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This page is about our 2013 Mercedes-Benz C220 CDI which we acquired in 2016 at amazing roughly 8000 km on the clock. Even I don't believe it, but the old owner used this car basically as a show piece and never really drove it. After we got it we drove it loads though. Currently now this car is sitting at around 120,000 km and is driven most days. The Leather As mentioned previously in the car page, this car is a lower trim than my C250, and so in this car we got MB-TEX, which is an artificial leather, in beige. (Whereas in the top-spec C250 it is a real grey leather). As a result of this, and being in hot & humid in Thailand, the fake leather has slowly degraded on the seats to the point that they have ripped clean on the driver's seat, and breaking on the passenger seat., And this car is always parked in the shade too. It is not getting any real direct sunlight except for some days when we're out and curb-parking or there is no shaded spot at work (but that's only a few hours and very rare).
You can see on the left photo, the passenger seat is coming apart slowly on both side walls of the seat bottom. And in the right photo on the driver's seat it has ripped completely and you can see our ugly DIY patch job (this was before we had time to get it properly reupholdstered which now we have). Something to be aware of if you get (really any) Benz with MB-TEX and it's a few years old, or parked a lot in the sun, Get one with the real leather optioned if you can. It will save you time and hassle, however, something to think aobut is that real leather while it will not break apart like this, may develop small cracks in the colour over time. I like it and think it shows the natural age of the leather & car, and makes it not fake, but to each's own. Lamps This car has halogen reflector headlamps, whereas a higher spec (such as the C250 -- though I think it is for all Avantgarde trims) has a Xenon projector headlamp. (And I think all Elegance trims have the halogen reflector).
A downside of the more expensive version is that if you WANT to have to highbeams on and the car decides it's not the right time, then you can't. Too bad. You gotta shut off the car and then turn off the Intelligent Light System. And also, this intelligent system is really good for Autobahn use but probably not in Thailand. When I'm driving at night, if there is a sign in the horizon, it will shine my headlamps at the roadsign so I can better see road signs. Which should be a good thing. But Thailand has shitty, bumpy roads. I'm trying to look at the road to make sure I don't hit and bump and explode my tyres. So that's a pain in the ass in my book. But usually it's supposed to be a good system. Anyway so in this case, Headlamps & Thailand, the old-style 'boring' Halogen reflectors are a better choice. Keyless Entry & Start Mercedes-Benz's keyless entry and keyless start system (the car start button) is called the KEYLESS-GO package, which this car is not equipped with, but the C250 is. So I have both sides of the coin.
Also, the thought that anyone can just come start your car if you're close enough to it is just mad to me. Cost to Run For me, the C220 CDI is a relatively inexpensive car to run. I always fill the car up when I have between 3/4 and 1/2 left in the tank, so it never costs too much to fill up to full. Under 1,000 baht on many counts (will be much less if you fill regular Diesel B7, but I put V-Power so it costs more). A typical Service (every 10,000 km) costs around 5,000 baht and the big Service that comes every once in a blue moon costs up to 10,000 baht usually. But, I have a guy that looks it over and doesn't replace stuff that "is still basically brand new, dude". So, yeah. Get yourself a guy. A battery change is typically up to 10,000 baht, sometimes a little less, but that's because I always get the VARTA. But you don't have to and you can absolutely get away with local brand batteries on this car as long as it is the right Amp-Hours. It does not make a fuss about it. The biggest maintainance on this car so far has been an air-con system replacement. A little under 40,000 baht to basically replace everything with new parts. I'm pretty sure it could've been avoided and was not this bad when I brought the car into the Auto air-con Shop, and I'm almost 100% certain the guy fucked up the air-con beyond repair during his initial diagnosis. So yeah. Whatever. I'm never going back to that shop again.  a Update --- 8/4/26 --- Had the radiator leak on me, it's a minor leak and I was able to drive the car home (from a long distance cross-city trip, mind you) just fine, though I did stop half way and top up the coolant (and got surprised that it was green... usually Merc's take pink, right?), but even though I had the 'top up coolant' error the whole way through, the temps never went up above normal temp, so so wonderful for the amazing car. Anyway, after we got home had it taken to the auto shop the next day (yes it was still drivable -- and Ray came and drove the car from my house back to his auto shop for us, as he always does -- really you should get yourself a guy. Ray is great and charges supermarket prices for brand-name items always when fixing our cars.) and it was a total of 21,000 baht to replace the radiator a bunch of other little bits and pieces (hoses and valves and coolant) that was associated with it. Not too bad for the wallet, so I consider it a win. Though taking a look at the old radiator I realised, even in the resovoir it was quite rusty, so yeah, don't cheap out and top up your coolant with drinking water like I used to do. This is what happens. 100,000 km
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The halogen version of the headlamp will have an adjustable lamp height (I think?? Not sure what it's supposed to be called) lever next to the headlamp controls in the car. The Xenon projector version will not have it, it will juts be a blank space. This is due to the Xenon projector having the Intelilgent Light System, which moves the lamp shining up and down automatically, as well as will turn on/off your highbeams automatically. 
The good thing with this generation of cars is that Keyless-Go is optional. Even if you bought it as an option, it still has a regular ignition/key slot and a start button goes on top of that. I like that because I have removed the start button from my C250 too. It's a hassle. Easier to just stick the key in. (Key in the ignition as you can see in the photo!) None of this foot on the brake stuff (the first time I used it, it took me ages to figure that out. I was always a 'give it a little rev' on start guy. Probably wrong and bad for the car, but whatever).
Keyless-Go (and I think all keyless systems) are also very draining on the battery. Both the car's battery as well as the keyfob's battery. I know because I replace both the car's and the fob's battery more often on the Keyless-equipped C250 than the good old key in the ignition C220 CDI. You can see in the photo, the dreaded 'change key fob batteries now' message that comes on every now and again in the Keyless-Go option'd C250.
I hit 100,000 km on this car (C220 CDI) on January 25, 2025 (what a nice looking date) on a cross-town trip visiting family in Saraburi province, Thailand. This was on the drive back to Bangkok. Will update this page when I hit another milestone, 200,000 km maybe?