Most road tests suck because they just talk about handling, power, brakes, and comfort. There is no story. It’s just a sad compilation of disparate elements, lazily edited to 800 words. These reviews never illustrate the summed experience of how the car performs from start to finish in a singular adventure.
Considering that the average age of a vehicle in the United States is quickly reaching twelve years old, my 2004 Audi A6 should look and feel like a completely average car. When taking into account the early 21st century VW Group quality and reliability, then my Audi should be an absolute dump. So then how is my 04’ Avant so damn amazing?
The answer is simple. No really, it’s simple. The car is simple. While “simple” is quickly becoming a derogatory term that young urbanites use to refer to midwesterners, it actually is a huge compliment for a car. My Audi has absolutely everything a passenger or driver could want, and nothing that will quickly go out of style. Heated seats front and back, a decent stereo system, a multifunction display with necessary instruments, high quality, soft touch interior materials, and plenty of space – these are hardly considered features anymore, but they are all people care about in a car. They are all that is required to make a car seem and appear modern. If it has these features, people will be happy. They satisfy 90% of consumers, and 100% of passengers.
The Audi takes all of these features and puts them in a timeless body that replaces bling for build quality. Out of this comes a car that people think is new and actually looks good despite being three generations old. These simple fundamentals seem entirely lost in new car design, and most importantly, by new car shoppers. The only new car that embodies this minimalist, simplistic approach anymore is the VW Golf. Despite the Golf’s good design, better packaging, and amazing powertrains, it still sells roughly a billion fewer units each month than a Corolla.
Does this consumer shift make my ’04 A6 a product of a bygone era? It seems so, unfortunately. Yet every time I get into it, I’m amazed again at how I can genuinely wish for no more or less from any automobile. Neither can my passengers, yet they all own a civic, corolla, CR-V, or Sentra. The plight of the “just right” consumer is greater than ever. Their choices are essentially limited to the Golf and the Golf Sportwagen. I still need to drive the new Golf, but in my limited time spent in a Jetta Sportwagen, I quickly realized that it is the modern successor to my Audi. It has the same features, quality, simplistic style, and packaging. I could recommend no other car to someone interested in something “just right”.
I know too much about this Audi to fit all of my thoughts into a simple road test or think piece, so look forward to a few more posts detailing the Audi.
The C-Class was traditionally the cheap Mercedes, but the CLA has taken that title, so has the new W205 C Class been sufficiently upgraded?
The exterior looks vastly improved. When I sent a quick photo of the car to fellow C&O editor Stephen, he wondered how Herb Chambers of Boston could possibly afford S Class loaners. So the car looks good, I’ve already established that in just 54 words. The details are what should truly differentiate the C Class from the CLA, aside from the drivetrain. Car & Other will always provide alternative content and reviews, turn to other click-bait on BuzzFeed and TTAC if you need the 0-60 times.
The exterior looks great, but now wears the ubiquitous hood cutline across the front. This detail hardly deserves attention anymore because even the facelifted E Class has one on the sport model. More notable is the well fitting, but poorly designed window-surround trim. I wouldn’t be surprised if the detail was designed by an intern phoning in from Berlin, rather than the engineers from Stuttgart. The curves don’t meet well and the base piece has a flat end that extends beyond the rounded vertical piece. Ostensibly minor problems like this is emblematic of a less-than true Mercedes Benz. Audi has always been king of well integrated window treatment, and continues to be.
The exterior lighting on the car is impressive, only the high-beams are halogen. I’m convinced that every other bulb in the entire vehicle is LED, which gives an impressive, high quality appearance. Mercedes thinks so, as well. Every exterior lighting assembly has a small Mercedes-Benz inscription to remind the casual passer-by with a magnifying glass that this isn’t just a Corolla.
Another notable feature that rarely makes it through the conversion to US DOT spec is the left/right parking light settings. In Germany and presumably other EU countries, owners that park their vehicles on the side of the road are expected to leave the corresponding side parking lights on. From my time in Berlin, I’ve only seen one road user using this feature and in the US, this will only serve to befuddle the drivers. Even if this function, won’t every be used properly (along with the LED rear fog lights), the lights look cool. The LED tube lighting pioneered on BMWs and Saabs look amazing during the day and at night.
Open the hood, and not only are there dual gas struts to hold open the hood, but there are also dual latches and dampening springs. People complain about automakers hiding the engine under plastic covers and fake intakes. Mercedes is guilty of this, but wastes no resources in ensuring the hood will open and close properly for hundreds of thousands of miles. Certainly this area was not left to the over-clubbed intern in Kreuzberg.
The mixed bag of quality on the exterior continues on the inside. The design is equally as impressive as the exterior, but the brushed “aluminum” and chrome should be classified as an invasive species. Every feature and component is accented with a band of plastic aluminum, from the iPad imitating COMMAND screen to the lowly parking pass holder situated above the headlight controls. Interestingly, the headlight controls have no “off” position, which is a first for any car I’ve experienced. The default position is “Auto”, and where the “Off” position usually resides are the controls for the left/right side parking lights mentioned earlier. And there is even more euro-strangeness with the lights. The foglight controls adjacent to the headlight control actually corresponds the the rear fogs, as this car doesn’t feature front fogs. Maybe this Herb Chambers loaner was originally destined for a dealership in Berlin, not Boston.
The single most egregious quality disappointment on the interior isn’t the plasti-chrome invasion or the strange headlight controls, but the plastic sun visors. Yes, plastic sun visors. What is generally reserved for sub-20k hatchbacks is now a conspicuous addition to a $48k C Class. This one item serves to ruin the experience of the C Class for me. I would condescendingly snort at a CLA for using plastic visors, but an honest-to-goodness longitudinally engined, rear wheel drive based C Class deserves much better. I guess wrapping them in fabric like any self respecting German would do is too much for the plant workers in Alabama.
With this previous statement, the review concludes. The new C Class may look like an S Class on the inside and out, and while the engineers did their best to over-engineer like it is still the 80s, the new-age C Class really is just another “optimally engineered” car. The dual strut hood and LED lighting create a glimmer of quality that was never there in the previous C Class or current CLA, but cannot fool the most astute critics at Car and Other. So this review ends on a negative note, but despite all my complaints, I still like the C Class. It just looks right, and the details can never be fully flushed, whether it is a W126 or a W205.
-Trevor Gotfredson
Car and Other 