2012 C Class Vs 2012 BMW 3 Series & 2012 Audi A4

2012 The Fight is on.

Battle lines have been drawn for 2012 models between  Mercedes-Benz C Class, BMW 3 Series and Audi A4. One of the perennial points of contest has been arguably Pricing. Faced with an enlightened  Canadian consumer market that is price sensitive and always clamouring for value for money in a market place that has its brims overflowing with hordes of  beaming new models every year, failure to price the new models could mean disaster for a manufacturer. Second point of conquest has been engine engineering represented by the horsepower count. However 2012 becomes exciting in a special way because transmission has been thrown into the fray.

Pricing

Mercedes-Benz recently announced pricing on the face lifted 2012 C Class models. C 250 rear wheel drive boasting a new 14 Turbo Charged M271 Direct Injection engine churning 201 horsepower with a speed of 0-100km/hr at 7.2 seconds with almost 10% fuel savings is pegged at $36 700. This beats the Audi A4 front wheel drive with its Turbo Fuel Stratified Injection (TFSI) 211 horsepower engine with a speed of 0-100km/hr at 7.4 seconds (even though it has 10 more hp than the C Class) priced at $37 800 resulting in a difference of $1100.00. The BMW pricing for 2012 was not available but the 2011 pricing was $34 900 and 

and their 2012 will probably be the lowest on the 323i rear wheel drive churning 200hp with a speed of 0-100km/hr at 7.4 seconds, just the same as Audi.

Transmissions

Mercedes-Benz 7G-Tronic Automatic Transmission.

  

The 7G-Tronic is Mercedes-Benz's trademark name for its seven-speed automatic transmission. This fifth-generation transmission was.................
introduced in the Autumn of 2003 on 8-cylinder models, and was the first seven-speed automatic transmission ever used on a production vehicle. The engineering masterpiece ensures barely perceptible shifts through the entire gear range. Along with intelligent transmission programming that learns and adapts itself to your personal driving style, the 7 G-TRONIC can skip several gears for responsive stopping power or when downshifting for quick bursts of speed.

The 7G-Tronic can save up to 0.6 litres of fuel per 100 kilometers (depending on the car) and has shorter acceleration times and quicker intermediate sprints than the former 5-speed automatic transmission.

The 7G-Tronic has two reverse gear ratios: 3.416 and 2.231. The winter mode, also named 'comfort/economy ' mode, starts out in 2nd forward and 2nd reverse.

The transmission can skip gears when downshifting, allowing for quicker acceleration. It also has a lockup torque converter on all seven gears, allowing better transmission of torque for improved acceleration. The transmission's case is made of magnesium, a first for the industry, to save weight.

The 7G-Tronic transmission is built at the Mercedes-Benz Stuttgart-Untertuerkheim plant in Germany, the site of Daimler-Benz's original production facility.In July 2009, Mercedes-Benz announced they are working on a new nine-speed automatic. This announcement compelled Audi and BMW to rush to find ways of improving their own transmissions, resulting in both these organizations running to ZF Friedrichshafen AG to buy the 8 speed automatic (Tiptronic & Multitronic) and the BMW 8 speed automatic transmission known as Steptronic & Manumatic.

Audi 8 Speed Automatic Transmission.

The ZF 8HP is an eight-speed automatic transmission, designed and built by ZF Friedrichshafen AG a subsidiary of ZF Getriebe GmbH in Saarbrücken. One of its main aims is to improve vehicle fuel economy, as compared to ZF-6 speed transmission. Due to changes in internal design, shift times have reduced to 200 milliseconds, along with the ability to shift in a non-sequential manner - going from 8th to 2nd in extreme situations. In the 8HP70 version, it has a torquehandling limit of 700 newton metres (516 ft·lbf), and weighs 90 kilograms which is too heavy as compared to the Mercedes-Benz G-Tronic. 

It is interesting to note that the Chrysler Group LLC will initially receive the 8HP 8-speed automatic transmissions from the ZF Getriebe GmbH plant in Saarbrücken, Germany and By 2013, in parallel with Chrysler Group, ZF is setting up a new transmission production plant in North America, where the 8-speed transmissions will be produced.  ZF Friedrichshafen and Chrysler Group have reached a supply and license agreement for ZF's 8HP 8-speed automatic transmission. Chrysler Group is licensed to produce the 8HP at the company’s Indiana Transmission Plant I and the Kokomo Casting plant, starting in 2013, and yes, you may have guessed right, there is a strong rumor that both Audi and BMW may take supply of their portions from this Chrysler Plant.

BMW 8-speed automatic transmission: Steptronic.

The 8-speed automatic transmission system with Steptronic is said to shift gears so quickly and smoothly that the only indication is the movement of the tachometer needle. The additional gears and closer spacing in this transmission is also said to reduce the engine's rev interval between shifts, so that changing from third to fourth, for example, is practically undetectable. Driving is then supposed to become more dynamic, more efficient - and more comfortable.

At higher speeds, it is also believed that the long eighth gear reduces the number of revolutions per minute, resulting in quieter, more fuel-efficient running. BMW asserts that this newly developed, highly effective torque converter clutch adds to this outstanding performance, even when you’re driving in manual mode.

Analysis.

It is critically important to note that Mercedes-Benz is the only Company in this segment that produces its own transmissions. The 7G-Tronic transmission is built at the Mercedes-Benz Stuttgart-Untertuerkheim plant in Germany, the site of Daimler-Benz's original production facility. This is important to the customer because it spells confidence to know that the car they are driving has a transmission that was developed, built and tailor-made to suit the engine it is mated to. For many years now these transmissions have given Mercedes-Benz customers unparalleled fluent driving experience with big savings on fuel. On the other hand the  ZF Friedrichshafen AG 8 speed transmissions, which BMW & Audi are now using on their cars, have had customers complaining because of gear fishing and lack of speed when quick bursts of speed are required. The heavily publicized fuel savings have not been forth coming, leaving customers with unfulfilled expectations. BMW & Audi have been hoping to get excellent reviews on these transmissions because they are already being used on the Rolls-Royce Ghost & Bentley Mulsanne. Poor strategy! This could have worked a long time ago but today, it will take more than that to get a discerning customer to appreciate a system that is not working well for him/her simply because it is also on a Rolls-Royce.

I welcome debate on these matters and feel free to comment. For more info, I am @ mekismerc@gmail.com