A cup of chai, a lazy driver, a sleepy passenger, all of these tests this.
The facelifted Mercedes s-class.
Now the luxury limousine has a new diesel heart
and it is on a green mission. This is the S 350 d and it gets an all-new inline
6-cylinder diesel engine which can meet ba6 emission norms and the really cool
part it can run on BS for fuel for that mercedes had to customize the software
that operates the engine and the exhaust system a little bit but other than that
the exhaust is stock like you'd see in Europe so which means you've got a
diesel particulate filter, you've got a selective catalytic converter and of
course an ad blue tank as well which you can see right here you open this blue
nozzle you top it up with the liquid that is sprayed into the exhaust to
clean it up it's about 25 litres every time you top it up and lasts for 15,000
kilometers.
so what you're getting is a diesel s-class that's running on BS for fuel
but giving you near BS 6 levels of cleanliness in terms of the emissions
and yeah I don't get fooled by those tips the exhaust is actually tucked away at
the back over here and really no diesel fumes as such to speak of. It was
genuinely non nauseating other than being green the specialty of this new
inline 6-cylinder engine is its refinement all this while that we've
been shooting around the s-cross, engine was on. it is that smooth and quiet and we did a little
experiment earlier on that will show you just how good it is.
That is very smooth indeed and then we moved inside and it proved to be quiet
too and not just at stansky.
Even when you get going, this engine is just so quiet it's more the sound of the
wind around the 8 pillar or the road underneath that's more obvious rather
than the engine itself. It's only when you mash your foot down and somewhere
around 3,000 rpm that's when you get a little bit of a drone inside the cabin
otherwise the rest of the time this thing is
quiet. Now it might be all smooth and quiet but don't think it's boring
This is the most powerful diesel engine from Mercedes in India
It makes 286 PS of power and a solid 600 Newton meters of torque which is a lot
more than the outgoing engine
This is a diesel that's punching just about everywhere. A multi-stage
turbocharger makes sure of that no matter what revs your ad
under 2,000 rpm in the mid-range it gets strong and it doesn't flatten out at the
top end of the rev range either yeah it just revs to four and a half
thousand rpm but just throughout, its punchy
The S350 as you would expect of an S feels at ease no matter what you throw
at it whether it's the city or the highway and part of the credit for that
has to also go to the gearbox this 9-speed gearbox is smooth and quick as
they should be
and for the record it is also one second faster from zero to hundred but more
importantly.
Oh yes is as sumptuous here on the back as it always was with this generation
which means you can obviously really stretch out here, still stretching out
further this is enough for me for sure. She even has a nice little footrest out
front you can Zen out here but the one thing that I still do not like is the
suspension setup it's a bit too soft in comfort you find that there's a lot of
this up-and-down wavy motion and where our roads aren't perfect so over them
you keep getting this movement there is a workaround you can put it into sport
mode. This cuts down the bounciness and is still usable on broken roads, the new
18-inch rims are a size smaller than before but they get taller tires to help
out with the right quality
now sitting in the lap of luxury what more can you get well obviously with a
car like the s-class which is the definition of luxury car, deck is bundled
in a standard. On the inside the s-class also gets 64 colours for ambient
lighting and you can use all kinds of combinations across the cabin more
importantly the display for the driver and the center console is now one
seamless unit this LED panel looks crisp and has three layouts for the drivers
cluster inside the cabin there are wireless charging pads for your phone
and you might also notice that the headlights dance! yes they do at starter
the headlamps are all LED units that are brighter and smarter than before the
three elements for the DRLs are all LED as well. This three bar layout is
specially reserved for the s-class and the grill is special too. This subtle
chrome grille was formerly reserved for the Maybach and hidden behind the black
plastic panel on the grille is a lot of Technology
A lot of autonomous driving technology has been updated on the S and a lot of
it you may or may not use but there's one thing you definitely could and
that's the Park Assist system which has been refined even further let's see
what's changed. So you know we found a parking spot we'll choose to use that
the screen is asking me to engage reverse I've done that and now comes the
really cool part hands off feet off the pedals, its steering on its own that's
not the cool part it used to do that earlier as well . yes
notice that I didn't have to change the gear it did that on its own this time
right again we were going forward now we're going to go backward without me
touching the gear leader which is here that ah and I can see somebody is walking
past the back.The car stopped, a lot of the boss
okay well this is a bit scary you know especially when there are other expensive
cars around but yeah
done!
but there are some disappointments as geeks we wish the s-class also got the
magic body control but on a more practical note the front seats don't get
memory settings and well that's that but none of that can take away from the
brilliance of a new diesel engine equipped s-class. This new engine not
only meets the s-class is lofty standards but it raises them to a whole
new high quite simply phenomenal.