A-Class Mercedes-Benz A-class (2013) First Drives/Reviews Thread

[tennmb]

Can it fly in the US market? IMO, MB would have to dial up the interior. For example, even Ford has raised the bar, and if yo u look at the interior of a new Focus, it actually has more grab than the A. The sync system is top notch, and the Focus uses decent materials. This isn't the Ford of yesterday. Let's face it, Toyota, Ford, Nissan, etc. can get the newer tech gadgetry to market much faster than those Germans. The reality is who is going to pay a premium for a Mercedes, when the target audience is already a value shopper. Your typical MB buyer is not going to be considering the A. It will be those who are looking at a Mini, or a top of the line Focus.

 

[Gianclaudio]

Please tell me you're kidding me with the Focus comparision, that interior is vomitive.

 

[fortuner]

That AMG sounds a home run...

 

[Merc1]

And the Focus sync system continues to draw complaints everywhere so I don't know who thinks it is so great.

http://www.leftlanenews.com/consumer-reports-says-fords-myford-touch-stinks.html

M

 

[Wolfgang]

Can it fly in the US market?

Looks like the A-Class is not coming to the U.S.?

Although the A-class isn’t coming to the U.S., the CLA and small crossover will.

http://blog.caranddriver.com/mercedes-benz-bringing-b-class-to-the-u-s-—but-only-as-an-ev/

 

[Wolfgang]

Autobild test results:

1. Audi A3 2.0 TDI 504/700 points
2. BMW 118d 492/700
3. Mercedes-Benz A200 CDI 478/700

No dream start for Mercedes: In our comparison the A 200 CDI loses with a clear margin to Audi and BMW. The new A-Class is not a bad car, but it just has some problem areas: suspension too tight, a little too loud and rear view somewhat obstructed. Perhaps the developers tuned the A-Class too much for teens. Slightly more Mercedes virtues would do the kid good. Translated from Autobild

 

[Wolfgang]

Martin Winterkorn inspects the A-Class in Paris.

http://translate.google.com/transla...eber-zeigt-vw-chef-die-neue-a-klasse/&act=url

 

[Wolfgang]

Autozeitung compared the A 250 and BMW 125i. Due to the adaptive suspension, the BMW has better ride comfort.

The Mercedes wins with 3,082 points (BMW: 3,070 points).

The conclusion is:

"The new A 250 differs a lot from the old A-Class, like an iPhone from a rotary dial-phone. In the tested configuration the A 250 Sport is a worthy rival to established sport compacts like VW Golf GTI and Scirocco. The BMW 125i was found to be lacking in driving dynamics compared to the lively Mercedes. But the A 250 Sport is less impressive in space and comfort, which probably won't bother sport fans."

Here are a few numbers:

0-100 km/h: Mercedes: 6.4 s; BMW: 6.1 s

Stopping distance from 100 km/h Cold: Mercedes: 34.0 m; BMW: 35.5 m

Consumption Test: Mercedes: 8.7 l/100 km; BMW: 8.9 l/100 km

Translated from Autozeitung via Motor-talk

 

[Zafiro]

Its a shame that A250 only come with automatic gearbox. Im not fan of the automatic in A-class, too slow gearchanges.

 

[EnI]

Why not comparing 125i feat. M-Sport pack with the A250 Sport? It would make more sense ...

When I see a comparison test like this one (eg. comparing a regular model to one with sporty package ... or eg. lower-speced model with higher speced model etc) I always have a feeling there is some agenda behind such comparisons.

Especially when many other tests & comparisons have found the new A-class the lest dynamic when compared to the new 1er & the new A3 (comparison between regular versions). Go figure.

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

Those performance numbers are weird. BMW claims 0-100km at 6.4s and Mercedes 6.5s.

 

[Gianclaudio]

The 80-120 time is impressive, about half of a GTI/Giulietta.
According to Auto, the engine is the strongest point as the safety and high tech devices. The weak points are understeer at the limit, the small trunk and lacking a bit of involtment.

Regards!

 

[DeDe]

The 80-120 time is impressive, about half of a GTI/Giulietta.

Because the A250 is automatic and they measured 80-120 km/h with kickdown. GTI and Giulietta managed their times in 6th gear.

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

It seems like Mercedes has created a lot of confusion with the A250 AMG Package and the A250 Sport Engineered by AMG.

Essentially the latter one is much sportier with a properly tuned AMG sports suspension, transmission mapping and engine note, wheres the former, the A250 AMG Package, is more of a cosmetic offering. The suspension is lowered but the gear changes are slower and the engine note duller. They should have had a standard A250 and then the 'Engineered by AMG' A250. No need for the A250 AMG package.

 

[stanch86]

Mat and the new A-class!

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

Problem is, the vehicle he is test driving is not the real AMG Sport. It's just an AMG package. The A250 Sport Engineered by AMG has a different suspension set up, transmission set up as well as engine characteristics.

 

[Kowalski]

The Clarkson review: Mercedes-Benz A 250 AMG

​

​

When my dad announced that he’d become engaged to a girl from the next village, his parents were mortified. “What’s the matter with the girls from our village?” they cried.

Psychologists don’t call this limited-horizon thinking “Nissan Almera syndrome”. But they should. The Almera was just some car. White goods you bought by the pound or the foot. It did nothing badly, but it did nothing well, either. It was for people who saw no need to eat fancy food or to holiday outside Britain. It was a bucket of beige, a non-car for those frightened of the exotic.

Of course, it was not alone. There was also the Toyota Corolla. A fridge with windscreen wipers. A car for people who daren’t look at the sunset lest they become aroused. Chicken korma people.

Happily today in Britain both the Almera and the Corolla are gone, buried with the ghosts of Terry and June in a cemetery on a bypass, under a perpetually grey sky, beneath a headstone that no one will ever visit. We’ve moved on. We all want Range Rover Evoques these days. Or mini MPVs or maybe a swashbuckling coupé. The meat-and-potato hatchback is dead.

Except it isn’t. It’s lower than it used to be and more sleek. It’s replete with styling details to arouse the curiosity. It’s no longer the girl from down the street. It’s an internet bride, a brogue with scarlet laces. The Ford Escort has become the Focus, all independent rear suspension and tricksy diff. The Vauxhall Astra has stepped out of its mackintosh and slipped into a pair of open-crotch panties. Even the new Volkswagen Golf looks as if it knows where Tate Modern is.

And now we get to the Mercedes A-class, the latest frumpy-dumpy hatch to have been force-fed a diet of vodka and Red Bull. The original had two floors, one a few inches above the other. With straight faces, Merc’s engineers explained that in the event of a crash, the engine would slide into the gap and thus would not turn the occupants into paste. And I don’t doubt this was true.

So why does the new car not have such a feature? If it was such a bonzer idea, why drop it? Could it, I wonder — a bit rhetorically — have something to do with the fact that the real reason the original had two floors is that it had been conceived as an electric car and needed somewhere to store the battery?

Happily Mercedes has now realised electric cars have no future and, as a result, one floor is enough. It has also realised that it can’t just sell a packing case with wheels any more. Today we live in a skinny latte world and instant coffee won’t do. A hatchback, therefore, has to have some zing.

So the new A-class has all sorts of styling creases down the flanks, a titchy rear window and a massive bulbous nose with the grille from what appears to be a truck stuck on the front. It now looks like the sort of car they might have used on the moon base in Space 1999.

And I tested the 250 AMG version, which has massive wheels as well. I want to tell you it looked a bit silly, a bit garish, a bit overstyled. But I can’t because, actually, it looked tremendous. Many others also thought so.

Inside, it’s good, too, chiefly because it feels like a much bigger Mercedes. However, there were a couple of issues. I have new shoes. They are Dr Martens and I like them very much but they were too wide for the gap between the wheelarch and the brake pedal. This meant that every time I pressed the accelerator, I slowed down.

And there’s more. When you push the driver’s seat fully back, your shoulder is adjacent to the B-pillar. This means you can’t drive with your arm resting on the window ledge. I’m surprised by how annoying that was.

There was another surprise as well. This is an AMG-badged car, and that is the same as a three-chilli warning on the menu at your local Indian restaurant. You expect, if you turn your foot sideways to press the throttle, to have your eyes moved round to the side of your head so you end up looking like a pigeon. But no.

The turbocharged 2-litre engine spools up nicely enough and the rev counter charges towards the red zone but the speedo confirms what your peripheral vision has been suggesting: you aren’t picking up speed at anything like the rate you were expecting.

A quick glance at the technical specifications reveals the reason. There’s no shortage of power but most of it is used to move the excess weight. This is a heavy car. You feel that weight in the corners, too. No AMG Mercedes is built to generate 6g on roundabouts — you need a BMW for that — but this one feels inert and out of its depth. So it’s not that fast in a straight line. And it’s not that exciting in the corners. And the gearbox isn’t much cop, either.

Perhaps the AMG badge is to blame. Perhaps it’s writing cheques the car isn’t even designed to cash. Perhaps, beneath it all, it’s designed to be a quiet and unruffled cruiser. On a smooth road, that’s certainly the case. But introduce even the slightest ripple and you’d better be sitting on a cushion at the time because the ride in this car is terrible.

I’m told that on standard wheels, with normal suspension, the new A-class is pretty good. But in the AMG trim it is — and I’m choosing my words carefully here — effing unpleasant. Fast Mercs in the recent past have got quite close to the line in terms of unacceptable stiffness. This one crosses it.

But towering above the ride in the big bag of mistakes is the fuel tank. It may be large enough if the engine under the bonnet is a diesel, but when it’s a turbo nutter petrol bastard, you can’t even get from London to Sheffield and back without filling up. God knows what it will be like when the 350bhp four-wheel-drive version arrives next year. That won’t be able to get from 0 to 62mph without spluttering to a halt.

The standard car, I don’t doubt for a moment, is all right. It’s certainly getting rave notices from all quarters. But this hot one? No. It’s surprisingly poor in too many areas.

And it’s not like you’re short of alternatives. If you want a prestigious badge, Audi will sell you a fast A3 that won’t break your back or cause you to spend half your life putting petrol in the tank. But my recommendation is that you forget the badge and buy an Astra. I drove the VXR recently, and while it may have only three doors, I was extremely surprised by how good it was. And how comfortable.

Strange, isn’t it? The Astra. It used to be a byword for everything we thought we’d left behind. But after a bit of a makeover, the girl from your own village is better than the generously breasted temptress from Stuttgart.

Verdict ★★☆☆☆

It’s not hot — just painful.

Factfile

Price:
£28,775
Engine:
1991cc, 4 cylinders
Power:
211bhp @ 5500rpm
Torque:
258 lb ft @ 1200rpm
Transmission:
7-speed automatic
Acceleration:
0-62mph: 6.6 sec
Top speed:
149mph
Fuel
44.1mpg (combined)
CO2:
148g/km
Road tax band:
F (£135 for the first year)
Dimensions:
L 4292mm W 1780mm H 1433mm

http://hotrod-web-prod.herokuapp.com/clarkson/mercedes-benz/a-class/5554

 

[Mr. Mercedes]

Again that's NOT even an A250 Sport Engineered by AMG. This is entirely MB's fault for creating such confusion, but Clarkson should also know better. That's simply a bog standard A250 with an AMG pack.

Furthermore, fitting the car with runflats as opposed to standard tyres is MB UK's fault. They made the wrong choice.

 

[Wolfgang]

Mercedes A250 Sport (2013) CAR review

By Georg Kacher
First Drives
25 January 2013 09:30

Forget everything you knew about the Mercedes A-class. The new model is totally different in appearance, concept and character, bearing zero resemblance to the original entry-level Mercedes from 1998 that made the elk famous by failing the stability test named after that top-heavy, antler-bearing, Nordic mammal.

The third-generation A-class, now on sale in the UK, is no longer gunning for middle-aged customers who like to climb up, sit tall and enjoy the panorama (they can buy a B-class). Instead it wants to be young and dynamic, sporty and trendy, emotional and chic. In short, it’s an Audi A3 or BMW 1-series rival.

Talk me though the Mercedes A-class revamp

To reach this aim, it has been re-proportioned from scratch; the roof has been pushed down, the wings pulled out and the wheelbase stretched. Thenew car

has broader shoulders, a daring mix of kinks and curves, an in-your-face grille flanked by flaring headlamps, side windows shaped like embrasures and massive coupe-like C-posts. It’s a striking piece of kit – the best-looking small Merc since… since… well, ever?

Is the new A-class as sporty as it looks under the skin?

Of course Merc has played around with ‘sporty’ A-classes before – anyone recall the one-off twin-engined version or the limited-edition A-class ‘F1’? But this time they’re totally serious about pace-setting handling and roadholding, and about best-in-class power and torque. And the engineers have pulled out all the stops, deploying the new 4Matic four-wheel drive system featuring an electronically controlled Haldex clutch, a clever and inexpensive fresh approach to infotainment called Drive Kit, a pair of highly efficient 200bhp-plus petrol and diesel engines, and of course the exciting 350bhp A45 AMG set to debut at the 2013 Geneva motor show.

The new Mercedes A-class line-up

In true Mercedes style the A-class model line-up is witheringly confusing, running to five model lines in the UK even before the Golf GTI-threatening A45. Yet here’s a pleasingly simple fact gleaned from driving the models offered at the press launch: the sportiest one is the most compelling to drive.

Wearing A250 Sport and ‘engineered by AMG’ badges, it’s powered by the 209bhp 2.0-litre petrol engine, will hit 62mph in 6.6sec and is good for 150mph, yet still claims 44.0mpg and 148g/km CO2. Yours for £28,775 (but you can shave two grand off that by foregoing the ‘engineered by AMG’ bit, which means doing without fatter wheels, ‘diamond’ grille, bespoke front and rear aprons, tuned suspension, sport seats and red stitching).

The Mercedes A250 Sport in detail

Even without all that kit, this is no chintzy, timbered B-class. The A-class is a proudly de-chromed, anti-establishment driving machine boasting fire-red brake calipers, metallic-red inserts framing the optional xenon headlights and red accents in both bumpers. Inside, it’s black plastic, real aluminium, fake carbonfibre and genuine Alcantara. The cabin is well laid out and well equipped. A useful extra is the Drive Kit for the iPhone, which lets you access all the phone’s functions, including a sat-nav app, through the multi-function steering-wheel.

Most of our test cars were fitted with either the Driving Dynamics package or with the AMG Sport kit, both offering tauter springs and dampers, lower ride height and Direct Steering, which combines speed-sensitive power assistance with a variable steering rate. The AMG Sport kit adds 18in wheels and cross-drilled front brake discs.

Does the A250 Sport's refinement suffer for its sporty brief?

It's all very macho, but the ride quality suffers badly from the sportier set-up. The go-faster versions are so obsessed with grip, traction and roadholding that the protection against potholes leaves something to be desired. On the credit side, the A250 Sport in particular corners with the flatness and precision of a single-seater. With ESP switched off, steering and throttle will indulge in an entertaining powerplay which is never rough or jerky. It’s expertly balanced, totally responsive and astonishingly quick

. But like an Audi S-line or BMW M Sport, the trade-off is a bone-hard ride.

How does the Mercedes A250 handle?

Direct Steering is a prime example of the latest electrically assisted, self-correcting, automatically interfering direction-finding systems, many of which are too clever for their own good. It’s fine, but it tends to over-assist during turn-in and feels always a little faster than the tyres it directs. We may only be talking about nuances here, but nuances do matter because artificial and overly ambitious steering can blur car control in a disturbing fashion.

The A250 Sport hugs the road with dedication and talent. Thanks to the paddle-shift DCT, it is very easy to modulate the torque feed, to match engine and vehicle speed, and to adjust your driving style to terrain and traffic via modes ranging from Eco to Sport. The latter gives early downshifts and late upshifts, paired with a chip-induced blat-blat through the twin oval tailpipes. The brakes are brilliant, too; easy to modulate, and combined with the strong grip of the Conti SportContact tyres they allow you to brake eerily deep into corners.

Verdict:

We tried several other A-class variants during the launch, and all were impressive. The entry-level 122bhp A180 won’t pull a herring off the plate, but runs on compliant 16in tyres and is fitted with supple suspension, while the torquey A200 offers a better spread of grunt in either 154bhp petrol or 134bhp diesel form. But the A250 Sport is the best-sorted, and there’s no better stepping stone towards the lofty height of the 2013 A45 AMG. We await its arrival with interest.

http://www.carmagazine.co.uk/Drives/Search-Results/First-drives/Mercedes-A250-Sport-2013-CAR-review/

 

[Betty Swollocks]

Chris Harris tests the A 45 AMG.

http://www.pistonheads.com/news/def...=email&utm_content=html&utm_campaign=2013-7-8