My start-up ritual is always the same. Fire the engine, drop the windows and take the fan speed to max. It’s the fastest way to vent the greenhouse and cool the cabin, especially on a baking hot day. On the E-Class, this, however, presents something of a problem. Pushing the fan speed up to maximum is a two-step process. You first have to select the fan-speed icon on the bottom of the touchscreen, and once you’ve hit that accurately, then it’s tap, tap, tap it up to max. This is not something you can do while reversing, as the camera feed pops up on the screen. And then you have to judge gaps, steer and move the car back and forth. There, however, is a hack – all I do is say, “Hey Mercedes, take fan speed to maximum,” and the blower speed increases, even as I work to get out of the parking lot. At times, I even ask Mercedes to open the windows. ‘Helga’ comprehends quite a lot these days. 

Over the weeks I’ve been driving the car, I’ve also found that, apart from being thoroughly modern, there’s also plenty of traditional ‘Mercedes’ in the E-Class, something that just elevates the experience. Sure, there are a few bits that make you ask “is this really Mercedes?”… such as the build of the gear selector or some creaky plastics, a culprit here seems to be the dashboard camera mounting that sounds a bit creaky. But what lends a tremendous sense of well-being is just how robust and solid the fundamental structure feels. 

Then, there’s how majestically it rides over our pothole-infested and poorly patched roads. An essential skill in our conditions, something I appreciate almost every second I’m in the car. The suspension is supple and absorbent, and the E remains flat even over bad patches, with vertical movement superbly damped. Worth noting is the fact that in our conditions, where sharp bumps abound, coil springs often get the better of air springs, the steel coils reacting to sharp bumps and sudden changes in direction more seamlessly. And then, of course, this car gets both the long wheelbase and, more importantly, the sedan advantage; no SUV, like-for-like, can ride as well as a sedan. 

Ladled in with the good build and great ride is superb insulation. Sitting in the cabin just cuts you off from so much noise going on outside. Sure, you can hear loud spikes, but the general hubbub of Indian traffic just fades into the background. This allows the long-wheelbase E-Class to cover ground in a graceful, elegant and effortless manner, the chaotic and loud world around you somewhat muted. I can’t help thinking of this every time I cross one particularly noisy junction in Byculla near our office in Mumbai. 

The 220 diesel also impresses when it comes to refinement. First up, it’s difficult to tell this is a diesel at low and medium speeds from the passenger seat. This is especially true once the engine is warmed up. Sure, you can look at the tachometer and the truncated powerband and guess, but with no typical diesel rattle at low engine speeds and no clatter under load, telling passengers in the car this is a petrol, and getting them to believe it, is a fun game I often played. It’s only when you rev the engine close to the redline that there is a faint diesel drone.

What’s odd about the diesel is that it feels way too relaxed and laid back when you need to take off from rest. Squeeze down gently on the accelerator pedal, say as the traffic lights turn green, and, at times, the car barely moves. This makes you tap the throttle a bit harder and gets you to second guess yourself. Not comfortable when you are sat with large commercial vehicles bearing down on you at the lights. It only appears to be a matter of tuning; it doesn’t happen in Sport. Once on the move, the hybrid system delivers 27hp of e-boost so seamlessly, it’s tough to pinpoint when exactly the e-power comes in; and then power flows in a seamless, smooth, almost petrol-like manner. You do miss the turbo-diesel spike of torque at low speeds, though; today’s tighter emission-control norms somewhat strangle the responses. 

Over the time we had the car with us, we also discovered a few other niggles. The ‘glass’ dashboard picks up too many fingerprints, to begin with, and these prove difficult to clean. The E-Class also isn’t the most comfortable five seater, the narrow centre seat is only usable for short drives. Then, at times, because of the long wheelbase, some of the large speedbreakers are better traversed at an angle, so that the belly of the car is raised higher. This is especially when the car is fully loaded.

What endears you to this car, however, is that the new E-Class steers much better, even managing to sort of shrink around you when you begin to enjoy wheel time. That, of course, and the sheer comfort and calm you get when you are sat at the rear, the refinement, plush ride and solid build delivering a near-first-class experience in the back. And then, since it’s a diesel with a healthy e-boost, it’s also super-efficient, currently the most fuel-efficient car in our fleet, double digits in the city, and from a car this size! It ticks so many boxes, no wonder it’s still the class leader by a country mile, and that’s despite the healthy premium it asks for.