a soupcon of smugness. I'm not sure what causes this feeling, how much it's the heated leather seats, torquey engine/auto box combo and smooth-edged way it goes down the road, and how much it's the social construct surrounding the brand.

    PS new head unit will be running Android Auto off my phone, unless my wife hooks her phone up in which case it'll be CarPlay ;-)
    Last edited by samoht; December 30th, 2020 at 03:32 PM.

  3. #13
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    Been a while since the last update, but for now I'll skip the boring stuff and talk about our current road trip. We're currently in The Hague in Holland, awaiting the ferry home over the North Sea tomorrow. We started by taking the channel tunnel to France, driving to Brussels for a couple of nights. Then Stuttgart and on to Dresden, in the former East Germany, and finally back west to The Hague.



    It's been a lot of driving, yesterday was a bit under 500 miles and somewhere over seven hours' actual driving, plus stops, but the Merc has been very comfortable and we've not felt the distance at all. The seats are great in this, typically Mercedes quality seats plus nappa leather.

    Of course, much of the driving was on the German autobahn, which means in many sections no speed limit applies. This was the first time I've driven on the autobahn, and obviously the AMG is very much at home here



    This was a brief burst, at which point I did feel the 250 km/h limiter cut in gently. I did also have the cruise on 125mph (200 km/h) for about five minutes uninterrupted. The car is nicely stable and controllable at speed, and hangs onto the surprisingly significant curves confidently. It's not too noisy, although it's quite low geared, turning 5,500 rpm in fifth (top) gear at the speed limiter. At least the engine is smooth so you don't really notice that it's spinning away, it just gulps fuel.

    I'm not the type to make a 'bucket list' of things to do before I die, but I do feel hugely satisfied to have hit 250 km/h on an autobahn, after years of hearing about them and reading "limited to 155mph" so many times in magazines.

    In fact one can't drive that fast that often, as many sections are limited, there were a lot of roadworks going on, and there was traffic for quite a bit. However it just feels so, so great to punch it from 80mph up to 100 or more every time the outside lane clears, a lovely smooth burst of speed. Honestly it's is a bit addictive.


    The adventure has definitely reinforced my love of this car, it is in its element in triple-digit speeds as you'd expect. It's a really nice combo of being enough of a Grand Tourer to shrink distances, yet narrow and wieldy enough to be easy to manoeuvre around medieval city centres and multi-story car parks, or enjoy on a winding road. A big V8 may drink petrol, but when you actually use it properly, it's just something special to be able to experience. I feel v fortunate to have the car and the chance to make this sort of trip with it. Who knows, since Atsuko seems to have a never-ending list of European cities she likes to visit, we may well do something similar again next year.

  4. #14
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    Sounds like you are having a great time! I'm jealous.

  5. #15
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    Wow! Rev limited?!?!

    I’ve tried to get my S2k up to see how fast it can go, but I’m not sure S2k has sufficient power to get up there even on the autobahn!

    Also, pretty sure if my wife were next to me, she would’ve killed me 1st before I get to that speed!

    Anyway,I’m really impressed by that C55 AMG!

  6. #16
    Ask me about my bottom br FaultyMario's Avatar
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    Lovely.
    acket.

  7. #17
    I'm gooder. Phil_SS's Avatar
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    Very jealous! I love road trips and that looks like a great one. Especially in a proper road eating monster like the C55 AMG.

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