I had the pleasure of driving an E350 wagon on an 800 km road trip last week. I went white water rafting in Maine for a friend's bachelor party, and our other friend who now lives in Calgary was able to borrow his mother's recently acquired car for the trip. He showed up at my house and asked if I wanted to drive and obviously I said yes.
His family loves wagons and the Benz is one in a long line of wagons they've owned: Peugeot 505, Volvo 940 Turbo, original Volvo V70 XC, E91 BMW 325i, and BMW 535i. The BMW was a 2009 and they sold it with about 215k on it. They liked that car a lot but it simply had way too many issues and they didn't like the way they were treated by the local dealer.
Styling wise the car looks great. It's very purposeful and doesn't try to disguise that it is a utilitarian wagon. With so many vehicles having massive D pillars, little to no rear side windows, and sloped hatches, I appreciate that. This car also has the optional AMG split-spoke wheels which are a nice improvement over the base five spokes. I must admit that I prefer the '14 facelifted front end though.
Ergonomically the car takes some getting used to. The little stalk on the steering wheel for the transmission is odd and I feel like that a rotary dial (a la Jaguar and Chrysler) might make more sense. Having two stalks on the left side of the wheel is also strange to me (one for cruise control, one for signals and wipers) and on more than one occasion I adjusted the cruise when trying to signal. The cruise stalk does work very well; I like the way you can adjust the speed by either 1 or 10 km/h. My GTI has the same functionality via the steering wheel buttons but is not quite as intuitive.
The COMAND system seemed a bit dated and I didn't find it particularly intuitive. It wasn't terrible and I'm sure I would get used to it pretty quickly. I wasn't able to find a setting to change the digital speedometer to MPH though - a feature I really appreciate on my GTI for U.S. road trips. I'm sure it might be there somewhere though. The nav system worked well and I really like the fact that on major highways it shows upcoming exits and the gas stations located there. The rear view camera appears to be an afterthought. It's mounted beside the hatch handle and basically points down. Not very useful.
The seats are general comfort are excellent. I was very comfortable and driving a four hour stint was a joke. I feel like I could have driven all day. Unfortunately the seats lack any sort of meaningful side bolstering but that is to be expected in this class.
Unfortunately the interior is a bit chintzy. Not nearly as bad as an early GLK but it definitely reminded me of that vehicle. Hopefully the facelift model has nicer materials, though the design is largely the same.
In Canada, the E350 has been replaced by the E400, while in the U.S. the E400 has replaced the E550. That means on this continent the E400 wagon is unique to the Canadian market. Not that the E350 is lacking in power at all - passing on windy two lane roads was trivial - but the turbocharged E400 would be even better. Speaking of windy roads, I was impressed with the handling. The car feels very solid and substantial but handles reasonably for its size.
Since we were only going for two nights we really didn't test the limits of the cargo room. Each of the four of us had a single small bag which left plenty of room for stocking up on beer. The cargo area is cavernous - definitely bigger than what my Mazda 6 wagon offered. And a small rear facing third row seat is standard - definitely a bit of a throwback there.
Overall, this vehicle is excellent. Personally, I wish there was a sport package - it would be nice to have a bit stiffer suspension and more heavily bolstered seats and perhaps black out the exterior chrome trim. All of that is available in the E63 version but of course the price difference is a substantial $40k. Of course, that sum also includes another 248 hp...
As a fan of wagons it's disappointing that this is one of just four true wagons left on the market. Hopefully people will continue buying the E wagon in reasonable numbers so it can be continued to be offered here because it's an excellent car.
