In my little corner of Europe, the absolute vast majority of E classes are E200 and 220 CDI. Same goes for the C, by the way. They've probably made millions of those engines. The 250 version is AFAIK slightly different with a bi-turbo setup and all that but it's still a 2.1 liter 4-pot.
I've been in many, many taxis powered by this lump and I can't say it's very refined, not considering it's supposed to be a premium car. It's also hilarious how the stop/start system makes the entire car rock left and right. :lol:
I like the column shift. There's no real point in wasting space with a big lever when there isn't a mechanical connection to the transmission. I've heard it's pretty common in the US that customers break the selector stalk. They're simply used to driving column shift automatics that need a proper grab and pull to go down from P to D. :lol: