I always come back to a local journalist who once told me that he did not take press cars in winter because it did not prove anything. Well, once again, I think the contrary. In the case of my tester C320, it did prove a lot of things. First of all, if a rear-wheel driven car is equipped with appropriate winter tires, it can operate almost as well as a front-wheel drive car. As a matter of fact, Mercedes-Benz of Canada had installed four Goodyear Eagle Ultra Grip on my C320, a winter tire that I consider one of the best on the market. Actually, it was designed for rear-wheel powered performance cars like the Camaro and the Mustang (not the best cars to drive in the snow!) so, on the small Benz, they were very much appropriate. I would even say that my C320 drove better on snow and ice than any four-season shod front-wheel driver.
Another factor that helped on the snow was that my C320 came with M-B?s traction control, a very efficient unit. Mercedes was among the first if not THE first to offer this device on its rear-wheel drive cars and it works beautifully on snow or ice when combined with a good winter tire. Therefore, I felt at ease driving the C320 during a snowstorm. There was some rear tire slippage, I have to admit it. But the tires found grip very rapidly and I could outaccelerate most cars and even 4 x 4 (with all-season tires) in city driving.
That is what I noticed the most about driving a rear-wheel drive C-Class in winter. On the other side, I found a few annoying things on the car such as the instrumentation that was of the LCD type on my car. Though the speedometer and other instruments were easy to read, I did not like the fact that I had to touch buttons on the steering wheel to ?read? such important information as the water temperature, the oil pressure or the ammeter gauges. Unless there is something I did wrong with car.
Another factor that helped on the snow was that my C320 came with M-B?s traction control, a very efficient unit. Mercedes was among the first if not THE first to offer this device on its rear-wheel drive cars and it works beautifully on snow or ice when combined with a good winter tire. Therefore, I felt at ease driving the C320 during a snowstorm. There was some rear tire slippage, I have to admit it. But the tires found grip very rapidly and I could outaccelerate most cars and even 4 x 4 (with all-season tires) in city driving.
That is what I noticed the most about driving a rear-wheel drive C-Class in winter. On the other side, I found a few annoying things on the car such as the instrumentation that was of the LCD type on my car. Though the speedometer and other instruments were easy to read, I did not like the fact that I had to touch buttons on the steering wheel to ?read? such important information as the water temperature, the oil pressure or the ammeter gauges. Unless there is something I did wrong with car.