2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 Full Test and Video

Here's the biggest difference between the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 and the 2009 Mercedes-Benz E550: The 2010 costs $5,400 less.

Usually, we save money matters for the end of a Mercedes E-Class road test. First we tell you that it has a perfectly relaxing ride quality and a smooth V8 with an indiscreet amount of torque. Then we describe a down-to-business cabin dominated by leather, wood and COMAND. Finally, though, we have to talk about money, and, well, Benz has a well-earned reputation for pricing its sedans higher than everybody else.

But this time it's different. When the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 goes on sale in June, its $57,175 base price will land it smack in the middle of the V8 midsize luxury sedan class. It's also cheaper than anything else coming out of Germany.

Still Feels Like Old Money
Mercedes hasn't finalized option pricing for the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550, but company officials assure us that $60,325 is a fair estimate for a 2010 E550 with the Premium I package that groups the COMAND navigation system, Harman Kardon Logic 7 sound, iPod integration and ventilated seats. This isn't exactly Hyundai Genesis territory, but we were still expecting to find evidence of cost-cutting in the new E-Class.

But if it's here in the new E-Class, it's well hidden. Like our long-term Mercedes-Benz C300 and the current S-Class, our 2010 E550 test car feels neatly damped and over-engineered in nearly every detail. Mundane tasks like closing the doors, twisting the control dial of the COMAND system and shifting from Park to Reverse bring uncommon pleasure.

Once you're actually driving, the W212 (the Mercedes engineering code for this new-generation E-Class) has the same character as the outgoing car. Its 5.5-liter V8 remains the largest-displacement eight-cylinder in this class, and the bulk of its 391 pound-feet of torque is yours at low rpm. Any amount of throttle elicits a healthy response, and there's just enough of an exhaust note to remind you why six cylinders can be boring. Plus, there's the 382-horsepower rating you can quote to your friends.

The V8 sedan retains its air springs and adaptive dampers for 2010, and whether you have the dampers set for Sport or Comfort, the suspension allows plenty of wheel travel. You'd call this a soft ride. But everything feels a little more controlled than on last year's Mercedes E550. It's less busy and more buttoned down over rain-grooved expressways. On back roads, the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 feels lighter than its 4,079-pound as-tested weight. And it corners flatter than the previous-generation E-Class.

The bigger improvement, though, is in the E550's steering, which remains a rack-and-pinion setup with a hydraulic power steering pump. It still feels light and still mutes out most road feel, but there's a level of accuracy that wasn't here before.

Numbers Aren't All There
Yet these refinements aren't apparent during our instrumented testing. Compared to the 2008 E550 we tested, the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 is no quicker than before around the skid pad (0.81g) or through the slalom (62.8 mph).

We lay the blame on this midsize luxury sedan's tires. These 245/40R18 97V front and 265/35R18 97V rear Continental ContiProContact all-season tires are low on grip, especially considering they're low-profile items wrapped around standard 18-inch AMG wheels. Any association with Benz's performance division is pretense here because understeer is the predominant theme through tight turns, just as it was on the previous E-Class.

These Contis are a bigger disappointment in braking tests, though. Our test car's best 60-0-mph stopping distance is 126 feet. Compare that to a 120-foot stop from the '08 E550, which wore Michelin all-season tires. The brakes themselves (13.5-inch ventilated front discs with four-piston fixed calipers and 12.6-inch ventilated rear discs with single-piston sliding calipers) are sound. Fade isn't an issue, and the long-travel Benz pedal offers consistent feel through all braking runs.

But It Runs a 13.6
At least the meek tires don't hurt the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 in a straight line. Not many ordinary sedans can keep up.

The 2010 E550 cedes a couple tenths to that '08 E550 test car, but its 5.3-second 0-60-mph performance (5.1 seconds with 1 foot of rollout as on a drag strip) and 13.6-second quarter-mile at 103.5 mph are still enough to stay ahead of the 2009 BMW 550i and 2010 Jaguar XF 5.0. The BMW has nearly closed in by the quarter-mile mark, but its free-revving 4.8-liter will never match the Benz V8 for sheer off-the-line thrust.

Of course, the 510-hp 2010 Jaguar XFR would crush the E550, but by November, the 518-hp 2010 E63 AMG will be along and Benz has already claimed this car is capable of getting to 60 mph from a standstill in 4.5 seconds.

Note that the 5.5-liter V8 in our U.S.-spec 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 is not the "CGI" (charged gasoline injection) version of the 5.5-liter with direct injection you've been reading about in tests of European-spec E-Class cars. (We hear unauthorized reports of compatibility issues with U.S. fuel.) A fuel-scrimping CGI V8 will come to the U.S. one of these days, but until then, a seven-speed automatic transmission with two overdrive gears and a modest final-drive ratio of 2.47:1 keep the V8 Benz relevant on the fuel economy front.

Mercedes anticipates an EPA rating of 14 mpg city/20 mpg highway for the rear-wheel-drive 2010 E550. Mileage really does dip as low as 14 mpg in heavy traffic, but we still average 19 mpg in mixed driving and see as much as 23 mpg on the open highway.

Meet the User-Friendly Benz
Just because Benz has dropped the price on the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 doesn't mean you'll get Stuttgart's latest electronic innovations for free. On the contrary, the Premium II option package is a must if you want Adaptive High-Beam Assist (the system that uses cameras to monitor oncoming traffic and then activates mechanical eyelids to reduce the intensity of the Benz's beams), while the Driver Assist package contains the lane-keeping and blind-spot-monitoring features. The slick, felony-preventing Night View Assist Plus with Pedestrian Detection is an à la carte extra.

Mercedes throws in the Attention Assist driver drowsiness monitor as standard equipment, though. Testing this feature is not simply a matter of jerking the E550 into the next lane without using your turn signal, because Attention Assist uses more than 70 different parameters to decide if you've dozed off — though an "extremely sensitive" steering angle sensor is among these, Benz officials tell us.

Attention Assist logs your driving style for the first few minutes of each trip and then makes decisions about you based on minutiae like time of day, how loud you crank the stereo and whether you open the windows with the air-conditioning blasting.

In the previous Mercedes E-Class sedan, we were liable to make clumsy adjustments to the audio and climate systems even when well rested. The system's ergonomics are much tidier in the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550, however. We now rank COMAND at the leading edge of all-in-one audio/navigation interfaces. Whether you're using it to enter an address or search through your iPod's album list, it feels like a mostly natural extension of the car's basic controls.

Deep Discount on More of the Same
Mercedes will probably never build a truly athletic E550 sedan. But the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550 brings a measure of dynamic refinement that you can feel through the slender rim of its three-spoke AMG steering wheel and through its broad, American-size driver seat. Moreover, this midsize Benz luxury sedan feels perfectly at ease whether you're on a long road trip or picking your way though city traffic. All of the cabin furnishings feel appropriate for an elite sedan, and none of the controls require a working knowledge of German — you can have your iPod integrated and ready to go in 30 seconds.

After 1,200 miles in the 2010 Mercedes-Benz E550, we have yet to find any lapses in function or quality that would account for the $5,400 discount. So for now, this V8 Benz sedan is something of a steal.

The manufacturer provided Edmunds this vehicle for the purposes of evaluation.