Page 2 – Long-Term Test Autos – The Green Car Driver –

The 18-month mark of a long-term test car is a bittersweet moment.  In one respect, we’ve gotten to know the car really well over the past year and a half.  On the other hand, we know its time with us is coming to a close.
Our 2011 Palladium Silver Mercedes-Benz E350 …

MUNICH—A BMW ActiveHybrid 5 is the newest member of The Diesel Driver’s long-term fleet, but it arrived a bit late   The Azurite Black ActiveHybrid 5 was to be delivered to Jonathan Spira and Christian Stampfer at the BMW Welt in Munich Thursday but, over the preceding weekend, a hailstorm pelted …

We usually see the 10,000 kilometer mark on our long-term cars just as we hit one year.  With the BMW X5 xDrive35d, we saw the 10,000 mile (16,000 kilometer) mark hit right around the six month point.  That alone says something about the car and how much everyone wants to …

It’s uncanny how our long-term cars seem to hit 10,000 km (6214 miles) at the one-year anniversary mark.  Indeed, such was the case with our 2011 Palladium Silver Mercedes-Benz E350 BlueTec sedan.
Over the past year, since taking delivery at the Mercedes-Benz Kundencenter in Sindelfingen, Germany (Sindelfingen is a town near …

It’s been a tradition in my family that we go to the factory to take delivery of our cars.  Even when I was a lad, I remember going to the local Mercedes-Benz car dealership for my parents to arrange picking up our next car in Germany.
So when it came to …

A BMW X5 xDrive35d is the newest member of The Diesel Driver’s long-term fleet.  In a recent online poll, 28% of The Diesel Driver’s readers correctly guessed that our new car would be the X5.
(Admittedly, 35% voted for the VW Passat TDI, 10.5% favored the Audi Q7 TDI, 5.3% said …

The Mercedes-Benz E350 BlueTec has been in our long-term test fleet for a over six months at this point and, now that the car has passed 4396 miles (7075 km), it is fitting to look back.
It’s noteworthy to mention that everyone at The Diesel Driver wants to drive the E350.  …

While we only picked up our long-term 2011 Volkswagen Jetta TDI back in February of this year, our relationship with the new built-for-America Jetta started in the summer of 2010, when The Diesel Driver was the only U.S. publication invited to drive the diesel Jetta at the press launch.
Designed specifically …

Last November, I drove the Mercedes-Benz E350 BlueTec sedan from New York to Boston and back and promptly fell in love.  The trip of 331 km (206 miles) took three hours and my fuel consumption was 6.7 l/100 km (35 mpg).  The return trip of 335 km (208 miles) took …

The inevitable epilogue of every European Delivery trip is referred to as “drop-off,” the point at which the owner hands over his car to the shipper for ocean transport to the United States.
We dropped off the 2011 Mercedes-Benz E350 BlueTec at the offices of BLG Logistics in Bremerhaven on August …

Out of the five automakers that offer European Delivery programs in the United States – Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, and Volvo – only two, Audi and Mercedes-Benz, currently offer diesels via their program.
Mercedes-Benz offers customers residing in the United States the opportunity to purchase a new Mercedes E-Class or S-Class …

A Mercedes-Benz E350 BlueTec is now part of The Diesel Driver’s long-term test fleet.  37% of Diesel Driver readers correctly guessed that the new auto would be a Mercedes.   26.4% said VW, 20.8% said Audi, and 15.1% voted for BMW.
We’ve liked the new E-Class since we drove one last fall.  …