Buying a W213 E200 Mercedes
Since I own a lot of cars, friends and family assume that I am a useful person to ask general car questions. This is probably fairly hit and miss as I know very little about cars built after 1990. In any case, my latest project was to help my mother buy a new car to replace her 2014 W205 C Class Mercedes.
My initial advice to sell the W205 and upgrade to a W123 was strangely rebuffed. I can’t imagine why. In any case after a discussion as to why she wanted to replace it, we settled on a W213 E Class E200 model.
As her grandchildren are getting bigger, she wanted something with a slightly larger back seat, but was still not too big. She did not want an SUV, and it has to be fuel efficient for mostly around town driving with a couple of longer trips per year. Better integration with an iPhone and upgraded factory maps were also desirable.
Her last few cars had been purchased new, but she was reluctant to do this again. This was primarily to do with the service she received from the dealerships both in the purchase as well as the servicing. I helped her find a great independent mechanic who specializes in the late model cars, and who doesn’t talk down to his customers. A novel approach to customer service.
After a bit of looking, I found a very nice 2018 model in the exact spec we were looking for. It did not have the AMG pack (terrible ride) and had the sunroof option. It only had 29,000km on the clock and had been a trade in at an MB Dealer. Even better it had a two years certified warranty. The price was pretty sharp too.
I don’t know if it is the state of the economy, or fallout from Mercedes-Benz new business model in Australia, but it was clear the dealer was very keen to make a deal happen on the E200. We were able to easily talk up the trade in offer on the W205, get them to fix a few minor things we noticed on the test drive, do an upgrade to the maps, and a full service, all at no extra charge. The changeover cost between the W205 and the W213 was quite attractive, and the dealer handled everything.
One of the reasons why we insisted on the service, is that Mercedes-Benz have introduced a ‘digital service book’. In my opinion, this is a really stupid idea. Ostensibly this is to combat fraud, but it is likely to have the opposite impact. It is probably to push people to do dealer servicing. At least in Australia, very few service at the dealer after the car is a year or so old. The dealers have seen to that. Since there is no paper service book, there is nowhere for an independent Mechanic to note down service particulars. This particular car had already done at least one non-dealer service. However, other than a sticker on the dash, there is was no record of it, due to the digital service book. We insisted the dealer order a paper service book and stamp it with the service they included.
Looking at the price we were able to get from a dealership with warranty, it is clear that the cars on carsales cannot be selling for the prices that are being asked. It is very much a buyers market.
With the car upgraded, my mother assumed that it would be a good idea to upgrade her iPhone 11 to a newer model. This turned out to be a mistake. With a new iPhone 15 in hand, the phone would connect to the Bluetooth with no problem, but it could not work with the Apple Car Play. I spent a long time trying to get it to work to no avail. To try and rule out the car, I then decided to try my iPhone 12, and it connected immediately.
The iPhone 15 is the first model to use a USB C cable instead of the lightening connector. However, apparently these phones are super sensitive about what cable will work with Apple Car Play. The Mercedes requires a wired connection for Car Play. We tried a few cables and none of them worked, even a brand new one. People on the internet were reporting some cables worked intermittently, and some not at all. There seemed to be a lot of frustration in trying many expensive cables until one worked. The challenge is that Apple do not seem to make a genuine USB A to C cable, and the phones are sensitive to genuine cables.
With that knowledge in hand, my mother went back to the Apple store. Since it was less than 14 days from purchase, she was able to downgrade from an iPhone 15 to an iPhone 14, and voila, the phone worked instantly. Its not a bad system as you can use Waze on the screen of the car, necessary for speed camera infested Sydney.
I still maintain a W123 is the better option, but my mother is now very happy with her W213 E class.