2014 New Mercedes C-Class review, test drive

The all-new C-class looks like a baby S-class. Can it become the instant class benchmark just like its big sibling did?

Published on May 22, 2014 05:00:00 AM

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New Mercedes C-Class.

What’s it like to drive?

The new C-class also feels like a breath of fresh air from behind the wheel. Steering the car now feels light and effortless and the controls operate in a very slick and effortless manner. This makes the new C-class is a breeze to manoeuvre even in tight traffic, as you can go from one extreme to the other very quickly and easily.

What also helps relax the driver is the fact that this steering is as accurate as an Olympic archer. All you need to do to steer the car into a corner is give it a flick of the wrist. It is so accurate, you almost never need a secondary movement of the steering wheel to adjust the line the car has chosen. In Sport mode, the steering also weighs up and feels a bit heavier, which feels nice. As you go faster, you also realise that there is a lot of grip on hand, especially from the front wheels, and this makes it easy to carry a lot of speed into corners. The C-class, however, isn’t as nice to drive as the BMW 3-series. The steering feels a bit too light and disconnected from the road once you up the pace and, despite having a lot of grip, you don’t enjoy driving fast as much as you should.

The cars we drove were fitted with air springs, and set in Comfort mode, ride quality was really absorbent. The C-class glides over small and medium bumps in total calm, and it also feels totally silent on the inside as well. As you go a bit faster and encounter bigger bumps, the suspension does feel a bit too soft. The car rocks back and forth a bit and there is a bit of American-car-like float as well. This can be sorted out quite easily by moving into Sport mode, which makes things a bit firmer. However, as with the Indian E-class, Indian C-classes are likely to come with only coil springs as against air springs.