My rental car for the past 5 days, the new C Class FL

[Guest NewC180]

I've reserved a BMW X1 when making my car rental reservation. But upon arrival, was told that the X1 was not available, and they'll give me a C180 Wagon instead. Though not very happy as this is not what I've reserved, still took the keys and proceed to the car park anyway.

To my surprise, it is the new FL W204 C200 Diesel Wagon (Manual). Car's odometer showed less than 1000km, so I'm probably the 2nd driver. It was late at night and so didn't take a good look at the car, just sat in and drove off.

Noticed that the instruments cluster is very different from my current W204. Nice touch! There's navi on the car as well, but couldn't figure out what the woman was saying in German. Drove 2 hours and reached my destination. Car drives pretty much the same as my current C180K, except that can feel that it is more powerful as it is a C200 Diesel. Car feels especially good between 150-200km/h on the Autobahn.

Next morning took a good look at the car and see what are the differences. New headlights, DRL, instrument cluster, and the car is equipped with Comand. After some guessing and fiddling with the Comand, finally the woman speaks English. Ditched my Garmin aside and use the Comand Navi for the next few days. Damn, the Comand Navi is really good! Much much better than the Garmin. Instructions are real precise and yet not annoying. You can just drive and listen to the instructions without even looking at the screen. It is almost impossible to get lost with the Navi. The instructions are also shown on the instrument cluster as well.

FC is superb, maybe because I'm doing >90% highway. Trip meter shows 6.5l/100km, which is about 15km/l, something that I've never seen before in all my cars.

I don't like the ECO mode (that is turned on by default when you start the engine). The engine kindof died off when you stop at the traffic light, and it is real annoying when you're driving a manual car. Now I turn it off everytime I starts the engine.

Have done 1000km on this car so far, and am going to spend another 2 days with it, enjoying every minute of it.

Some pics to share:

Gonna miss it when I'm back in SGP, sigh...

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[Guest blackknight]

time to change your current one to this...

[Guest kepiting1sg]

C Wagon - Good leh!

Command - Good right?

Have a good trip Bro Peter & drive carefully!

[Guest blackmercs]

Wow Swee leh, anything can be dismantle? Like the Command?

[Guest NewC180]

Besides the cosmetics changes and comand, driving wise the car feels same like my old C180K, so no point changing to the same model. Anyway I'm selling my car after my trip.

Can't tia anything la, later the rental company send me a big bill!

I've also noticed there is a hell lot more Audis here, followed by Merc then BMW. And most of them are wagons.

[Guest NewC180]

I took the car for some shopping and sightseeing during the last 2 days in Germany, and covered another 500km. Done 1500km in all, and used 100 litres of diesel, real decent FC. The fuel consumption meter showed 5.9l/100km during a long stretch of highway cruising at about 180km/h. If only we have diesel friendly tax laws here....

Driving in Europe is really nice, and there's good driving etiquettes everywhere. No road hogging, no speeding in speed limit zones, and of course no speed limits in most parts of the Autobahn.

Dropped off the car at the airport, and took one last pic of the car that served me well for the past week.

Finally home sweet home, and back to 70km/h, haha!

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