The dealer had 2 2005 CDIs. I sat in both and drove one. I have a couple of questions that I hope ya'll can help with.

1) There appears to be 2 different center consoles. One had a sliding top, the other had a padded top that was split in half. Why the difference and what does the split padded console do? It looks like this is nicer

2) in front of both center console is a cover that houses ???? There is an mechanism that says "open" on it, but both didn't do anything when pushed.

3) Being that this is the first CDI I've driven, the brakes seemed to be hard to push initially, for a gradual stop. With more pressure, they stopped great. Is the harder initial pressure normal?

Thanks in advance.

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2005 E320 CDI - Totaled