Distance: 517 km
Locations: Ontario, New York
Dates: 14 to 16 September, 2024
Up front: Mercedes has managed to make a variety of plastics look expensive in this base model CLA. The brushed “aluminium” is hard plastic, the perforated “leather” is rubber, the seats are Artico, and the piano black is also plastic. The only leather is on the steering wheel.
The seats are supremely comfortable, beating both Volvo and the much more expensive BMW 5 Series. The three memory settings for both front seats and lumbar support will be appreciated by older multi-adult households. The steering wheel isn’t power adjustable, but that’s par for the course at a hair over $55,000 pre-tax. Everything is laid out logically and both heated seats and steering wheel come standard.
With the panoramic sunroof shaded, the piano black plastic isn’t too reflective, but fingerprints persist. Unfortunately, the steering wheel buttons are capacitive touch piano black and annoying to use. Mercedes needs to bring back the third cruise control stalk to declutter the steering wheel as it’s easy to confuse cruise control speed adjustments with infotainment selection controls.
In the back: The rear seats are for decoration; you have to be under 5’5” tall to fit comfortably. I had a 6’3” friend in the back for about four hours and he was able to sleep for most of the journey if he sat diagonally, so it’s not a dealbreaker for just one adult in the rear. The stylish sloping roofline limits headroom and rear-facing child seats will only fit if the front occupants slide forwards. Tall buyers should try it out thoroughly before buying.
The boot is surprisingly deep for a compact sedan. At 440 litres, it’s only 30 litres smaller than the much boxier Mercedes GLB crossover. However, drivers are trading a spare tire for boot space as there’s only a tire fixing kit in the back. The CLA comes standard with run flat tires, but they are more difficult to find and more expensive to replace.
Driving: I’ve driven both the sedan and the shooting brake version of the previous generation CLA and the second generation is much improved. It feels balanced around corners, has imperceptible turbo lag, and unintrusive regenerative braking for its mild hybrid system. The electric motor adds 13 horsepower of kick at low revs, pushing up power to 221 ponies for this turbo straight four. It does, however, sound like a diesel at idle.
Using a similarly-powered engine as 25% heavier GLC crossover, the CLA feels brisk and sporty with the right driver. It’s hard to hate anything about the car, but there are three areas where its cheapness shows through. The wide-angle rearview camera distorts the view so it looks like a fisheye camera; I just used the mirrors to park. Road noise on the highway above 80km/h is horrendous, which isn’t helped by frameless windows that let in wind noise. The car rolls back on hills instead of auto holding—a feature available in much cheaper cars of a decade ago.
