Mercedes-Benz E-Class Estate review

As we said at the start, the cheapest E-Class Estate is now £57,780. There’s not actually that much need to add to that. Maybe you’d have the £59,120 diesel AMG Line instead of the petrol, but that spec comes with LED Lights, Keyless Go, a 14.4in central screen, parking sensors, cameras, wireless charging, open pore wood trim and leather.

It’s enough. Stepping up to Advanced costs about £3,000, with another three grand jump to Premium and five grand from there to Premium Plus. There’s no need to go that far.

Premium is nicely kitted out, but you do have to put up with that full width glass Superscreen, the benefits of which are overrated. To us it’s more awkward to use and less attractive than the regular layout, although you do get the excellent Burmester 4D surround sound system.

Because of the way the trim lines now work, you can’t actually add many options to each level: firms have done this as the WLTP regulations demand that almost every option is put through testing, which makes it prohibitively expensive.

But the car shouldn’t cost you too much to lease. Mercedes UK is quoting under £700 a month for an AMG Line E220d. Sooner that than spending £900 a month on a similarly specced hybrid with a considerably smaller boot.