It’s been a few years since we last reviewed an E-Class Mercedes-Benz, and not too much has changed for this latest model.
While some might consider a 4-door sedan to be so last-century, the E-Class could be considered the brand’s Goldilocks model, as it sits between the C Class and S Class sedans.
The 2024 model-year E-Class is in the top ten for New Zealand Car of the Year – is it worthy? Is it really that good, that it deserves a placing amongst the best? We spent a week and 600km behind the wheel to find out.
What We Like and Dislike About The 2024 Mercedes-Benz E300
| What we like | What we don’t like |
| Air suspension Design Interior luxury Four-wheel steering Build quality Sheer overall refinement Performance Handling Fuel economy Turning circle | Air suspension Haptic steering wheel controls A bit floaty in Comfort mode Cheap-feeling sun visors Transmission lag |
What’s In The 2024 Mercedes-Benz E-Class Range?
There is just a single model of E-Class in New Zealand, priced at $134,100, and it’s simply called the E300.
It’s powered by a 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder, turbocharged petrol engine that manages 190kW of power and 400Nm of torque. The transmission is a 9-speed automatic.
2024 Mercedes-Benz E-Class Colour Range
- Polar White Non-Metallic
- Graphite Grey Metallic
- High-tech Silver Metallic
- Verde Silver Metallic
- Obsidian Black Metallic
- Nautic Blue Metallic
- MANUFAKTUR Alpine Grey Solid – add $2,900
- MANUFAKTUR Hyacinth Red Metallic – add $2,500
- MANUFAKTUR Opalite White BRIGHT – add $2,500
Our Review Vehicle’s Optional Equipment
- Energising Package Plus – $5,200
- Plus Package – $9,400
The Energizing Package Plus includes:
Multicontour front seats, Comfort front head restraints, AIR-BALANCE Package, Warmth Comfort Package, Seat Heating PLUS for driver and front passenger, armrest heating for driver and front passenger, and heated rear seats.
The Plus Package includes:
Engineering package, AIRMATIC (air suspension), rear axle steering 4.5° (201), power closing for doors, URBAN GUARD vehicle protection Plus, illuminated radiator grille, MBUX interior assistant – front, THERMOTRONIC 4-zone automatic climate control, DIGITAL LIGHT w/ projection functions.
While this review will describe many of the car’s functions, you need to keep in mind that many of them are optional extras.
Including the optional equipment, our review car’s retail price is $148,700.
For a full list of specs and options available for the 2024 Mercedes-Benz E-Class, head on over to Mercedes-Benz New Zealand’s website.
How Does The 2024 Mercedes-Benz E300 Compare To Its Competition?
With Audi no longer selling the brilliant A6 sedan, it’s slim pickings in the executive sedan market. Volvo sedans? No longer.
While it’s perhaps aiming at a different buyer, we’ve included the mighty Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrofoglio for fun, and while it’s also aimed at a different buyer, it’s hard not to include the excellent BYD Seal Performance – even if it is an EV.
| Make/ Model | Engine | Power/ Torque kW/Nm | Seats | Fuel L/100km | Boot Space litres | Price |
| Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrofoglio | 2.9-litre, twin-turbocharged petrol | 375/600 | 5 | 10.2 | 480 | $159,990 |
| BMW 550e | Plug-in hybrid | 360/700 | 5 | 1.4 | 520 | $159,900 |
| Mercedes- Benz E300 | 2.0-litre, turbocharged 4-cylinder petrol mild hybrid | 190/400 | 5 | 7.2 | 540 | $134,100 |
| Jaguar XF 300 Sport | 2.0-litre, turbocharged 4-cylinder petrol | 221/400 | 5 | 7.4 | 540 | $132,000 |
| Lexus ES300 Limited | 2.5-litre, 4-cylinder petrol hybrid | 160\221 | 5 | 5.1 | 454 | $99,900 |
| BYD Seal Performance | Electric | 390/670 | 5 | 18.2kWh/100km | 400 | $83,990 |
Please note that DriveLife does its best to ensure the information above is correct at the time of publication, however, prices, specifications and models can change over time. Please bear that in mind when comparing models in the comparison table.
First Impressions Of The 2024 Mercedes-Benz E300
While the external changes from the previous E Class have been minimal, it’s certainly tightened up the whole look of the car, and it looks brilliant. For the first time in far too long, our test Mercedes-Benz was not finished in grey or silver and instead was painted in Nautic Blue Metallic.
While this almost looked black at certain angles and lights, it was stunning and turned heads everywhere it went – possibly more than the S Class we tested in 2021.
The new model has a fresher look – not radically altered at all, but tightened up here and there, some new wheels – as always – and a crisper feel. The new pop-out door handles lift the car’s perceived luxury, although there is one sad update: the fake exhaust tips are very fake.
The end result of the design of this car is one of its highlights; it exudes luxury and makes a statement. It’s a 9/10 from me for the design. If we can get rid of the fake exhaust tips, it’d be perfectly aligned to its target market.
What’s The Interior Like In The 2024 Mercedes-Benz E300?
Opening the door of our test car revealed a white interior – at last, a non-black interior! Like the exterior, the interior exudes luxury as well. Not just with the colour, but standing back, you can sense the thought that’s gone into designing every aspect of the interior to project luxury – and on the whole, Mercedes-Benz has succeeded.
Your eyes are drawn to that third screen, right in front of the passenger. It controls things like the massaging seats, audio, phone, navigation. So effectively, it’s almost a copy of the centre screen, just inches to the right. It’s a cool gimmick, but it’s also hard to see the value in having it there other than the bling factor.
On the plus side of things, the resolution of all three screens is outstanding; the crispness and clarity – including all the car’s cameras – is excellent. One new option while parked (only) is to use the YouTube app to watch your favourite videos on the centre or passenger’s screen.
While much of the E-Class is controlled via that centre screen, there are also some physical quick-buttons for often-used things, like buttons for volume, drive modes, and parking (cameras and automatic parking).
Elsewhere in the cabin, there’s lots of piano black finish across the dashboard and doors. It collects fingerprints and dust very quickly, so keep a micro-fibre cloth handy if you are a bit OCD. The glove box is a good size, and includes the glass bottle of air freshener that is dispersed throughout the cabin.
Other things you do want to touch will feel great, such as the seat and window controls; these look so stylish and work perfectly, in typical German efficiency. The small, chunky, flat-bottom steering wheel feels superb, and while seemingly quite sporty in a car like the E-Class, doesn’t look out of place. There are also alloy pedals to continue the sporty feel in the car.
While the specs sheet for this car says it has an “open pore black ash wood centre console, it feels and looks suspiciously like plastic. The door bins are felt-lined, meaning your drink bottle won’t rattle while sitting there. The doors are soft close (another optional extra), so no need to slam it shut – just push it slightly closed and electric motors will do the rest. If you do decide to go old-school and close the door yourself, you’ll be met with the expected ‘thunk’ of a quality car. The E-Class still has that feeling about it.
For your connectivity needs, there are two USB-C ports down inside the centre console, just by the Qi wireless phone charging pad. There’s another USB-C port inside the small centre console cubby and in typical Mercedes-Benz design, the 12-volt socket is tucked up deep under the glove box.
The seats in the E-Class not only look good, they are heavily appointed with features – some of them optional extras, as mentioned earlier. The front seats have 3-stage heating and cooling, and if you have some sort of hot/cold fetish, you can run both heating and cooling at the same time. The rear seats have 3-stage heating (for the outer passengers only).
The front seats are electrically adjusted, and have electrically adjustable lumbar and bolsters, with both of these controlled via the centre screen – or the passenger can also adjust the lumbar and bolsters on both front seats. I picture some unruly kids having fun with dad’s lumbar adjustment while he’s driving, but you can disable that third screen.
As mentioned, the front seats are also massaging (optional), with the massage options of Classic, Relaxing, Deep Wave, Activating, or a new massage option, Hot Stone. That setting will heat the back rest and pound your back, much like a hot stone massage. It’s actually quite effective, and is a nice addition.
With the adjustability of the front seats and the electrically adjustable steering wheel, it’s easy to get the perfect driving position, and seat comfort is high.
Passengers in the rear seats are also well looked-after. As well as seat heating, they get access to their own dual-zone air conditioning controls, and two USB-C ports. There are air vents both at the rear of the centre console, and also in the B pillars, meaning passengers in the rear should be very comfortable.
The rear-seat armrest contains a slide out cellphone holder, and then sliding it out more reveals two cup holders. This approach means the top of the armrest is completely flat, and padded. Headroom and legroom in the rear of the E-Class is very good, especially considering the sunroof, with some of this space down to the deeply sculptured rear seats.
The electric blind for the split sunroof comes out from the middle, which is quite cool to watch. The blind is operated by a haptic (touch) control up on the roof console, and is so painful to use. I spent too long trying to get the blind to open or close, and in the end, gave up, and used voice controls instead.
If there was one other thing in the interior that was surprising, it’s the sun visors – they feel so cheap to touch, hold and use, it’s almost like they’ve been purchased from Ali Express. They certainly aren’t in keeping with the rest of the interior.
The boot is a very decent 540 litres in size, and includes buttons to remote-release the rear seats, that fold down 40/20/40. There’s no spare wheel under the floor, but there is some more storage space there, as well as a tyre repair kit including a pump.
What’s The 2024 Mercedes-Benz E300 Like To Drive?
With a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine, it may seem like Mercedes-Benz has moved down the luxury level of powertrains, away from a smoother and likely quieter six-cylinder. However, overall the 4-pot engine does very well. It’s quiet most of the time, although when accelerating it can take on a growl that is both pleasing but perhaps a little out of keeping with the luxury theme. The smoothness is there, though, right out to its 6,500 red line.
It is plenty powerful and accelerates to 100km/h in 6.3 seconds. It really gives its best above 5,000rpm, but there’s plenty of torque below that for ‘normal’ driving. Around town, it’s an absolute pleasure to drive – peppy and willing. If there is one negative about the powertrain on the E-Class, it would be the 9-speed automatic transmission. While it’s smooth enough, the transmission can be a bit lazy when it changes gears, and at times – say when accelerating away from a rolling stop at a give-way sign – there’s an annoying lag before the car decides to get into gear and move it.
That said, it’s still a great car on the motorway, or around town. Other than a slightly chunky C pillar, visibility is excellent. Around town, the (optional) four-wheel steering the E-Class is fitted with is simply amazing, and the turning circle of 11.2m is very good, down from 12.0m without it. One of the first things I noticed when driving the E-Class is the steering; it’s incredibly quick to respond and I was surprised the turning circle wasn’t less than 11.2 metres. In general driving, it feels so nimble around the city.
With a mild-hybrid setup, there’s nothing extra for the driver to do – just get in and drive. If the engine shuts off at the traffic lights, it instantly starts once you tap that accelerator pedal, with no shunting or jerks. To aid with economy, you can set one of the dashboard’s centre screens to an Eco Ball, that rolls back and forth, depending on how eager you are with the gas pedal, or how hard you are on the brakes. I must say, it’s quite addictive and even though I’m not competitive at all (sarcasm), it was a challenge to keep that ball steady.
As per other Mercedes-Benz models with the same dashboard layout, you can pick from different dashboards, depending on your mood. There’s the Classic screen, Sports, or Navigation. Up on the windscreen is a heads-up display; as good as another car with this feature, and it’s always great to get your navigation instructions right there on the windscreen.
Ride quality with air suspension should be outstanding in a car such as the E Class, and overall it is. The ride is excellent, but it can feel a bit floaty when in Comfort mode and on certain bumps, the car can start to pitch a bit. It’s not alarming, but it was unexpected.
Something that was sadly expected, was the skipping of the rear end on certain bumps. When you hit a bump – a manhole is a classic – the rear end jumps sideways slightly. Again, not alarming or dangerous, but it shouldn’t happen in a Mercedes-Benz in 2025. We’ve enquired with the company previously about this behaviour, and they assure us it is expected. I’m not sure whether this endears the car to win New Zealand Car Of The Year? Time will tell.
Switching the E-Class into Sport mode, and that rear suspension issue disappears, and the ride quality is still very good. I ended up setting an individual drive mode with the suspension in Sport, but everything else in Comfort, and it was a better experience.
While it’s not supposed to be a corner-carver, the new E-Class still impresses on the bends. Helping this is that adjustable air suspension, and overall, the E-Class’ handling is very predictable, with mid-corner bumps causing no drama. The steering is a little devoid of feeling, but for what is a luxury car, it’s still good enough for those who like a spirited drive on a challenging road. I believe you could really carve up the miles on back country roads in this car.
Backing this up are brakes that are excellent. I’ve read reports of some reviewers who found the brakes in the car a little soft; however, I felt they were perfect, and brake feel spot on. I couldn’t fault the brakes, and even after repeated heavy use, they still felt the same.
If there’s another thing I took from my week in the E-Class, it’s the isolation from the road; road noise, tyre noise – both well subdued. There’s a sense of everything outside the car being in another world, but thankfully, the driver still feels involved with the car – that’s a win. Road noise is controlled in part by the double-glazed windows, but weirdly only the front windows are double-glazed, perhaps to save weight.
The sound system in the new E-Class has been upgraded to include a ‘4D’ feature, where there are bass speakers in each of the front seats. This means you can actually feel the bass of any music in your seat, as you drive. Someone previously had cranked this right up to level 10, and that pounded my kidneys too much. After adjusting it to more humane levels, the bass in my seat was just right, and really added another level of audio enjoyment to the drive. There were times when I turned it off, as it felt too much, but overall this feels like a good move from having a bass speaker in the boot. Each front seat’s speaker can be adjusted individually.
While using the sound system, I noticed another update in this car; when using “Hey Mercedes’ to control any of the car’s functions etc, the music (or radio etc) doesn’t get muted, as previously happened and certainly happens in other brand’s cars. It’s only a small thing, but having some awesome tunes going that are then abruptly halted for voice commands really zips you out of your groove. Using voice commands does lower the volume of the music, but at least it’s still there.
One more addition to this update are the AC vents in the front of the car. While you can adjust them manually (thank you, Mercedes-Benz, for this) you can also go into the AC menu on the centre screen, and set the air flow direction via some options there. You can pick from head, upper body, uniform, or averted – where the car will make sure no airflow goes to your head. It sounds a bit over the top, but I used this feature far more often than expected. There’s also an ionisation option for the aircon, and the ability to turn the air freshener on or off.
It wouldn’t be a Mercedes-Benz review in 2025 if we didn’t mention the haptic steering wheel controls. Yes, they sort of work, but the previous steering wheel controls using actual buttons were the best in the business. I still found times when my palm (for example) would brush against a steering wheel button and change something.
Like all other Mercedes-Benz cars we have tested, the adaptive cruise control is faultless, as is the auto-steering assist. In fact, as we’ve mentioned before, the whole raft of driver assist systems in this car work so well, you barely know they are there. It’s definitely the difference between a car manufacturer that’s been in business a long time, and others. The driver aids in the E-Class are not annoying, they don’t get in the way – unless they need to – and they just work.
We managed to cover 600km in our mixed driving of the new E-Class, and it used 7.8L/100km, very close to the claimed 7.2 rating. For a 2.0-litre, turbocharged engine, that borders on outstanding. This car is no slouch and almost encourages you to drive it that little bit harder. I’m happy the Eco Ball is there to keep me in check.
Many thanks to the owners of this stunning property and allowing us to use it as a photo location. This property is for sale, and you can view it here.
READ ON TO CHECK OUT OUR SUMMARY OF THE 2024 MERCEDES-BENZ E300.
2024 Mercedes-Benz E300 – Specifications
| Vehicle Type | 4-door sedan |
| Starting Price | $134,100 |
| Price as Tested | $148,700 |
| Engine | 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder turbocharged petrol |
| Power, Torque kW/Nm | 190/400 |
| Transmission | 9-speed automatic |
| Spare Wheel | |
| Kerb Weight, Kg | 2,025 |
| Length x Width x Height mm | 4955x1860x1455 |
| Boot Space / Cargo Capacity, Litres | 540 |
| Fuel tank capacity, litres | 66 |
| Fuel Economy, L/100km | Advertised Spec – Combined – 7.2 Real-World Test – Combined – 7.8 Low Usage: 0-6 / Medium Usage 6-12 / High Usage 12+ |
| Towing Capacity Kg, unbraked/braked | 750/2,100 |
| Turning circle metres | 11.2 Small: 6-10m / Medium 10-12m / Large 12m+ |
| Warranty | 5 Years, up to 200,000km |
| Safety information | ANCAP Rating – unrated Rightcar.govt.nz – 5 Stars – MBNZ2 |
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