Dang it, you replied to me even though I deleted the message pretty much after I wrote that. :lol:
I had the tab open for too long and didn't realise Rick has posted exactly that.
What do you mean by crippled E-class?
For years and years and years, MB has sent us only the larger I6s of the diesel range in the E-class (we don't get diesel C-class or smaller and we haven't gotten diesel S-classes in a while.) Partly because that's the only diesel MB engines that the NA market considers to have sufficient power, partly because those were the only Merc diesel engines that had sufficient smoothness to be accepted in the class (remember, MB is a luxury-only brand here). The diesels were often sold as midline or premium variants and priced accordingly, and they sold reasonably well.
Flash forward to a couple years ago and Mercedes decides they want to change things. The E-class moves slightly upmarket in price; the diesel I6 is gone and it's replaced by the E250 BlueTEC I4 engine. In fact, Mercedes is so proud of this thing that it's the only diesel option available and better yet, they're going to make it *mandatory* in the base US E-class. In a market where the same money (~$50K+) buys you any number of competitive cars that don't have this rough, noisy unrefined power plant that you have to hear shut down and clatter back to life at stoplights. While it technically has similar power outputs to the I6 it replaced, it is emphatically not happy if you push it - it moans, groans and clatters. From a prior thread on it - even from a Euro perspective the engine isn't really suited to the car:
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:
They recently gave up trying to persuade us to buy this horrible POS as the base engine and for 2017 have gone to the E300 gas powered I4 pushing out a whopping 241hp as the base model. Yay. There are now no diesel options on the E-class in the US.
They have tentatively planned to try again in 2018 as a MY2019 car with your new 2.0L I4 diesel but unless they made significant advances from the POS in the E250, it's going to get the same rousing "fuck you" for a greeting as the E250 Bluetec did here.
You know what else I can buy for the $52,150 Mercedes wants for a base E-class powered by
four guinea pigs in a treadmillthat 241hp/273tq I4?
I can buy a slightly older E-class design with a 363 horsepower V8 and still have thousands left over:
I can buy a Lexus GS 350 with a 311 horsepower V6 and still have a few grand left over:
I can buy an Infiniti
M37Q70 3.7 with a 330hp V6. Still have money left.
Oh, and I can buy a Cadillac CTS for $45995 that comes out of the box with 268hp.
None of these have a shitty Chinese knockoff of a Galaxy Tab slapped on the dash next to the instrument binnacle like the E-class does.
In any case, yeah, the current USDM E-class is definitely crippled compared to past models and the current competition.