2019 E450 Wagon

[Josh (PA)]

I wanted to create a new thread for my thoughts on the wagon, outside of the Sterling thread. I'll try not to go full Clyde on my Opus, mostly because the car isn't as exciting and my search wasn't as involved, but I do want to share.

Start with the search:

We had no intentions of buying a wagon this week, or honestly this year. There are a couple of threads that I commented in where we were thinking of either getting a new x3 to replace the x5 or a pre-owned Merc wagon. The X5 was everything we wanted it to be, but it was getting a little old, had 158k miles and we never really loved it. It was a great service vehicle, but when we got it we had always planned on it being a place holder. But it just kept going and going and going so it stayed longer. Quick recap, we bought it 4 yrs ago for $25,9 w/ 48k miles and 'traded it in' yesterday for $7250 w/ 158k. Not a single thing broke on it during that time. Serious win in my book.

I also mentioned that i lusted after e63s a bunch of times and that my wife loves wagons and doesn't love SUVs. I didn't know anything about Mercedes or E class cars, so I started digging. Timing was supposed to be November - March 2022, but similar to the 911 search when I start researching something, I can't stop. This one popped up over the weekend and seemed like a deal too good to pass up on a car that was very well equipped in comparison to everything else I was looking at.

I showed my wife, since it is officially "her car" and she was pretty smitten. Long story short on the dealership side I took the car at their no haggle price, got a fair trade in value on the X5 and we bought it yesterday.

Pics are from a quick stop this morning at Valley Forge Park after I dropped my son off at school. I would have taken more exterior pics, but after the first one I realized the stupid from plate advert they put on the car. That has since been forcibly removed.

[FC]

Awesome. You know I have a soft spot for Benzes, so I like it a lot. Congrats.

[Josh (PA)]

What made this car so special was the options list. It had A LOT of options. Upgraded interior (Black Designo), Massaging/ heating/ cooling seats, accoustic & IR blocking glass, ionic air purification, full air suspension, full self driving... A LOT.

It was the only car I had seen with the black designo interior, and it is really pretty.

Along with the interior & exterior color + nice wheels, it was in amazing condition and low miles (14,8xx). It was also built on my Birthday (4/8/2019) so it seemed like fate.

Thanks to JST for taking a look at it and confirming it was as nice as I hoped.

Secretly I was worried that it was a press car or odd use case due to the build and how similar it was to the Car and Driver tester and other review vehicles. Plus it was at a Honda dealership, which I couldn't figure out how they wound up with it.

Luckily, the dealership left the previous owner's info in the car, so I reached out to him on Linked-In and we chatted for 45 mins last night. He's an awesome guy, ordered it himself, tracked it for 6 months through the build and shipping process and drove it 10k the first year. Then COVID hit, it sat in his garage and he thought 'what a waste of money' so he traded it in on a new Accord at the honda dealership I got it from 6 days before I bought it. He sent me all his maintenance records, and some other info. Really nice to catch up with him and get the full history of the car.

[wdc330i]

Originally Posted by Josh (PA)

What made this car so special was the options list. It had A LOT of options. Upgraded interior (Black Designo), Massaging/ heating/ cooling seats, accoustic & IR blocking glass, ionic air purification, full air suspension, full self driving... A LOT.

It was the only car I had seen with the black designo interior, and it is really pretty.

Along with the interior & exterior color + nice wheels, it was in amazing condition and low miles (14,8xx). It was also built on my Birthday (4/8/2019) so it seemed like fate.

Thanks to JST for taking a look at it and confirming it was as nice as I hoped.

Secretly I was worried that it was a press car or odd use case due to the build and how similar it was to the Car and Driver tester and other review vehicles. Plus it was at a Honda dealership, which I couldn't figure out how they wound up with it.

Luckily, the dealership left the previous owner's info in the car, so I reached out to him on Linked-In and we chatted for 45 mins last night. He's an awesome guy, ordered it himself, tracked it for 6 months through the build and shipping process and drove it 10k the first year. Then COVID hit, it sat in his garage and he thought 'what a waste of money' so he traded it in on a new Accord at the honda dealership I got it from 6 days before I bought it. He sent me all his maintenance records, and some other info. Really nice to catch up with him and get the full history of the car.

Edit: I got to get some work done, but I'll post first 300 mile driving impressions later today, but suffice to say I don't miss the extra power of the e63.

Love the pix of your son and dog crammed in the back!

This wagon is a real find. Can't believe the previous owner traded it in on an Accord...

[Jeff_DML]

Originally Posted by wdc330i

Love the pix of your son and dog crammed in the back!

This wagon is a real find. Can't believe the previous owner traded it in on an Accord...

Yeah interesting, I take it he got cash back?

Congrats on my wagon, my wife loves them too

[equ]

Beautiful car. What tires is it running? It'll be nice to get it a winter set too.

[clyde]

The whole thing is really awesome! Congrats!

[Josh (PA)]

Driving / Use impressions:

I don't have a ton of seat time yet, but we have put 300 miles on it (mostly the drive back from VA in very poor conditions). So far, so good.

First, the power and drive train are good. The transmission (9sp) is worlds better than the programing in the x5. The start up lag in the X5 was my single biggest complaint with the SUV. The E450 has a very linear launch and is easy to modulate the 0 - 5 mph start. It makes a big difference.

The power is more than plenty for a car like this. Its significantly quicker than the N55 X5, which is our baseline and seems always available when needed. Merging is easy, and power up to ~90mph that I've gotten to so far has been effortless.

The ride is good. It is very isolated, but not wallowy. I've left the suspension in sport+ 100% of the time, and I wouldn't want it any softer. Steering is very light at low speeds, but stiffens up nicely at speed. There is little feedback, but this car doesn't pretend to be something it isn't. JST mentioned the E61 535 wagon as a good comp and I agree. That thing was a great highway eater. This car seems very similar.

The drive home from Sterling was a lot lower stress than the drive down in the X5. Part of that may have been the stress of the transaction, but a lot of it was the quality of the car.

I know its blasphemous, but I don't think the e63 would be better for our use of this car.

On the inside, the seats are good. The massage thing is kind of neat, kind of gimmicky. The dynamic side bolsters (when set to lower levels of aggression) are suprisingly nice.

The UI has its pros and cons. There are 3 different interface options to do the same thing, the i-drive-like wheel, the touchpad over the wheel and the thumbpad on the steering wheel. There are 2 different volume knobs. Even with that, no where in the car is a track forward or track back button... WTF.

The transmission control is a stalk on the right side of the steering console where the wiper controls are on the BMWs I've had for the last 20yrs. Lets just say I've shifted into drive a bunch of times while driving over the last two days when my windshield was wet. Luckily drive is in the down direction.

The digital dash is nice, but not nearly as configurable as you'd expect for a full digital console. There are 3 styles, but no difference in what is displayed in any of the styles.

It is the first car I've had with any autonomous driving features, including active cruise control. Active cruise is very nice. Active steering seems less so. It floats back and forth in the lane more than a driver does, and since you have to keep your hands on the steering wheel anyway, I fight it instead of just 'letting it happen.' Maybe on the long rides to the lake I'll find a more use for it, but so far no interest.

I am finding getting a new car is more of a PITA than it used to be. I used to love learning all the new features, programming all my settings (radio, bluetooth, garage door, addresses, seat settings, etc). Now I feel like I just don't have time. I am not looking forward to garage door programming, finding all the presets, etc. I guess I'm getting old.

Last comment, the X5 ride made a lot of my family car sick in the back seat due to the pogo springiness of the ride. Intial reports from my wife and son who tried out the back seat yesterday are very comfortable - no queezy feelings. The rear facing trunk seat is fun to have. Definitely not a large space, but the 2x a year where we want to take more than 5 ppl we can shove someone in the trunk legally and go someplace local.


I'll share more in the future when I get more experience, but I like it.

[JST]

Yeah, the controls were a little mystifying in terms of what did what, and it's a lot to learn a whole new interface design.

I didn't even notice the autonomous driving features, ha ha, but I'm with you--no interest in those.

I appreciated the little charging pocket for cell phones in front of the cupholders, though I feel like it was only big enough for one?

It's a neat car, very much designed to do A Thing and do it very well, and that thing is the thing that people use cars like this for. It's hilarious to me that people would rather buy GLEs, which are worse at doing the thing they want, instead of these, and that Mercedes had to butch these up to keep selling them.

I agree that the E63 is ultimately not better at being the car that this car is, though mostly the E63 is about goofy excess, so I appreciate it. But if you're actually going to use the car, the V6 is a better choice.

Really makes me wish BMW still sold a long-roof 5er with a stick.

[Josh (PA)]

Originally Posted by JST

Yeah, the controls were a little mystifying in terms of what did what, and it's a lot to learn a whole new interface design.

I didn't even notice the autonomous driving features, ha ha, but I'm with you--no interest in those.

I appreciated the little charging pocket for cell phones in front of the cupholders, though I feel like it was only big enough for one?

It's a neat car, very much designed to do A Thing and do it very well, and that thing is the thing that people use cars like this for. It's hilarious to me that people would rather buy GLEs, which are worse at doing the thing they want, instead of these, and that Mercedes had to butch these up to keep selling them.

I agree that the E63 is ultimately not better at being the car that this car is, though mostly the E63 is about goofy excess, so I appreciate it. But if you're actually going to use the car, the V6 is a better choice.

Really makes me wish BMW still sold a long-roof 5er with a stick.

The fact that wagons are dying as quickly as sports cars w/ manuals was another motivator to grab this now. 2019 seemed like the best model year. 2020 cars would have questions around COVID quality and 2021 is a jacked up SUV wannabe. The volvo V90 wagon is pretty, but only has that turbo/supercharged 4 cyl which didn't seem like a good fit for a car that big. I looked at the A6 wagons, but never warmed to them like we did to the Merc wagon and most of them are jacked up too.