Shortly after Mercedes-Benz launched the new four-cylinder 2014 E250 Bluetec twin-turbodiesel in Portland, I borrowed one for a longer jaunt to better assess whether this four-banging oil-burner was up to the task of lugging three adults and their abundant luggage up and over mountains, and to test the veracity of that newly announced 28/45-mpg EPA fuel economy claim. Actually those EPA figures drop to 27/42 mpg for my AWD 4Matic model.
We left Portland airport with a full tank and headed straight up to Astoria and the mouth of the ferocious Columbia River, steering clear of the faster I-5 route in favor of the two-lane byway hugging the river's left bank. Peak speeds in the 60-mph range are good for economy, but climbing additional hills and slowing for towns and scenic overlooks is not. The engine's lusty 369 lb-ft of torque make effortless work of maintaining set cruise-control speeds without constantly pestering the seven-speed automatic for ratio changes, but the 195 horses don't exactly make quick work of passing semis. This car is great at illustrating the difference between torque and horsepower -- that big torque number means there's plenty of brute force to get any job done, but the modest horsepower figure means you can't hurry those jobs along much. Our indicated average at the end of day one: 37.9 mpg over 115 miles.
After visiting the Columbia River Maritime Museum and learning about the hundreds of ships that had been lost on the treacherous Columbia River bar (not a drinking establishment), we turned south to explore the coast, and I was delighted to engage Distronic Plus with steering assist. This $2800 option provides just that little bit of extra comfort to glance down at a bay vista, or up at a flying Osprey while feeling the wheel twitching to remain centered in the lane. If you're not enjoying scenery, that steering assist can feel like constantly variable steering assist. It's more ideally suited to use on the superslab, as it won't execute the tighter turns by itself on a two-lane. In fact, the system frequently slows the car when the turns tighten, even when you're actively steering. Highlights of day two include the Tillamook Cheese mega-store/factory, and the Wheels 'N' Waves car show in Seaside. My personal fave: a '32 Ford roadster powered by a mid-mounted RWD Northstar (Southstar?) drivetrain. The day's economy: 34.2 mpg over 116 miles. Day three started off cool, with temps in the 50s, but the engine still started instantly when I forgot (as usual) to wait for the glow-plug indicator to go out. (Is this a vestigial lamp, no longer useful, or does one need to heed it in super-cold weather?) Our first stop was the Tillamook Air Museum, for a tour of the world's largest wooden structure, a former blimp hangar that, along with a twin-sister building that burned in 1992, once housed 15 blimps that patrolled the north Pacific for Japanese submarines. You will remember, of course, that Oregon was the only state in the Lower 48 to suffer a Japanese bombing attack, launched off Cape Blanco from a seaplane carried by the Japanese submarine I-25.
From there, we continued south as far as Newport, home of the Rogue Ale microbrewery. With 100 miles to go, we resisted any tastings, but were amused and slightly repulsed by the chocolate-peanut-butter-banana and bacon-maple flavors. The long, gently hilly ride to McMinnville returned us to 37.9 mpg over the 179-mile drive, and I began to grow skeptical of that mid 40s-mpg rating. I never saw our daily rolling average approach that figure, and Mercedes' own instantaneous fuel economy bar only goes from 0-40 mpg, suggesting it doesn't even expect you toregularly break into the 40s. The next days were spent tasting more than 80 wines in the Willamette Valley, mostly pinot noirs -- while being shuttled in an SUV with a hired driver. We missed the E250's quiet cabin, clubby atmosphere, and swanky materials. Morning pre-wine sightseeing excursions had us averaging 35.6 mpg over 62 miles and musing at the Eco mode's reluctance to shut off the engine at a stop until well after the engine was fully warmed up. (It also denies the shutdown after long periods of highway running.) The auto start/stop feature isn't undetectable, but it's less objectionable than that of our BMW 528i long-termer. The locals warned us that rural police departments' speeding tolerance threshold is less than 5 mph over, so I set the Mercedes' cruise control right on the money, appreciating the tap-up/tap-down 5-mph incremental set/accelerate function. It allowed me to travel in and out of many towns without ever touching the pedals. Sadly, while the system will stop and resume driving automatically, it can't be set below 20 mph, so I had to use my feet in a few 15-mph zones. Our next viticultural destination was the Columbia River Valley, with the Hood River as our base. We again followed a byway route, detouring to climb as high up Mt. Hood as roads allowed, noting that the turbo-diesel suffered no altitude sickness whatsoever. The day's 167-mile ride averaged 36.8 mpg.
We toured the gorge, learned about the twenty-some real floods that formed it each time glacial lake Missoula would burst, sending 1000-foot walls of water down the valley moving at about 60-80 mph with a scouring flow equivalent to all of today's rivers combined. Yikes. Our gorge touring culminated in a return trip to Portland, following historic U.S. Highway 30, aka the Columbia River Highway, which is claimed to be America's first designated scenic highway. (You might recall the Mohawk Trail I toured last year was the nation's first designated "scenic tourist route.") Dotted with stunning waterfalls and a few of the original 1919 bridges and tunnels, it was a fitting end to a great 950-mile lap of Oregon, as was a stop at the iconic Voodoo Doughnuts, where we sampled the Memphis Mafia banana fritter and the Maple Bacon, which raised the bar the Rogue brewery had (perhaps ill-advisedly) sought to replicate alcoholically. I can vouch for the doughnuts, anyway. Our final fill-up was in Portland, and we had to drive out of the way a bit to find diesel. The nav system's suggestion of a 76 station in downtown had morphed into a Chevron that didn't sell diesel -- it's disheartening to find the database out of date in a brand-new car. Our overall average economy worked out to 36 mpg -- an estimate, given the vagaries of fuel shutoff points and so forth. That's well short of the 42-mpg EPA claim, but then we only spent about 40 miles on freeways. That IS impressively 4 mpg above the combined rating of 32 mpg (note that EPA figures drop to 27/42/32 mpg with the AWD 4Matic model). Bottom line: Even if your E250 Bluetec never hits 45 mpg, you'll be plenty pleased to get 700-800 miles of range in such a big, comfortable car that at least matches workaday family sedan acceleration.
source: motortrend
