Mercedes Benz of San Diego

Words by Tim Wong

For some time now, I’ve been wanting to start a series of shop features that consist of our personal visits to see some of the details of each shop. It would be a really good way to connect with community in a deep way and show some interesting things that most people would over see. A friend mine who happens to work at Mercedes Benz of San Diego invited me to come check out the dealership and I who happened to be massive Mercedes Benz fan couldn’t pass it up. Apparently this Mercedes dealership possesses one of San Diego’s largest completely interior service department which is staggeringly massive.

The range of cars that is serviced here is quite wide from new to old.

They even had a B class in the bay which isn’t even made in the U.S. This one came from Baja California.

The showroom had quite the collection as well with several factory options. Sadly, they did not have any Black Series’ in stock.

They did have the new SLK350 and it looks rather good.

C63 AMG with the matte paint option. C63 is quite a good buy since it costs about the same as a base model E class, but since its AMG it has the M156 which is the same V8 across the line.

CL55 AMG

E63 AMG

Of course I can’t leave out the SLS AMG. Easily my favorite currently produced car in the world. I love everything about this car: the styling, the ostentatious gull wing doors, and the brilliant roar of the V8.

Smart cars is being sold through Mercedes Benz so there was a Smart dealership in the same lot. Honestly, I don’t particularly care for Smart cars…at all, mostly because I think they are impractical and stupid little cars. I try to keep an open mind about things even though I always make a prejudgement about most things (usually I’m right). I took one out for a test drive thinking it would be slow, but pretty decent in handling. It was terrible. The seat was too high, the car had almost no room in the trunk, and worst of all, the transmission was absolute rubbish. The shifts was harsh and slow which was incredibly annoying, plus there was no rev meter instead they had a little arrow that would flash indicating when to shift. The MPG on these are pretty decent, but an old Honda Civic would have a better MPG and it will still be slow.