cars.com auto reviews
hi I'm Joe wiesenfelder for cars.com i have here a mercedes-benz CL 550 coupe it's
a 2009 i'm not a lot has changed since 2008 but now you have to get the 4matic
all-wheel-drive not an option and that brings the price up to 100 7900 dollars
there's a lot to like about this car
the backseat is more usable the most two doors beautiful interior it looks good
and that's partly because based on the s-class sedan that's Mercedes flagship
one thing I'm not wild about is the feature that helps you park now some
features actually park for you
this one goes about halfway 1 plus though it doesn't have any of those ugly
button sonar sensors that you see on some of the other systems that do the
parking for you and this is advanced parking guidance which is intended to
actually help you fit into a parallel parking space will give it a try here
what you need to know is there's a pee at the top of the speedometer here
that's for the parking system so basically got the P there and you're
moving forward slowly in any any time under 10 miles per hour the radar is
reading alongside you trying to figure out if there's room for you apart and if
you pull up alongside of space that's too small you don't get any arrows you
just get that plain old pee sitting there so we'll try it again with more
space so when you go by a spot that is big enough for you it measures it for
you you get a blue box around the P and an arrow pointing to the right so you
put it in reverse and it tells you to check surroundings press ok to confirm
now what you get is you get a little diagram of a car and it tells you to
move back a certain amount up to the white line there so we're going to do
that if you listen it beeps when you reach that step then you gotta move your
wheel to match the curve that it gives you and then that's the next step and
you just follow it follow it follow it until it beeps again
and then again you get the yellow and the red lines change your steering until
it matches and then one last step
says parking guidance finished and all we have to do squared off and we're set
so there you go it does the job it gets you one of the space it needs only about
three and a half feet longer than the length of the car five to seven feet and
with you don't have to be as far away from the park cars you doing some of the
systems that part for you
so what's the reason that this one doesn't do it for you it's because it is
conventional hydraulic power steering whereas the cars that park themselves
have electric assist power steering that's something that's being added
because it's more efficient so basically in the situations where it would be
telling the electric steering do this do this it's telling me the driver do this
or do this number savings will probably add the feature eventually but in the
meantime about a hundred thousand dollars in the cars that already parked
for you are a lot cheaper the 2010 toyota prius is going to have it as an
option
start with the 27,000 dollar car at an option package for 4500 you got it
Lincoln is coming out with something called the MKT it's a crossover now if
you start with the most expensive one of those it's forty nine thousand dollars
now in fairness if the option costs about sixty thousand dollars it could be
a wash this right off of cars com we just got this information option data
for active Park Assist Lincoln once 595 dollars
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