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C230K STORIES: DRIVING IN SNOW:
Author: Avlis I’ve read a few posts asking how the C230K handles snow. I owned a rear wheel drive pickup for 7 years prior to my C230 and learned precisely how far I could push it without getting into REAL trouble. I was very anxious to learn the “snow limits” of my new C and I was very curious about how the ESP worked and where it’s limits were. Contrary to popular opinion, I prefer to drive a rear wheel drive car/truck in snow. To me the rear-wheel handling is more predictable than a front-wheel-drive vehicle when the tires do lose their grip. There’s something about front-drivers going straight when the wheel is fully turned (understeer) that I find very unsettling. However I can happily handle, and many times welcome, oversteer. After yesterday’s storm I was able to find a nearby empty, unplowed parking lot. There was about ?-1/2 inch of unplowed, unpacked, wet snow/ice granular mix. From what I could tell there may have been a light coating of sand in some places but the parking lot is never used so I doubt there was much sand under there. My car has 16” Dunlop Winter Sport M2 tires on E-class alloy wheels about 700 miles old. The following is my impression of the handling of my car, under the specific conditions stated above. Your results may (and probably will) vary. With ESP turned on (default): The ESP system truly amazed me. This is the only car I have driven with a stability system. The sales brochure and owners manual has a disclaimer basically stating, “ESP cannot overcome the laws of physics” – so don’t push your luck buddy (my translation) so the first thing I tried to do in the parking lot was spin the rear-end around and do a donut. In short- I failed. I approached the end of the lot in 2nd gear going around 15-20 mph, cut the wheel abruptly to the right and, as an added measure, blurped the throttle to get the rear-end loose. As the rear started to slip the telltale !--!--!--! light flashed and the back-end came back in line. I mashed the throttle down, cut the wheel to full-lock and ESP fought back by closing the throttle (almost completely from what I could tell) and clamped the left rear brake hard enough to evoke the ABS! Basically, the car executed a graceful sweeping right hand turn even though I commanded it to spin out of control. Wow! I tried and tried and could not “beat” the ESP within the distance and traction limits I had in that particular parking lot. After the parking lot, I did some back-road real-world tests. This car just takes care of itself. Going up snowy hills is usually hairy and, especially rear-drive, cars tend to fish-tail all over the place. There was some squirming going uphill but the ESP kept things perfectly in-line. Don’t lift the throttle- let the car do the work. With ESP turned off (via dashboard switch): Let ‘er rip! Now this is what I’m talking about! Even with the ESP off the handling was pleasantly predictable. Does it slide? Yes, of course. Does it spin out of control when you least expect it? No, absolutely not. Does it spin out of control when you want it to? Yup, except for the out of control part. When the rear started to come around, lifting the throttle straightened things out nicely. I hardly had to do any “over-correcting” though this may have been due to the conditions of the lot and the condition of the tires. After a few minutes of practicing, I was running hot laps around the lot- drifting the car sideways around turns like a rally racer. I’ll probably have to replace the !-!-!-! bulb soon, it flashed so much. I do have to admit that I was a bit easy on it due to the fact that the bank owns half the car and it is only 700 miles old. I’m sure if your looking for trouble the car will let you have it with ESP turned off. The back-road test turned up similar results. I turned ESP on going up the hill though (see statement about car being only 700 miles old). For those who live in snowy climates and used to front wheel drive cars and are worried about buying this car because it’s rear wheel drive, I say don’t discredit it. My wife, whom screams for dear life if she fishtails in the driveway, borrowed the car after my parking lot adventure and came back saying how confident she was driving this car in snow. “I didn’t have to worry, it drove itself” was her remark after I asked how she did. Hope this sheds some light for those prospective buyers and no; I’m not a MB salesman or the inventor of the ESP system. Wish I was! (well, not the salesman part, hehe). |
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