Mercedes or BMW: Who rules?

Which would you rather drive, a BMW or a Mercedes? We’ve been driving some of the Mercedes product lately, and have been pretty happy with most of it, specifically the SL 550 and the GL class. This past weekend, we took the C 300 on a trip to Chicago, about 230 mostly-highway miles from here, though, and were unimpressed. The C class is positioned as Mercedes’ entry level line of vehicles – recall last year’s massive marketing effort for the C class, hitting network TV for the first time in five years – and should be a formidable challenger to BMW’s 3-series. But it’s not happening, and for good reason. The engine of the C 300 lacks the purr and easy acceleration of the BMW 325xi, which we own. At several points, we punched the pedal to merge and felt the engine hesitate. Ever so briefly. Enough to make us feel we wouldn’t want to spend the $40,000.
The 3, even down this year in sales at 38,414 units sold through April, is outpacing the C, which is up at 23,991.
By the way, we are in the market for a car at the Brandweek motor compound. We lost one of our favorite vehicles, a 1999 323i BMW, which looked and ran like new, in an unfortunate fire. As in, the thing overheated while cruising down the highway. Or so we thought. As we dialed for some assistance, the paint on the hood started to bubble. Then the flames came licking out the side of the hood. Then the fire department came. Then we got a fat check from the insurance company. We were looking Mercedes C class. Now we are not so sure.

Is anyone interested in the new campaign for the Hummer, with the tag, “Welcome to the Open”? We didn’t think so. Our calls to GM have gone unanswered and we are pretty sure that GM is rightfully ashamed of trying to pass off a gas-sucking truck when oil prices are at $133 a barrel.

We can read between the lines in this one, where Chrysler appears embarrassed to be hitting the market with the new Ram. It’s not that people don’t still need pickup trucks, but it’s that they won’t be buying a new one any time soon. So you can market this thing all you want, but sales are off 25% for the Ram this year and things are going to get worse.