Mercedes-Benz E-Class Review (2009-2015)

Supremely refined, spacious and comfortable, easy to drive, well equipped and built to the standards that Mercedes was once famous for, the Mk4 E-class W212 is a fine way to travel over long distances or short.

The range is broad, comprising E-Class Saloon, E-Class Estate, E-Class Coupe and E-Class Cabriolet. In the UK more than 90% of mk4 Mercedes E-class models were sold with diesel engines, the line-up of which varied over the years.

It doesn’t get much better than the E-Class for space. The regular E-Class’s boot is huge, the largest in its class. Meanwhile, the estate version has the biggest luggage area of any car of its type on the market.

Further forward, there’s plenty of space in the back seats for passengers, with head room once again among the best in the class, whether you go for the saloon or the estate model. Coupe and Cabriolet versions are a little less capacious, as you can imagine, but for cars of their type, they’re still very roomy.

The entry-level is the 2.1-litre E200 CDI, with 134bhp. Then you have the E220 CDI with 168bhp and the E250 CDI with 201bhp. The E300 CDI has a 3.0-litre V6 with 201bhp, 228bhp or 249bhp, depending on the model, while the E350 CDI has 261bhp. Slightly confusingly, the E220 BlueTec and E350 BlueTec are also diesels, even if they don't have CDI in their names name, and they make 175 and 208bhp respectively. The E300 hybrid has 201bhp or 228bhp from the combination of a diesel engine and electric motor. Basically if you’re after a big choice of cars, diesels are what you’ll be looking at.

But there are some petrol engines, too. The range starts with the 1.8-litre, 181bhp E200 CGI, and is followed by the E250 CGI with 201bhp. The E350 CGI has 288bhp from a 3.5-litre V6, and the E500 will give you 382bhp from a 5.5-litre V8. Additionally, in the form of the bombastic E 63 AMG models, you can delight in the thrust of a twin-turbo V8 throwing out 518bhp, 549bhp or 577bhp, depending on the model and the age.

A slightly convoluted range and a wide array of options means specs will differ slightly depending not only on how flush the original owner was feeling, but which model year of E-Class you choose.

But generally speaking, the SE and Avantgarde models are tilted more toward luxury, while Sport and AMG Line versions all have a more sporting bent. All E-Classes come as standard with either artificial or real leather upholstery, climate control, heated front seats, front and rear parking sensors, automatic wipers, and a good stereo with Bluetooth connectivity.

This is a Mercedes-Benz made with better quality components than many Mercs built prior to the mk4’s introduction in 2009, so it’s not going to be cheap to keep on the road. That said, the proliferation of independent Mercedes specialists these days means that servicing and repairs won’t be as financially painful as at an authorised dealer. Service intervals are every 12,500 miles or annually, whichever happens sooner, and alternate between minor and major – at a Mercedes dealer expect to pay somewhere between £260 and £280 for a minor service, and £390 to £420 for a major.

In addition to regular servicing items, the air-conditioning system needs refreshing annually (about £80), the brake fluid replacing every couple of years (also about £80), while the fluid in the seven-speed automatic gearbox that most E-Classes are equipped with requires changing every three years.

In real world conditions the 2.1-litre turbodiesel engines should give you about 55mpg; the 3.0-litre V6 with its extra power and performance drops down to around 46mpg, which doesn’t seem so bad for a relatively large, fast executive machine. The petrol engines see the fuel consumption slide to the 40mpg mark – use all the considerable performance of an AMG-powered E-class and you’ll be lucky to see 15mpg.

Road tax varies enormously between models (even those with the same engines) so it’s worth checking out before you buy, but ranges between £20 annually for the E300 BlueTec Hybrid, to £570 for the AMG versions. Similarly, the range of insurance groups is broad, too, stretching from 29 to 44 (out of 50) – however, most models fall into the group 33-36 bracket.

The mk4 E-Class is, broadly speaking, a pretty reliable car, although it has been subject to a number of preventative recalls – these have included fixes for fuel, oil and power steering fluid leaks, the latter sometimes causing complete power steering failure on cars made between November 2010 and April 2011. Coupes made between April and June 2012 were brought back into dealerships to cure a potential issue with airbag deployment, while the possibility of under-bonnet insulation coming unstuck and dropping on to hot exhaust manifolds with the potential of a fire risk, meant a recall for models produced between July 2012 and the end of 2014. All of these issues should already have been attended to, but remember to ask.

Early examples with air suspension have now reached an age where air compressors can fail and the airbag spring/damper units can spring small leaks, so make sure that the car you’re looking at sits level on all four corners and rides serenely. Age is also taking its toll on the fuel injectors of some diesel engines, so be wary of a car that doesn’t idle smoothly or hesitates slightly when you accelerate. Another problem that may affect the performance of the engine are small splits in the turbo boost pipes and turbo intake seals – if the engine feels as though it’s lacking oomph, this could be the issue.

We’ve seen some reports of water pump failures on cars with less than 100,000 miles, but then others with more than 300,000 miles that have had no problems of any kind. And a handful of unlucky individuals have had the timing chains break on their diesel models, destroying the engines – a replacement is about £7,400… As with any modern car, especially in the executive class, make sure (as best you can) that all the electronic gizmos function as they were intended: fixing them can be an expensive nightmare.