Mercedes-Benz E-Class Review & Prices

If you want a posh saloon car that’s packed full of technology and is really comfortable for long drives, the Mercedes E-Class is an excellent option. Although its exterior design hasn't been overhauled for the new model, it still looks and feels expensive inside and out.

It’s a bit like a Herman Miller office chair. It might be priced towards middle-aged buyers with more disposable income, but if you’re willing and able to afford it, you get to sit in high style and comfort.

And comfort really is the name of the game inside the E-Class. It’s easy to get a good driving position thanks to lots of adjustability in the seat and steering wheel. There’s loads of space and it’s practical whether you’re sitting in the front or the back, with good-sized cubby holes and cup holders that adjust to different-sized bottles. The boot is disappointingly small in hybrid models, but it’s usefully big in the petrol and diesel models, with more capacity than a BMW 5 Series and Audi A6 Saloon.

Watch: Audi A6 v BMW 5 Series v Mercedes E-Class

It’s not just good old-fashioned space and comfort, though. You also get loads of new-age tech, with the highlight being the optional Superscreen. This has your typical central infotainment screen plus a second display in front of the passenger, all under one sweeping section of glass. It’s quick, responsive and easy to use, but reflections can be really annoying on the move. There are also a few cheap materials in the cabin, which take the shine off the generally flashy design.

While the changes are pretty comprehensive inside, it’s more a case of evolution than revolution outside. The Mercedes E-Class doesn’t look drastically different to its predecessor, but it still looks stylish, with lashings of chrome and a new front grille that incorporates the Mercedes star to good effect. Going for the Exclusive trim makes it look more like a baby S-Class, too.

Out on the road you won’t find it’s a case of style over substance either. The Mercedes E-Class is incredibly comfortable and you'll barely notice bumps in the road, though it’s worth noting our test car did have the optional adaptive suspension. This is a box that’s definitely worth ticking.

It’s a similar story on the motorway, where comfort and refinement are the order of the day. You’ll barely hear the engine in the background and the E-Class insulates you from the wind and road noise outside.

This was, at least, the case with the plug-in hybrid model we tested. It was the lesser-powered of two such PHEVs, both of which can travel about 70 miles on a charge and are ideal if you can charge at home or at work and spend a lot of time driving in the city. There’s also a petrol and diesel available for those who do more miles or don’t have easy access to a charger.

Choosing one of those hybrids will raise the price of purchase, but they really do suit the relaxing nature of the E-Class driving experience. And much like that Herman Miller chair, if they’re within your budget, you won’t regret the purchase when you’re sitting in comfort.

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Pricing has not yet been confirmed for the new Mercedes E-Class, but you can expect it to cost a bit more than the outgoing model to account for all the technology upgrades. As a result, at least £50,000 is likely to be the starting point, with plug-in hybrid models above £60,000.

This would put it on par with the BMW 5 Series, which starts at £51,000, and a bit more expensive than the Audi A6 Saloon’s £45,000 starting price. The plug-in hybrid Audi is a bit less expensive than the equivalent Mercedes, but if you want electrified power in the BMW, you’ll need the fully electric i5, which costs closer to £80,000.

The Mercedes E-Class is supremely comfortable in town and on the motorway, but the desirable air suspension is an optional upgrade

In town

The Mercedes E-Class might be a fairly large saloon car, but it feels perfectly at home in town. If you get the same upgrade pack that offers air suspension, you also get rear-axle steering, which makes it feel small and agile in even the tightest gaps.

And with that clever suspension system, you’ll be seeking out bumps and potholes just to marvel at how the E-Class floats across them like they’re not even there.

All very comfortable and relaxing, then. Even more so with the plug-in hybrid engine, because when you’re driving on electric power alone, it’s supremely quiet. You can even accelerate quite hard without calling on the petrol engine until the last moment, so it’s almost like driving a fully electric car. The brakes are a bit squidgy on the hybrid though, so it can be tricky to come to a smooth stop.

Parking is a breeze too, because the surround view cameras are excellent. You get a bird’s eye view of the car to place yourself accurately in a spot and a high-resolution camera to see what’s behind you. This only pops out when required, so it’s not getting mucky and distorting your view.

On the motorway

Driving on the motorway is very much like driving around town in the E-Class. That means quiet, comfortable and relaxing. Even at higher speeds, there’s very little noise from the wind or the tyres thanks to impressive sound insulation, and when the engine does kick in on the hybrid, it’s a barely perceptible background hum.

Adaptive cruise control with lane-keeping assistance comes as standard, so it’s easy to keep up with the flow of traffic and take some of the strain out of longer trips. There’s also a lane change function that can automatically move you across to the correct lane if you’re exiting the motorway, though this is part of an upgrade pack.

On a twisty road

Despite the fact that the Mercedes E-Class puts a focus on comfort, it's perfectly capable of putting a smile on your face on a winding road. It's not as sporty as an Audi A6 or BMW 5 Series, because it doesn't change direction quite as eagerly, but you get a good sense of how much grip the front tyres have, which is more than you can say about the BMW. The Audi is actually the most fun of the bunch, but the Mercedes is fine if you just want a posh saloon that's comfortable 99% of the time, without falling apart on the occasional B-road blast.

Practicality is good with a boot that’s bigger than any of its competitors, but you lose a lot of that space if you get the hybrid

It’s easy to get comfortable in the Mercedes E-Class, because the driver’s seat and steering wheel have plenty of adjustability, both of which can be moved electronically. No pushing and pulling on hand controls here.

The seats themselves have lovely plush cushions and there’s loads of elbow room between those up front, with a large centre console to rest your arm.

It’s practical, too, with a bit more cabin storage space than you'll find in the BMW 5 Series and Audi A6. The door bins will take a couple of drinks bottles and are also felt-lined to stop stuff rattling around. The two cup holders are adjustable so they can take big and small bottles, but the storage area to wirelessly charge your phone is hard to access if the cup holders are being used. This area has a couple of USB-C slots, and there are two more in the bin beneath the central arm rest.

Space in the back seats

Space in the front doesn’t come at the expense of space in the back, because there’s plenty of leg room. Even tall passengers won’t find their knees pressed up against the seat in front, even if another tall person is driving.

All of that space means you’ll have no trouble fitting even the bulkiest of baby seats, and the ISOFIX mounting points are really easy to access.

If your passengers aren’t babies, though, they’ll appreciate there’s a good amount of headroom, though this is reduced slightly if you get the optional panoramic roof. It’s a bit tighter for those in the middle seat because it’s slightly raised above the other two, but there’s still good shoulder room and plenty of space in the footwells to make up for the fact that middle-seat passengers will have to straddle the huge lump in the floor.

Yet another positive is practicality. It’s not game-changing but the door bins are a useful size and you get pockets in the back of the seats in front. A nice touch is that the cup holders in the central armrest actually pop out from the front once lowered. This means they don’t get in the way when you actually want to rest your arm.

Anything else? Well, material quality is great in the back as well as the front, aside from some cheap plastics on the centre console surround. It’s a bit of a shame because you might touch this more than you expect as it houses the climate control panel for rear seat passengers.

Boot space

If you go for the petrol or diesel E-Class, you’ll be pleased to note that it has a 540-litre boot, which is usefully large and a bit more than the 520 litres you get in a BMW 5 Series and the 530 litres in an Audi A6 Saloon.

It’s a slightly less impressive story in the plug-in hybrid, where the electric motor’s batteries are stored beneath the floor. This reduces the boot’s capacity to just 370 litres, though the upside is that it does remove the lip over the bumper so it’s easy to get things in and out. The only positive is that the A6’s hybrid has the same problem and drops to 360 litres, while the 5 Series doesn’t yet offer a plug-in hybrid.

Back to the positives and you can get a hands-free boot opening and closing option, which is activated by waving your foot beneath the bumper. Not revolutionary, but it does work more consistently than most of the versions we’ve tried.

Inside the boot, you can fold the rear seats down by pulling latches to one side so you don’t need to lean through, and there’s a clip to keep your hybrid charging cables secure. It’s a shame there’s nowhere out of the way to store them though, as they eat into an already-reduced space.

The E-Class’s interior looks great and has awesome tech, but the screen suffers with annoying reflections

A classy interior is one of the most important aspects of any posh car, and the Mercedes E-Class delivers. The design is classy and pretty much everything you touch feels like it’s made with high quality materials.

There are a few exceptions, such as the door handles and indicator and gear selector stalks, which is a shame because you do touch them quite a lot. We’re also dead against Mercedes’ touch-sensitive steering wheel buttons. They’re hard to use when you want to, and you’re constantly brushing them and changing the volume or switching songs when you don’t mean to.

That’s just about the only complaint in terms of technology, though. As standard, the E-Class has a digital driver’s display and a typical infotainment display in the centre of the dashboard. However, there’s an optional upgrade to the Superscreen, which incorporates the usual infotainment display alongside a screen for the passenger, each sitting under a single, swooping pane of glass.

It looks fantastic, and the touchscreen is quick and responsive, with high-definition displays and easy-to-navigate menus. However, our one complaint is that the glass is very reflective, so you’re constantly distracted by trees and buildings being reflected in your peripheral vision.

There are some deliberate distractions, though, in the form of third-party apps that can be used when not on the move. For example, you can play Angry Birds (do people still play that?) and even take Zoom calls using a dashboard-mounted camera that points into the cabin. In less headline-grabbing news, wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay are included, but while they work well enough they don't quite fill the screen.

Ahead of the driver is the digital driver’s display, which is the same on all models. There are loads of menus, settings and layouts to play with depending on your mood and personal preference, and the 3D effect that’s so good in the S-Class is also available here.

Enough tech for you? Mercedes isn’t finished. The standard stereo can be upgraded to a Burmester 4D surround sound system that’s mind-blowingly good, with ‘exciters’ in the seat that vibrate to the beat of the music…

You have a choice of four engines in the Mercedes E-Class. Starting with the E 200 petrol, it makes 204hp and 320Nm of torque, contributing to a fairly brisk 7.5-second 0-62mph time, registering up to 39mpg on the combined cycle.

The E 220 d diesel has similar performance, making 197hp and 440Nm of torque for a 0-62mph time of 7.6 seconds. Fuel economy is much better, though, at up to 51mpg on the official test cycle. This model is also available with ‘4MATIC’ four-wheel drive, which makes it a fraction slower and less economical, if better in slippery conditions.

Two plug-in hybrids have the potential to use much, much less fuel, with official figures putting them in excess of 300mpg. To achieve that you would have to spend most of your time running on electricity, though. With a range of around 70 miles, that’s not too difficult to do, especially if you have easy access to a charger. And with a maximum charge rate of 50kW, you can get up to 80% in about 30 minutes at a public point.

Choosing between these two essentially comes down to whether you want more power or not. The E300 e makes 230hp and 550Nm of torque, while the E400 e offers 280hp and 650Nm of torque. The lower-powered model is available with rear- or four-wheel drive, with both options going from 0-62mph in about 6.5 seconds, while the more powerful version is four-wheel drive-only and will dispatch 0-62mph in 5.3 seconds.

The plug-in hybrids will be preferable for company car drivers because of the low CO2 emissions and high electric range, commanding a much lower benefit-in-kind rate than the petrol and diesel models in particular. They should also face no charge for their first-year road tax rate, with the diesel being the cheaper of the two combustion models here. This will be confirmed once the new E-Class goes on sale in the UK, though.

The Mercedes E-Class has scored the full five stars in Euro NCAP safety testing, with massive adult and child occupant scores of 92% and 90% respectively.

As standard you get all the usual stuff like braking and lane-keeping assistance, but you also have parking sensors with that high-definition reversing camera, and adaptive cruise control.

If you want more, there’s an advanced assistance package that comes with some extras for the cruise control, including the ability to automatically move away if stationary in traffic on all road types, not just the motorway, as was the case before. There’s also a 360-degree camera, a crash avoidance system for pulling out of junctions and into traffic, automatic lane changing on the motorway and much more.

The Mercedes E-Class comes with a three-year, unlimited-mileage warranty, which is a standard timeframe among its competition, but some manufacturers will have mileage limits. Plug-in hybrid models have a separate battery warranty for up to six years or 62,000 miles.

This will be reassuring, because Mercedes and the E-Class don’t have the best reputation for reliability. And with this being a more upmarket car, you can expect parts and repairs to cost more than your average car, too.

However, with this generation of E-Class only just going on sale, it’s hard to say exactly how reliable it will be.