|
Driving Impressions —
Conditions: hard rain and standing water. Apparently they don’t employ engineers to do the roads in SoCal. There’s no such thing as a crowned road. So water pools. Also, drainage? What’s that? But surfing? Bro. The waves are good.
The vehicle: mildly equipped 21 Macan. Main indulgence is prob the 20” so-called Turbo wheels. No other performance stuff. Just a standard base Macan. Bet those are all seasons too.
There is obviously floatiness in the suspension. But roll stiffness is not terrible. It’s more slight vertical motion (springs?) on undulating roads. Steering feel is nonexistent. Steering wheel is okay. Engine surprises me. Sounds like a cheap vacuum cleaner (no sporty exhaust) but the torque is surprisingly good. The PDK shifts seamlessly. It really feels like more than 4 cylinders. From 1500rpm to 3500rpms. Which is great. Above 5000rpms, it’s a very meh engine.
In other words, surprising amount of useful power for local roads. Doubt it’s super great on the highway, but maybe it will be a great momentum vehicle with a high enough top end for LA traffic. PDK is so so so much better than any Merc automatic. Ugh. Mercedes, go back to the drawing board —your transmissions suck. The brake pedal feel is FIRM. Man. Non of the squishy ness. Surprising they go with this brake feel. Not too boosted, but so firm.
The interior is okay. the 21 is right before the 22 switchover to the piano black shifter console with touch sensitive buttons? I happen to hate that look as well as functionality. I prefer mechanical switchgear. So call me a Luddite, but I like what I got. Leather seating surfaces are okay. Plastics are okay. Nicer than the GLC on the lower panels of the door where the GLC feels ultra cheap. Shifter also, being the standard 7speed PDK, feels substantial.
Interior space is pretty tight. But I don’t know that I care about absolute space. I just need some space. It’s like everyone says basically a Porsche GTI. They tuned the suspension, the awd and the PDK to suit their sense of what a crossover should be.
This is more than a forgettable vehicle. Not by a large margin. But right now I’m pleasantly surprised. It actually feel like there’s more AUC from 1000rpms to 3500rpms than the AMG43 GLC. Now, you can say that’s the whole thing about the hot vee V6, but it’s not a super satisfying power train. The “AMG” faux powertrains are just okay. Probably the E53 straight six is still much superior.
__________________
|