A Week Behind the Wheel – 2009 Mercedes-Benz E320 Bluetec

by Joe LaMuraglia

I returned from a trip to San Francisco this past Wednesday and was greeted at the airport by a 2009 Mercedes-Benz E-Class BlueTec. Ok, it didn’t actually GREET me; I had to take a bus to the off-site parking (an adventure in itself at Newark), wait in line, fill out paperwork…you know the drill. Alas, after entirely too long dealing with the incompetent people at Avistar Haynes lot, I finally received the keys to the Diesel Benz.
What is that? You’re thinking Diesel and your mind went immediately to dirty black smoke and loud clatter? Say it isn’t so! Haven’t you gotten the memo? Diesel is back and cleaner than ever. We’ve reported on the new clean diesels by VW and Mercedes in the past. (Check out our video about Mercedes’s BlueTec HERE). This time, I’ll be using Twitter to update you on my time spent with the 2009 E320 featuring Mercedes’s BlueTec clean diesel technology. What better test than a road trip!?!
My crazy self is jumping in the car in about an hour and heading to North Cacilacky for a few days. Stay tuned for real-world tweets from the seat of the diesel darling from Stuttgart.
Note: Twitter updates are posted in reverse chronological order

Post Twitter
If you can’t tell from the Twitter updates, my experience with the 2009 Mercedes-Benz E-Class was a very positive one. This is the last year for the current E-Class body style and while the exterior oozed class and beauty, the interior was showing its age. The biggest complaint was the feel of some of the materials and switchgear. It was far from cheap; simply not up to the standards that we come to expect from Mercedes-Benz. The interface for the COMMAND system is out of date as well but that is sure to be remedied with the upcoming 2010 E-Class shown below.
The primary focus of the discussion for this vehicle was the excellent clean diesel engine – a.k.a. BLUETEC. I admit it, am a bit biased towards diesel, but I challenge anyone to find fault with the BLUETEC system in the E-Class. It is clean, quiet, fun to drive and delivers better-than-estimated MPG (rated at 32 hwy and we got a consistent 34 MPG @ 75-80 MPH). The BLUETEC system allows Mercedes to sell it in all 50 States so if you haven’t tried the new generation of clean diesels (all you folks in CA for example), you won’t be disappointed.