I bought my Mercedes 190E late last year after my trusty and beloved Renault Megane had an altercation with the central reservation of a dual carriageway. Needless to say, the central reservation was victorious.

Nevertheless, I phoned the owner who assured me the car was a diamond, absolutely immaculate and so on and so forth. So, with a little trepidation, I went to view the car, taking my dad along with me to curb any excess enthusiasm that may lead to an impulse buy!

Slipping into the drivers seat, the door closed with a satisfying solid “clunk.” The interior of the car was in just as good condition as the bodywork. The leather seats had no rips, tears or scuffs, the dashboard was clean, and had been enhanced with some fake wood trim – sounds ghastly, but does give a very good effect.

My first drive in the car was terrifying. After the Megane it felt like a tank! The long, wide bonnet with the “gun sight” at the front only adding to the illusion!
This model was the 1.8litre manual with a 5-speed box. I was a little worried at this, as I had heard Mercedes were not known for excellent manual transmissions. This car failed to disappoint however, with gentle use of the clutch, you almost feel it is an auto, so smooth are the gear changes.

My first drive was to the petrol station as the car was practically running on fumes, I was expecting to get stung when filling the tank, but no, £35 filled it to the brim. Driving home, I decided to “test” the performance…purely for research purposes of course! The 1.8 is considered to be the baby of the Mercedes engines, producing around 100bhp, and housed in such a heavy shell; I was not expecting anything special in terms of acceleration. I was pleasantly surprised however. Putting ones foot down in second sees 40mph come up in a matter of seconds, with 60mph following soon after. The brakes equally, are up to the job; with discs all round stopping the 1200 kg beast is no problem, although the lack of ABS is always a little worrying.

The headlight switch is located on the lower right side of the dash and you have several options available to you; sidelights only; dipped headlights; sidelights with fog lights; headlights with fog lights; passenger side parking light and driver side parking light. The headlamp angle is adjustable by a control dial next to the light switch.

The seats are fully adjustable, although not electrically. You can slide them forwards and back, raise or lower the height and you can also tilt the base of the seat, which is great on long journeys when your bum starts to go numb!

The only faults I have found with the car are that the heated rear window switch does not work and as the car is prone to misting up this is quite annoying! Also the heater control although looking fully adjustable appears to have only two settings – very cold and very hot! I’m not sure if this is a fault or just part of the cars “character” at least you have the option of opening the window, manually!

Fuel economy is not too bad for an 1800cc. A full tank lasts around 350 miles on a run, whilst short journeys and commuting in traffic see this drop to around 250. This equates to around 35 mpg on a run and 25 mpg around town.
Insurance is very cheap – I paid just £1000 Third Party, Fire and Theft with one years no claims discount which is only £100 more than my Megane cost me to insure.

This is my first review on a car and I found it strangely difficult to write....would really appreciate any comments on how to improve it!