Mercedes-Benz CLA 180 Coupé (test drive, EN)

Mercedes-Benz CLA 180 Coupé, Petrol, 100 kW (136 HP), Automatic.

Poorly featured Mercedes with one life-threatening feature. The car as a whole is not bad. Very good steering response. What does it have, more precisely, what doesn't, and why is it poorly featured? Well, it has a single-zone climate control. There is nothing separate for a passenger, and sure nothing for the back row, what a miracle. Still having a bunch of displays, they've saved on back view camera - it is missing in this assembly too.

Нажмите здесь для русской версии.

Front view

Everything's OK from the back I think.

So why life-threatening feature. Let's see. The car can see the marking, distinguishes the main one from the temporary yellow, this is a plus. It also responds well when crossing dash markings without a blinker - it vibrates a little, but does not resist. It does not help to steer, here it could be better.   Furthermore, there is one interesting thing - it distinguishes not only the permanent marking from the temporary one, it distinguishes straight stripes as well. Cool, but there is one doubtful solution made by car at the same time. If, for example, there is ice, and you accidentally drive onto a straight stripe, you risk to just flip over or fly off the road. What does the car do when getting on a straight stripe marking, you ask. When approaching it, the steering wheel vibrates a little, but if you suddenly drive on it, the car instantly and abruptly slows down, moreover, it brakes with one side only (!), the side that you ran onto that marking. Even on dry asphalt, the car noticeably loses control. Imagine what might happen on a slippery road. I wonder what an engineer came up with this solution. Maybe he never drove on slippery roads. But, fortunately, this marking control feature can be turned off. Everything else is basically normal.

As in any good Mercedes, the quadrant lever is located on the steering wheel. As I wrote before, this is really cool and convenient.

What surprised me is that a petrol engine vehicle shows the battery voltage due to some very unclear reason. Who would get any helpful info from this, no idea. Ok, let it be.

It has signs recognition system, but just speed limit signs. Overtaking signs are not recognised.

Multimedia system handling is a matter of habit. There're lots of display configuration options.

Multimedia is in general fine. Great sound.

The car can calculate the distance to other car in the front. But this exact car has no adaptive cruise control. It can slow down itself down the hill though. When the distance is too dangerous it shows a warning red triangle, no warning sounds.

Some screens are nice but f.ing useless.

Can't say the soundproof is too good in this car. It is pretty noisy in the city as for Mercedes. It is fine on high speeds.

Suspension is air-cushion one, just usual and it's rigid. Ease of steering is at a good level. Quite comfortable speed on a highway is up to 170 km/h.

It has an automatic headlight switching.

Foldable mirrors. No blind spot control, but at least mirrors can dim-out.

Back row. Newspaper nets.

Frame free windows.

Boot is not bad.

It can be opened with a button, as well as closed. Also one can open and close it using the remote key or the driver's door. You won't hide from rain under the boot lid.

There is a heating for front seats, half-leather interior. Unfortunately, many other cars have much more comfortable seats, or luckily.

Two-sided cover of the storage department between the seats.

Interior lighting is good enough for all passengers. There's no armrest for rear seats, but IsoFix is available for child seats.

USB-C chargers both in the front and in rear side of the car. Enough space for legs.

Interior light, tricky reflectors for usual bulbs.

Light and mirror

Usual rear-view mirror, nothing modern. A pretty right angled design of it is practical enough.

An automatic start-stop system seemed to be able to sometimes think - it does not always turns off the engine immediately when it stops, but still it is sometimes annoying. I try to turn “A” off.

Despite the abundance of glossy surfaces, I did not notice any glare in the eyes. But it will not hide fingerprints. Never.

Rubberized cup holders. And over there, there is wireless charging possibly, but not in this assembly.

USB-C here as well.

Normal size glove box

The cover curtain in the trunk has a guide rail. It's a plus.

Nice soft steering wheel with some sensor buttons. Matter of habit.

What you usually touch at the door is soft.

Open-close the boot lid can be done from here.

Seat heating

A mouse.

We've got physical buttons here, that's a plus.

Windscreen washer in three places.

It seems to have a normal adequate xenon light.

Look, there is an option with a map and navigation here. Well, why is there no way to show the map here in 3D? After all, it is possible on one large display, it could be on the second, as an option.

Nice and normal navigation system. Some kind of familiar voice, maybe Google and the English (or other) navigation language in Germany is not what you want to hear in the city - it calls streets the way the computer can pronounce them, that is, it would be better just saying “left and right”.

I liked the night theme even more than light one.

As I already wrote about another Mercedes, you can get used to it, but nevertheless the large main multimedia screen corner is blocked by a steering wheel. The part where the allowed speed is indicated. A tiny thing, but when you get into this car, after driving others, where there is no display, or it's in another place and fully visible, it may be annoying at first.

Here it is. I wouldn’t buy it for myself.

#MercedesBenz #CLA #CLA180 #Coupé #testdrive #carreview #тестдрайв

Stay tuned!

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