The base model CLA in 180 form looks low rent & unbalanced with skinny tyres etc. but then I suppose it is an entry level car. The CLA 45 & Sport models look a lot more balanced with lower stance and 235 & greater rubber on them. The tail of the car still troubles my eye & looks best in CLA 45 form. The interior is better than a BMW 1 Series but the Audi A3 is best of the 3 logical competitors in that regard.

These cars are designed to give people a taste of Merc ownership at an entry level. They are not competition for the new W205. Pricing from Tuscaloosa on the W205 is going to be interesting & might move closer to ROW. The C Class is a giveaway at present pricing.

I see a new E400 Coupe in my future. A very nice car indeed with vastly improved looks over the previous model. Far better in the flesh than in pics & a really good drive.

 

I think the tail of the CLA (like the CLS) is hideous.

A Car and Driver article indicates that US pricing for the W205 will actually not change much from the W204....

 

If that ends up being true it will be because of local build & conservative specification.

 

Presumably. Hopefully, reliability will be better than other US-built MBs....

 

try to have a look at a basic W204 C180, you'll also have skinny tyres etc

 

Yes indeed ~ but somehow the C180 gets away with it somewhat better. Lot's of C180's on SA roads.

 

no thanks my c250 looks way better.

 

Well, the road tests are rolling in, and "it ain't pretty".....before anyone considers taking the leap, get the December Car and Driver AND find someone who can log you on to the Consumer Reports website. When these two quite different sources agree on the problems they found, ranging from impact harshness, to mediocre powertrain, to both citing the now infamous "afterthought" nav screen, they both seem to conclude that the car doesn't hit the mark for the expectations of a Mercedes-Benz. A word to the wise to do their research.

 

There must have been a team made up of people like myself who selected the nav screen. I love it. I like that the entire dash doesn't have to be comprised/cut to put a screen in. The screen can just float there.

I would never leave a C Class for a CLA. The CLA is nice, but it's front wheel drive. I have a front wheel drive car, and it's nothing like driving my RWD cars. I love the kick/push from behind me. It's not fun trying to balance the increased wheel spin and torque steer in FWD, though I'm sure it's better on CLA than competitors.

A Mercedes front driver is still going to be a fantastic car.

However, if you can have a RWD C Class, why not? CLA 45 AMG is another story. I'd take one of those or two! ha.

I quite agree with Glyn on the A Class. If I was going to have a front driver Mercedes, I'd prefer the A250. Great looks, nice hatch. It's competitors are obvious, and it's a terrific car. Sadly, we don't have the A250 here.

 

Yes ~ Steve ~ The CLA is not a competitor for the C Class. It is 2 classes down in reality. At present minor pricing differential it makes no sense either.

With A Class & it's derivatives Benz has challenged their own DNA & acknowledges this. They do not feel anything like driving a traditional Benz. People with this expectation will be disappointed. People looking for a hot hatch or mini coupe will feel differently with the taught chassis. On smooth swoopy roads or what you guys call canyon runs the cars come into their own. With American taste preferring a softer ride at the expense of handling it is my belief that Benz will have to soften spring rates for that market. It won't be the first time they have. For ROW they are only just OK. We have always preferred taughter underpinnings.

I personally would only consider an AMG model. The AWD, AMG software on the transmission & some real punch make it great fun.

Space is also tight in these models. I'm not convinced that they are right for the US market. What does surprise me in world markets is the praise the A & especially the CLA gets for styling. I like the nose but the tail leaves me wanting as stated before. With the smaller engines I find the transmission software dimwitted compared with VW's DCT on Golf 7. Benz will no doubt go through 10 revisions as seems the norm. They will learn once again that they can't satisfy everybody with the same car & setup.

Anyway, the global market has spoken. Benz can't produce enough of them. They are flying off showroom floors. If some think this is a triumph of style over substance then so be it.

Maybe Benz should consider the C Class to be entry level for the American market.

I've been invited to breakfast & a new S Class drive by MBSA & my dealership next Friday. Looking forward to that. I've had my A Class fun for now.

 

These comments really highlight the discussion. As mac911 wishes, it should be a fantastic car. But, as Glyn replies, MB has gone beyond their usual realm. The problem is that several US publications have concluded that mac's wish is not being granted and MB may have gone too far here. We don't think of MB as full line, including trucks, vans, and the ubiquitous German taxi cabs. Anything MB here is supposed to be only the top of its segment. Dealers here were worried about having Sprinters on their same dealership lot!! Too downscale/commercial-looking and possibly offensive to the car shoppers.

The publications are not challenging the strategy, in fact the attempt is seen as a smart approach to the Millennials. They are critiquing the execution as sub-par for the brand expectations....inadequate and less than smooth power, ride harshness (which is different than firmness - a well executed firm suspension doesn't feel "crashy"), and notably cheaper materials, perhaps needed to hit the cost/price target, but still jarring. I just sat in my first CLA and understand those comments. I am not at all sure how CLA would do vs a new MQB-platform based top end Jetta GLI of similar size, configuration, and price. And, that's the problem....it should be a no-brainer that the CLA would dominate.

However, Glynn is also right that the sales speak for themselves, and there is no reason to hope for anything other than success. Early adopters and style-driven buyers have much motivation to pick up the early units. Those who buy for status and style may be happily oblivious to the engineering and performance shortcomings. But, may they have a great experience and enjoy their cars! It gives us an interesting topic for rumination.

 

We generally agree. As spec'ed for the SA market there is nothing wrong with the materials, leather etc. at the price point. Benz wanted a sportier package for young buyers & they have provided that. Americans have always preferred tons of compliance in their cars & what they consider crashy would be considered taught elsewhere in the world. These are the best handling Benz products in their history. ROW considers American preferences to be like driving a boat in a heavy sea. Take a US spec Camry. The suspension is so soft & underdamped that we would consider it as dangerous.

The Golf 7 is a softer car. It's moved away from it's hot hatch status & left that to Renault, Peugeot, Benz, Ford ST, Alfa etc.

So yes ~ American expectations are different. ROW expects Benz to fill every niche in the market & create some new ones.

The new S Class Coupe is going to be spectacular. Love the looks all round.

 

I wanted a CLA until I drove one. I could've lived with the Circuit City nav screen and the other generic gripes about the interior. Not deal breakers in my book.

The major "boo" I have with the CLA is that you can't see out the back window. Enjoy trying to back up or back into a tight spot in this car. Oh, and good luck changing lanes because it's nearly impossible to check your blind spots. The engine is peppy, but unimpressive. Handling is lackluster and disconnected. Lastly, the wheels (18inch upgrades included) look way too small on its larger body. Gotta go 19s minimum to even out its overall look IMO. On the flip side, bigger/heavier wheels would make an already slow car even slower.

I really love the look of the car though. The CLA is sexy, period. Better looking than the C in every way IMO. As I read the other responses on this thread I cringe when I see people attacking the CLA's "entry level" status to make themselves feel better. One response claimed that the C "was a more classic Mercedes" or something like that. Lol. How quickly some forget that prior to the CLA, the C class was MB's "entry level" car. Now that there's a "cheaper" class of Mercedes, C owners apparently feel their status has gone up a notch. Whatever makes you feel better I guess.

 

Here's an interesting issue, although perhaps one of semantics. I completely agree that a large number of we Americans (yours truly excepted!) have historically tended toward overly compliant and sloppy suspensions, but that has been evolving quite significantly, as you will see in the new Cadillac CTS, for just one example. But, I was intending to make a distinction between taut/firm vs. crashy/harsh. The chassis engineers at my old place called this "ride harshness" and it could be present in softly or firmly suspended cars, and relates to suspension travel and reaching full jounce/rebound. A firm calibration in a well designed and properly isolated suspension may transmit a road imperfection, but it is not the sense that something up front just cracked apart. A couple of publications seem to be picking up on the same issue. Here are a couple of comments from Car and Driver and CR.

We've sampled many smooth-riding Mercedes-Benz products, but the CLA250 isn't one of them. The ride is stiff and the car feels brittle on some impacts. Another Mercedes sacred luxury cow that the CLA sacrifices is cabin quietness. Road noise is quite pronounced, especially for a car priced in the mid-$30,000s. Day-to-day handling is decent and mostly tied down, but the CLA falls short of real agility. Steering feel was merely adequate, with many drivers going away wanting more lively feedback.

The suspension is more out of character. While the CLA has good body control under cornering, impact harshness is a problem. It's bad on pockmarked pavement and worse on big bumps, where the CLA can and will bottom out. We can blame some of it on those 18-inch run-flat tires, which also contribute to a substantial amount of road noise emanating from the wheel wells, but the CLA's short 106.3-inch wheelbase is also at fault.

The flaws they are noticing are usually more related to design than to a certain calibration. This was a similar problem with the twist beam axle VW attempted to put into the Jetta, only to be severely criticized and then gradually spread the IRS from just the GLI model to other versions as well.

With the Eibach bars, B6 Bilsteins, and strut tower brace, I can assure you my car is quite firm. But, it is not harsh....the shock of a sudden road imperfection is not translated with severity into the occupant's body. It still feels as if it's "somewhere out there".......

 

Our Car magazine draws very different conclusion & I'm afraid here US Auto magazines are not considered an authority on anything other than muscle cars. This is a very Euro centric country. Here the Renault Megane Renault Sport Red Bull RB8 Special Edition takes the cake for crashy suspension but god it's quick around a track. BMW 1 Series is also stiffly sprung here & comes in for criticism on run flats. Standard tyres & 17 inch wheels transform both the CLA & BMW 1 series for tender backsides. The Ford Focus ST is probably the most sensibly set up for combo of road & track out of the box. CLA45 is a whole different beast & bags of fun. Peugeot's re-introduced GTI has gone the Renaultsport route.

I understand what you mean by ride harshness & don't really consider it to apply to the CLA. It's rebound damping is set at a very different point for a Benz, yes & it's quite a heavy little car compared with the competition.

The Golf 7 GTI has lost it's edge & gone for a very civilised set up. It's finally grown up & moved on. The result is most pleasant but it is now useless around a track.

I have worked for a US company all my life and almost without exception my American colleagues have complained about Benz seats being too hard. I have never heard that comment anywhere else in the world.

I seriously wonder if the CLA is the car for the US in it's present form. As you admit the market has different expectations and is different. It always has been. I think the CLA is OK vs. it's main European competition. Those who want more refinement will go the Audi route but it still has unfair perception problems as a brand.

I would encourage a few enthusiasts to take a CLA45 for a drive preferrably with some road & some track time.

I have not managed to bottom out an A class. I can't imagine what they were driving on. Yes SA's roads are pretty good when compared with countries like Australia. Cadillac has recently withdrawn from our market once again. They simply could not sell them here & quality was awful.

I agree with the poster regarding vision out of the rear window. The car certainly needs it's rearview camera to get around that. Styling certainly won over practicality but the camera & Parktronic is good. Lane assist & blind spot assist are also a great help.

 

I think our local Car magazine sums it up very well after everybody has been asking for something sporty from a brand that is not inherently so.

quote" We were practically affronted that a Benz saloon ~ a vehicle that should deftly cosset it's occupants ~ could display these firm characteristics. Bear in mind that these are the very same characteristics that we were far more accepting of in the A Class Hatch. Why?

Well the A Class is Benz's first proper hatchback, and for a sporty hatch it's pretty damn good. The CLA, on the other hand, is a saloon and we know the carmaker to be masters of this particular art. It is an inherently unfair reaction, but you can't help but react emotionally rather than rationally to what it has done.

It is a very good looking car. And it has no competition. Until the new Audi A3 sedan and the new BMW 2 Series arrive next year, there are no compact premium saloons/coupes to rival it. And even then, based on their respective hatchback donors, the other Germans won't match the CLA's superior aesthetics." unquote

 

I think we agree CLA is a very good looking car on the exterior and rides/handles acceptably on gentler roads. If that's enough for a prospect, go for it!

After that, opinions diverge, including there being no current competition in advance of the A3 and 2 Series launches. I think I would take the aforementioned Jetta GLI ($28,495 loaded vs $29,995 CLA) first (GLI model, not lower series), based on what I've learned. Status and exterior design are weaker, but I know which I would prefer to drive.

 

The Jetta is one VW product that does not sell well in SA. The Highline which is the full house model here is not favoured. It is a lot cheaper than a CLA here, even a lot cheaper than the CLA 200. We have a very large offering of vehicles in that price range & Jetta does not cut it. They are not on anybody's list of desireable cars. In fact I can't remember the last time I saw one on the road. Golf, Polo, Passat, CC, Scirocco, people movers & SUV's are their big sellers here.

SA is a very different market to the US. VW, Toyota & Benz in that order are the top sellers. Look at Lexus success in the US. Toyota can't give them away here. They are keenly priced, come with every bell & whistle standard with few options needed. They don't sell. Toyota sells very well in the reliable econobox segments & that's it apart from light trucks & SUV's where they do very well.

People want the German big 3 in the premium area below the exotics. There are no US cars left on this market other than a few Chrysler products, Voyager, 300C & Jeep & they sell in very small numbers. Things sold as Chevrolet products are rebadged Daewoo's in the economy area. Every Exotic in the world is here.

Many years ago the Chrysler Valiant was top seller in this market.

 

How long ago did you work for an American company and where was it based? Car mags used to complain how "hard" and "flat" MB seats were, but I haven't seen that criticism for the past 10-15 yrs. These car mags were also primarily based on Detroit and, based on things they would later incidentally reveal in their mags, were basically in bed w/ the big 3. Likewise, Americans used to be infamous for wanting luxo-yachts (soft, floaty, superficial comfortable) like old-style Buicks. I think American tastes have changed significantly over the last 10-15 yrs.

I also consider the Camry to be so soft as to be vaguely dangerous. I think people in the US buy them simply b/c they're inexpensive to buy/lease, even cheaper to maintain, and quite reliable. And, to a certain extent, b/c it's a known quantity based on brand equity. I think people looking for an inexpensive car would be better off driving Mazdas, but....

I also live in LA, and I think automotive taste here run VERY different vs. the rest of the country. When I bought my Accord in 2003, the salesman had just moved from the mid-west and commented on how Japanese cars here in LA are extremely common, while US cars (which were still crap back then) were the most common cars elsewhere. My own impression about this is that the large immigrant population out here could care less about being "American."

IMHO, more than any other quality (incl comfort/convenience), I think people in the US *did* want cheap, American-made (again, w/ the possible exception of more wealthy metro areas on the coasts).... Reliability has begun to trump "American-made." And you'll notice "quality" wasn't in the list of characteristics I just mentioned. However, I think things will con't to change since the younger generation has no loyalty to the Big 3.... (and don't seem to like cars, in general)

 

I live in france and a friend has a vw passat that i'm used to as a passenger, early this year i rent the same vw passat for a nice roadtrip between new-york/washington/finger lakes/niagara for a week and i felt the car only slightly softer, but not that much, almost the same feeling and exactly the same vw hard seats.

The cla has a nice front/side look but i really don't like cls style trunk but the worst are rear seats and door opening, way too small, and i'm not tall.

FWD is ok here as all local makers build FWD even for sports cars and people are used to understeer and use handbrake for fast turns

Pascal

 

The company is based in the Bay Area. I still consult to them & still hear the same comments but it could be a hangover to the past. I had a global job looking after 227 markets. I retired a couple of years back.

Yes ~ I think that Toyota softened things up too much on the Camry for the US market. It's not like that elsewhere.

I agree with your comments on reliability trumping US made & the modern youth of America. I still consider the market very different to ROW & certainly Europe when it comes to taste & setup. In SA & Europe we are more accustomed to smaller engines that like to be revved & we don't mind stiff underpinnings as long as a vehicle is chuckable & predictable at the limit.

I agree that preferrences vary across the US. I have lived in Dallas & the Bay Area (Marin) & the markets in those 2 are different.

 

There are regional differences in how preferences are expressed, but even within a location the market is not monolithic. In some earlier work, we identified 13 sets of attitudes and values which predispose buyers to certain automotive priorities. These psychographics (vs. demographics) are more reliably predictable in forecasting buying preferences. And, the groups transcend age categories. A 70 year old Performance Lover has more in common with a 20 year old Performance Lover halfway around the world with the same values than he does with the "Basic Value" cluster member who is 70, lives next door, and has a Camry.

Conversely, I can also show you other 20-somethings who know or care little about their family car (among those who need and have one), and prefer the Camry such as it is, because it "never" needs repair....and that's all that matters. I've had these kinds of people as focus group respondents. The overriding truth is that there is diversity of attitudes and values across all age groups and nationalities, but there are like-minded people in those categories all around the world. Even on this forum, we have an admittedly biased sub-segment of car-involved buyers, but also have young folks who wish they had bought a softer Luxury model with woodgrain and hood ornament and older folks who like firm seats, suspensions, and subdued appearance, and from different regions. There's variety in what goes on in our heads, and it's much more important than the "containers" those thoughts reside in and where they live.

The reason the US wound up with such a homogenous group of soft and sloppy barges years back was that they were the product of an insular group of like-minded business men here in Detroit who thought everyone liked what they did. I've been in the meetings when I was much younger when it was clear that the basic direction for a new vehicle was not customer-driven, but designed to appease an internal exec. But, most of them happened to like large and soft and were socially reinforced by liking what everyone else in the hierarchy did. It's only been in more recent history that the US industry has recognized the diversity in consumer mindsets (and media buying still can't figure out how to get past mere demographics) and is targeting more strategically.

Going back to Cadillac, this is how an XTS, with its moderately "old school" softness and comfort (although its even evolved as well), will co-exist in the showroom with the more aggressive new CTS, targeted to much more involved and enthusiastic drivers. They haven't moved enough for me, but their strategy is quite clear.

 

No, I think we in the US can be a strange bunch. And, as Sportstick mentions, the US can be surprisingly hetergeneous.

For me, a high-revving engine and a stiffer suspension make little sense b/c I'm other stuck in heavy urban traffic or driving on the freeway in a straight line. Low-end torque (easier to squirt into openings in traffic) + more compliant suspension = better commute. I do prefer firmer seats, though....

Interesting revelation. I remember reading some time ago that prototypes of the original Olds Aurora drove very much like a European car and that it somehow got very dumbed down in the production version. There was talk that the prototypes that the execs drove of that and other cars at GM were specially tuned version that bore little resemblance to the final product (which might explain how so many crappy cars got approved?).

 

Here's a quick anecdote I haven't thought about in a while from the mid 80s. Back then, I worked for a major ad agency who served a different one of the US Big 3 than I later wound up working for. As an agency, we also thought of ourselves as strategic planners and had noted the growing preference for vehicles with what was called "European Driving characteristics", notably relating to suspension calibration and steering feel. (Full disclosure: I had already had my first 3 Series from 1977). We pressed the issue with our Marketing Plans clients who eventually passed on enough interest for their Engineering and Market Research team to get involved.

They got a hold of some full size cars they produced, identical in all ways, except that they deadened the steering assist by about 50% (still numb, but higher effort) and stiffened shocks and springs, incongruously stiff for these large, quasi-luxury, vinyl-roofed cars. This is what they thought matched up to European cars!!

The cars still had pillowed, velour/velvet seats, with button tie-downs, similar decor to some high-end coffins or low-end bordellos. We then committed the cardinal sin of conducting research in the Detroit metro area to keep costs down.

Even with all of these handicaps, the "Euro" cars were preferred over the actual production versions!! Shocked the hell out of the factory guys!! They thought they were going to prove us wrong. After all of that, nothing changed because they already "knew they were right" and they kept making floating barges for many product cycles to come. An entire generation of managers had to move on for the degree of enlightenment we've seen in more recent history.

 

I saw a Black and a White CLA 250 the other day and I really liked them. I would trade my 2008 c300 in for one. I really would like to see the CLA 45 AMG.