|
Driving Impressions
You could drive this car forever. On the freeway you might get bored but you'll never get tired or sore, and on the curvy back roads you'll never be able to go fast enough, limited by skill as well as law. The car simply accelerates and handles better than any non-professional race driver can punch it or steer it.With most cars, the reviewer tries to define the car's limits. With the E55, the important thing for you to know is that you must set your own. For starters, it would take a great deal of effort to spin it out. The E55 comes with Mercedes' Electronic Stability Program (ESP), which catches and corrects understeer or oversteer by applying the brakes to one of the wheels (outside front corrects oversteer, inside rear corrects understeer). Think safety on slick roads. We tested it on some smooth dirt logging roads, and it is magic. Mostly, the E55 is about kick-in-the-pants acceleration. A ticket magnet, because it's so smooth; speed often isn't premeditated, it's just appears on the gauge. Unfortunately, even the exhaust won't inform you. You have to hammer the throttle to hear its mere throaty rumble. The E55 speaks softly as it carries its big stick. We may have been generally sardonic about mind-reading transmissions in the Walkaround, but we never felt this one. When you're hard on the throttle the upshifts are expectedly and wonderfully snappy, and when you're casual they're undetectable. The five-speed automatic doesn't have separate manual shifting linkage, but the lever neatly slides up and down between 2, 3 and 4. Five is overdrive, over a notch, and 1 requires an over-and-down movement. There is a winter mode, which starts the car in second gear. The traction control system tames any wheel spin by applying the brakes; if that's not enough the throttle is reduced. If you find an open straight road and decide to play drag racer and upshift manually, it won't let you get away with anything silly. At 6000 rpm, 500 past the power peak, the rev limiter whacks you like a nun with a ruler. It retards the timing before it cuts the spark, in order to soften the attack of spark interrupt," says Mercedes, but the attack remains pretty convincing. There were two things we never adusted to during our week in the E55. The throttle has a hair trigger, so, for example in fast-food drive-thru lines, you have to think eggshells under your foot if you don't want to take off. The other thing was dartiness over certain freeway terrain, which may have come from the big tires. The car seemed to leap sideways at both ends - not a lot, but enough to get our attention. By the same token, it moved between lanes as if the front wheels were mind readers. The steering wheel takes a hint and delivers you precisely to your destination. Dead-on every time, never a correction necessary. Now comes the dazzling part. Country roads. We have a 100-mile loop in our favorite remote county in Washington, and the E55 totally erased the ripples and bumps that almost always find imperfections in other cars' suspensions. And the faster the car travels, the better the suspension works. It hits a dip and takes a set. And around corners, the E55 hugs the road so well you simply have to give up any notion of challenge, and back off when reason prevails. Given the racing quality of the brakes, it shouldn't need to be said that they work. And like a racing car, the feel to the pedal is firm. The suspension geometry helps prevent front-end dive during braking. There is also Brake Assist, another mind-reading computer function which takes over brake boost based on how aggressively you hit the brakes. The computer says, You want panic? You got it."
|
Add your own review or comments
