Car stuff, ignore, quite boring

The problem is not with the gearbox itself, it's the implementation that sucks - the operation is not a pleasant experience and in combination with the favoured foot parking brake it becomes very awkward to work with. As you said...they probably don't sell enough to worry about it.

Also, in the case of the 2 cars the OP is looking at the E-class would be a 212, so a different floorpan to the CLS/211

Hmmm...why did it not display the edit I added just after posting?

 

oh I agree Doodle, but those boxes are specced to a price, and that price / level of refinement is dictated by market. In their case money was better spent on their autobox development.

Never been really keen on the foot parking brake myself. I'm very surprised that they've stuck with it as they could easily do away with it.

 

Given that it's in-house (they've been making their own autoboxes for at least the last 30 years), that money probably goes a lot further too.

One of those MB idiosyncrasies I guess, like having only one control stalk for indicators and wipers.

 

exactly that, they keep all the design in house and sub out for manufacture, it used to be that the components would be manufactured by two or three suppliers so as to avoid supply issues.

The stalk probably made sense in many ways, as again, it keeps costs down at design level but also its less to learn / fiddle with. Perhaps given they were amongst the first to introduce the rain sensing wipers perhaps thinking was you'd just stick it in auto and then its just washer and indicators to worry about. Like you say, one of those MB idiosyncrasies.

 

Where are the economy figures coming from? Parkers have them pegged at pretty much the same on a 250.

Also bear in mind on the second hand market a manual E-class is about as desireable as a dose of herpes, which will have an impact when you want to shift it on.