Hello all, I just want to put an extended overview of the 4matic after 4 months of having it and doing extensive searches online to find information, and noticed there's not much about this car. Let me say that overall it's not all peaches and cream.

I got possession of my car in August 2019, and the first feeling of driving it the gearbox seemed sluggish. Even Though I test drove the car prior to buying it, it didn't really show any of these issues due to driving it at high speeds and responsiveness was nice. I really got sold on the RGB factor and the look/design of the interior.

Gearbox:

• The gearbox is sluggish and jerky. I don't know whether this is a Mercedes thing, I even went back to the dealership to ask why the car is jerking so much from gears 2-3 or 1-2-3, especially when you're driving and coming to a stop sign - slow down and then release break and start accelerating the car jerks heavily. They had a specialist test drive the car, and said yeah the mercedes have "nervous gearboxes" in other words he explained that they're always ready to react and are "nervous" so the jerk feeling is a thing of Mercedes clutches...

Engine sound:

• The engine is louder than a pickup truck. When the car is in idle, the sound it produces and shaking sound of metal flapping is louder than diesel pickup trucks - F250 for instance. I've never seen any smaller cars being louder than this one, and take into account that this a 2.0T engine, not AMG no loud pipes literally factory built rattling noise machine. Although it produces a lot of noise, it doesn't really bother me, just a heads up to anyone looking at this car, since I haven't seen anyone mentioning this.
• I've had a major oil leak 3 months after having the car, and the only way I found out was when I went to install winter tires, the mechanics told me there's an oil leak from the engine. I've noticed oil spots on the street where I was parked, but did not think it was from me, because the car is only 3 months old..When I went to the dealership I had to argue with the manager to check get it checked out, because apparently I had to make an appointment.. When the mechanic at the dealer put the car up, he immediately told the manager that this car has to stay at the dealership for about a week. They needed to order new parts/ perform work. I asked the manager if I could have a loaner, and they're always out of cars, until he realized our family had multiple mercedes and felt obliged to give me a car, since there are higher classes that are owned, and he didn't want to give me anything at first, because it was an A class. The issue that was causing the Leak was a seal not properly put in the crankshaft.

Heating:

• The car takes a long time to warm up when it's cold outside. It's noticeably colder than other cars in terms of warming up the car/speed at which warm/hot air starts pumping.
• The transmission takes a very long time to reach operable temperature to stop the jerks between gears.
• The Seat warmers automatically go off after 3 lights (I know this a Mercedes thing) why can't they just make it manual on/off when you want for how long you want. By automatically shutting down, I mean You get in the car, turn on seat heaters, drive 2 mins to a gas station, turn off the car, get back in the car - turn it on, well your seats are now off, you have to turn them on again.
• Steering wheel heating has the same exact issue, it turns off automatically, so after turning off the car at the gas station, and coming back in - Well guess what you have to go through the whole routine, Select Profile - get seat jerked, turn on seats heating, steering wheel heating and hope your MBUX doesn't crash...

MBUX System:

• The MBUX system is nice overall. The phone sound is pretty quiet, even though I've set it to max, it's still pretty hard to hear people when driving, I'll get to the sound insulation later.
• The MBUX crashes every 6th-7th time you turn on the car (I cannot pinpoint what causes it, the dealership is aware of this issue - but cannot pinpoint either). The way MBUX crashes: When you open the car and start the car, the mercedes lights logo appears on the driver dash and starts the odometer etc, and the middle screen starts to play music / last open tab, and then freezes. This whole freeze takes about 30-45 seconds to restart. This also happens, although less often.. when you drive.
• The MBUX is noticeably slower when it's cold outside.
• The option for easy entrance (seats) is completely messed up. When you have it set to a specific position (profile) and then the seat supposed to go back to neutral at car shut down- BUT it doesn't. So what happens is the seat stays at the old position, when you turn on the car, it brings you some awkward neutral position, and then when you choose your profile it brings you back to your PREVIOUS position. - I've checked this option so many times to make sure the easy entrance is checked on.. This is the way it's programmed.
• The Reality Navigation is technically a meme. Although I love it, and it's pretty cool in terms of showing you street names when signs are not visible.. but the arrows are appearing very late into the turn. For instance at an intersection (fork) the arrow would appear and show you where to go, once you're already in it.. Way too late whether you were to switch lanes/ exits.
• The computed is all messed up, not only it lags and restarts.. I actually errors out. It happened to me twice when I turn on the car, all the sensors go berzerk. I get errors, that distance doesn't work, check engine goes on, ESP goes off, literally the dash becomes a christmas tree, AND the car doesn't go past 1k revs, and seems to sluggishly idle at it. I'll post some videos.(Update)

Windows:

• The windows are extremely slow to put down/up. I think they messed up / cheaped out on the motor. I think I can manually crank the windows faster by hand with the old lever mechanism than this motor.. I takes about 3-4 seconds to have the window completely open/ close. It's pretty annoying, again not a big deal but should be mentioned, it's very small things that bundle up together to ruin the overall experience.

Windshield Wipers/ fluid:

• The Wipers are normal.. BUT the issue Mercedes hasn't thought of, at least I cannot find anything about it.. Like many other cars the wipers are hidden under the hood (Normal)- the problem is there's no button or option to service these wipers. In Audis for instance they have an option in settings to service windshield wipers, when pressed it slides the wipers up, and you're able to access/take them off/ CLEAN THE ICE from it. There's absolutely no option on A250. It's either you turn on the wipers and they slide (which you can't grab to remove frozen ice) or you literally have to manually push against the motor and get them out to clean the ice. - Am I missing something??
• The button to squirt the fluid to the back is pretty bad, again this is not a major issue, but it's pretty annoying. When pressing the button to squirt rear fluid, you REALLY have to press hard enough, and it does 2x squirts at a time even while holding.

Airbags:

• After a month of having the car, I've had the "SRS Malfunction" message popup on my screen. I went to the dealership, they obviously again didn't have any spare cars.. and no people working to drive me home. I ended up taking Uber - Paid by dealer.

Suspension:

• The suspension is pretty stiff and the car is pretty low. This is not a complaint- more to let people know how high/soft the car is. When going up sidewalk curbs your bumper sometimes hits the asphalt. Usually Condo entrances (garage) the bumper touches the concrete floor when driving in. - This is at normal speeds when turning/entering places.
• The height of the car is pretty low, and since the car is light it easily gets stuck in snow. Take into account this is not even massive amounts of snow. I would say Audi is a bit higher/ maybe same height, but the car feels a lot heavier/ sturdier. It was a tank in snow storms and snow banks.

Car Noise:

• When driving, the noise from the road / wind is noticeably high. You can hear the wind slamming into window crevices and blowing, as well as the sound insulation from the road/tires. I know these are common issues on some cars, but the difference between GLE/GLC and this is night and day. Even comparing lower models of different cars such as A4. This is loud!
• When the car is running, you can hear a hissing sound. I thought it was my speakers.. I ended up turning off all the vents, sound, parked and there is still a hissing sound in the rear left. I think you can actually hear the fuel pump LOL.(Update)

MercedesMe:

• This has got to be one of the worst apps I've seen. Now I don't expect much from automobile companies and apps, but come on at this point just install the starter on the key to remote start the car (which I think is the ONLY reason why people from Mercedes actually want this). The app barely works, half of the time it says Server busy Error, when trying to load the app on the iphone.
• When using the app to start the car, half the time the app doesn't work or connect to the server, and the other time it just lags and freezes and doesn't work.
• The notifications are extremely annoying. You get a notification by email, AND by text message from different numbers... TWICE - on turn on AND turn off of the car. I've tried searching the options to remove notifications, and you can remove emails such publications etc from Mercedes, but not these notifications.
• The gps on the app is completely useless. I thought it was showing you the car in real time, turns out that it does, ONLY when the car is driving.. SO I don't really see the point of this. The reason how I found it was that the car got towed, and I was looking at the app to show me where the car is, I was literally standing "next" to it on the map but the car wasn't there. I Then found out where the car is, turned it on, the gps still didn't update. I waited some time, and still no update. AS SOON AS I put the car to DRIVE, the gps location started updating. (Update)

The dealership I'm dealing with is the biggest in Montreal area, and they're always always "out of cars" now this means either Mercedes produces garbage quality cars now that they need repairs, or they're just not willing to cooperate with A class owners. (Once they open the client profile, they see how many cars are owned/leased from us, they suddenly have cars available...)

Also I haven’t seen any of these issues with my GLE and GLC. I understand it’s not the same calibre cars but come on..

This is about it off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's more annoyances. Hope this helps potential buyers!

 

Heya, when I get some time tonight, I'll go over some of your points, such as the phone calls being quiet. I had the same issue. There's a setting you can go to and adjust that call volume. I have mine set perfectly now.
There's a bunch of other stuff that I definitely agree with, especially the jerkyness of the transmission. I do not think this is actually a mercedes problem, but our vehicles. By 'ours' I mean mine and yours. Yours is also about 4 months old, mine is about 6. I feel the same issue you do and a loaner that I had did NOT have this problem.

I basically agree with everything you have issues with. I have them all too, maybe not a couple and I have a couple you didn't mention like squeaky door panels.

For the car loaner experience. I don't have that problem here in the states with 3 different loaners. I call, tell them I need to bring the vehicle in for some issues. They ask what issues and if I need a loaner. They schedule me in with a day that a loaner is available and I go about my day. I'm not treated any different than an AMG, $150K vs's my lowly $40K car.

 

There's for sure a difference in the way this dealer treats its customers. My A250 doesn't have any cars available, for me.. but GLE suddenly has spares available..I think the reason they don't have any spares is due to not wanting to mix loaner classes.

Also I've never had any of these issues with Audis nor their service. They literally had loaners lined up to choose from. It was never a hassle as it is. Also keeping in mind that I'm at the dealer more than I've ever been, with this A250 than with all the other cars.

 

Agree that Mercedes transmissions are nervous and jerky. My GLE and a number of the loaners I have driven have less than world class driveability. Downshift clunks on closed throttle/coastdown are common.

Mercedes needs to exit transmission design and manufacturing, and leave it to the experts at Aisin and ZF.

Who buys a Mercedes for the sole reason that it has a Mercedes transmission? BMW has in 2019 surpassed Mercedes in US sales, using ZF transmissions. Sales stats exclude Sprinter. Lexus is managing nicely with Aisin boxes. Mercedes, it's time.

 

Wiper servicing instructions are in the manual:


You don't need to start the engine to do this. Just turn the car on.

 

I’ll definitely try this out next time. I was just wondering how to remove the frozen chunks of ice from the wipers. I don’t really understand their reasoning behind this though, to have such a process to literally pop your wipers up. Why can’t they have a service button in the system settings that you press and that’s it, no need to turn on/off ignition etc.

Nonetheless thank you for such info!

 

Ah yes, Aisin - I used to work for them a few years. They're 2 major plants in my home town. I used to build power seat adjusters, door frames and a few other parts during my college days. Then after college, I moved back into the position and was a software specialist for their machining department for fine blanking die. Glad to see them be leaders in Trannys as well.

Anyways, for my A220 - I don't really experience issues when on the highway, infact it drives amazing when it's actually going. It is just beyond normal jerky when coming to a stop and then pushing the gas or most common. From a full stop. Sometimes I will take my foot off the brake and immediately push the gas and it jerks me into the back of the seat. My vehicle has been in the shop almost 15 times over the past 4-6 months and every time I had a loaner. Every loaner from a C class, GLA, GLC, other A220's. My car was the only one that had it THIS bad.

I feel like it's not really the transmission. If I take my foot off the brake, it's like it takes a good half second to fully stop the brake process and then it might accelerate fine. If I push too quick after the brake, that's when I get the dreaded <--- ----> <--- of my body lol.

I don't know. If I knew this is how a mercedes was suppoesd to drive, I would not have gotten this vehicle. It might "LOOK" nice and the technology is great. But it's not worth the $40K price tag against a Mazda 3 coming in fully decked out for about half the price.

 

Yup, exactly what you said. It’s good once the car is warmed up and highway ( though sooo much oversteer ) but it’s really when slowing down /accelerating. It’s exactly the way you described. When coming to a stop and just releasing break and accelerate that’s when it jerks.

Also how long does your vehicle take to warm up? When turning on the car remotely, up to 3 times (30 mins) getting in the car and the thermostat is down at 0 with the lightly highlighted to 45 degrees, and when starting to drive it’s as if the car was off.. and not even hot inside, I wonder if the air is actually blowing with the remote start..

 

This morning at 8 am..

 

i have agree. i got my A250 in 2019, Aug, had replaced the brake master and turbo, the turbo was leaking oil and make the engine burning oil and coolant. bad. dealer have fixed it. lucky i found early. the window is issue, but some WD40 will fix it.

 

Do you use an iPHone? If so, are you using FaceID? I have issues with that so I just use pin number and don't have an issue at all.

 

Yeah this. I'm not sure, it doesn't seem to be on or blow air. We can remote start the car while sitting in it to see what it does on a remote start. I've also had issues with "Sign recognition inoperative" - I usually only start it once when warming up, but I don't live in really cold weather. I live close to San Francisco so weather out here doesn't really get below freezing.

 

I updated more issues that I've experienced / experience on the post with italic font.

 

Can you post how you fixed the phone volume please?

 

Yes, sorry - I haven't been around the vehicle much the past couple of weeks. Give me a couple days. I'll be driving the benz while wife drives the Wrangler.

 

I haven't timed how long it takes, but it does take a while. My truck, I could remote start in the winter, outside and by the time I got my clothes on - it would be nice in the cabin. Plus the heated steering wheel would be on, the seats would be on.
Same for the AC during summer. The truck just new what to do based on the temperature outside. You could manually set it, or just let it do its own thing.

 

Hi, mine i got till September 2019, manufactured in Germany, EU specification, Poland specification. You can check my car here:
https://mbworld.org/forums/class-w17...-4m-owner.html

Its my first Dual Clutch Transmission and first automatic transmission car, but I drove some cars with DCT.
So about sluggishness, yeap I can confirm that, but its not sport transmission, its just daily car transmission, not faster or slower than VAG DSG. Much better DCT got AMG A Class line. Drove Mazda 3 ( 6speed ) and Toyota Corolla CVT and they were little worse. Dont know what You feel as jerky ( what mode? D, S, E ? ) If on Sport yeap it will jerk, on Comfort mode it doesnt seem the issue on this mode in my car. When i Full Throttle and change gears by shiftpedals manually it will jerk and it is to feel like be more aggressive, more sporty feeling. Take a drive with A35 or A45s and those are jerking pretty brutal.
On Sport Mode 2nd gear is pulling much longer than others I noticed, but it changes still not too fast. On D mode opposite it changes too early.
Another issue is how hard You are pushing throttle? This gearbox is, as my dealer said, learing Your drive style and matches its reactions to it. Treating throttle and gears gently will learn that it will do that next time but YOu have to reset its what it learned.

Engine can be louder because it doesnt have soundproofed matt under the hood, diesel got it, You can buy used and mount by Yourself.
Shaking sound of metal is common too on VAG cars, TSI engines ( Seat Leon 5F, VW Golf 7, Skodas, Audis ).

Mine takes, slow steady ride, D mode, 2nd stage air flow, air flow directed on windows only, no AC, max 40-50kph, 10m to get 80^C on the engine. When engine comes to 50^C I can feel it blows hot air.
DCT takes much longer to get proper temperature, I think it is 30 minutes at least steady ride.
Yes, it is protection from not to frie seats or Your ***. 3rd stage is very powerful and I think its good because it can do some damage or other thing that I cannot image now and write. Oh sometimes in my car it remembers last heat position, but I guess it remembers only to certain amount of time (?)

Turn on volume up on the BT connection by phone, it is not quiet for sure.
Mine didnt crashed none of time. What ver. of MBUX You got? Paste pic in here showing SW versions.
On what temperatures it is slower? Maybe it's CPU is downclocking and waiting till it gets normal working temp or it is permament till outside temp is achieved.
THere are so many electronics that You dont imagine. Now cars are more electronic than mechanic. I know it is pissing off but I belive other cars could got same issue - Your point of view is limited to this one or few cars.

Why it have to be faster? Faster windows means hitting harder in the bottom or up. Mine, from work car, Reanult Clio is same "slow" as mine Merc or slower. It doesnt show anything about car or model brand.

RTFM ( Read The F*.* Manual ) - yeap its issue, that MB didnt put for such spaceship dashboard any button or option into MBUX but it same on VW Passat ( class higher cars ) and Arteon. And I belive that A3 ( same class car ) got same wipers service "manual mode"
True, its bad. Its clicking/pressing is like on old cell phone from 2000 like Siemens C35 - could put better button.

Disagree on whole line about stiffness. Its VERY VERY Fking soft suspension !!! It swings across and along as it was made in french factory. On Sport DCC mode it should be named Normal and got much more stiff next mode. Doesnt like this suspension.
About low, yeah I scrubbed asphalt with spoiler or plastic covers under the car few times but it is because car sits down too much after "falling down", because of its softness. Riding on Sport Mode DCC sometimes ( helps )

A Class wind isolation isnt best in its class but not so bad. It good insulates when driving slow from "down noise" road and from tire noise, but upper noises ( wind, mirrors ) are as You mentioned not so good isolated.
Dont compare A A4, MB GLC/GLE those are 1 and 2 class higher than this compact car and its compact/universal car not long distance "cruiser". Decide what did You wanted? Compact car or long distance cruiser?

In EU there are no issues that You mentioned, I belive it depends on continent and country. Notifications are only as push notifications, no sms, no email. GPS is working pretty accurate and I can monitor it in real time ( almost of course IT'S NOT live, non stop, second by second, monitoring )

Yes, come on dude, NOT SAME CALIBER CLASS. Its like You would complain about C class to S class.

 

another thing i would like to complain is, the Engine compartment can gets very hot especially in summer drive, i left the hood every time after i drive in my garage, that heat can actually heats up the garage, ( not too big garage )

 

I currently have an E class, but was looking for a smaller car to run around in. I saw the A on MB website before it came to the dealers and I was excited. When it actually showed up, I didn’t think it had the quality. All your complaints are items I was wondering about. Thank you so much for your honesty! As for the dealership, we have 5 or 6 in the Phoenix area. The one I went to first I couldn’t stand. They did good work and did always have a car for me, but they were *******s. I went to another dealership and it’s much better! Shop the dealers. Make sure to tell them you’re unhappy and they will fall all over you. At least that’s my experience!

 

Understand your issues. I have had my a250 for 1 year - already 40K on. I bought From Bernard Franke Ste Agathe des Monts. I live in Val-Morin.
Gear Box big issue - jerks - they told me to use the paddles. There is a vedio out there on UTube - showing some features that are in the manuel that people do not take the time to read (I certainly did't) - one when you come to a stop you can tap lightly on the break and you can take your foot off and when you go to start just push the gas - not sure if this stops the jerkiness - If I come across the video I will send it to you. Not an issue of you use the sport setting - burn the gas. seems to work better when it set up to rev faster.
Overall great car - did not have all the issues you had. Watch out for the pot holes in Montreal. Lost a rim but not the tire - they crack and leak air but the tire is still good. 700$ fix depending on the rims you get for the winter.
The 220 comes from Mexico for the US market and the a250 from Germany. They are not the same engine
If I can think of anything else I will let you know.

 

If You could find it pls do, I would be appreciate to watch that video, wonder if I learn something new from it

 

i have that jerkiness when car was around 1000-2000km, now under the comfort mode i don't have the jerkiness (100%), but if i use economic mode, when coming to stop, i do get that jerkiness a bit. another thing better to get Gear Box oil to operation temp, feels like when reach operation temp, that jerkiness will reduce.

the Mexico made A220, has lower quality than the one made in Germany, i can see it, but they have the same engine, A220 has lower hp output, i don't like it

 

Hey, so after almost a year, I have more updates!

I brought my car for Service A, and told them that I have a squeaking cricket sound in my dash. It's frustrating already that the car is noisy and the sound system is pretty bad.. The cricket sound is just irritating. The dealer said that they'll fix it - the car is still at the dealership, so I have no news to inform.

I brought up the issue with the transmission that it's sluggish, jerking when switching gears, and you can actually hear the clicking when gears change from 1-2-3 or 3-2. The issue with transmission even escalated to a point where the car would stall as if the parking break was enabled, when stopping at a stop sign and accelerating afterwards. - I got news back today that they found an issue with the communication with computer, but they're not sure what's causing it. Whether it's information being given from the computer to the tranny or vice versa, or if it's information that is getting corrupt while the transfer happens. But they found codes and are working on it. (Keep in mind I've told them about this issue last time I was at the dealer, and this time they did 3 test drives and "couldn't feel anything", but I guess I should be happy that they finally found an issue and are working on it.)

I've also told them about the computer just crashing, whether I'm driving or parked and then taking a few minutes to restart. During this time I cannot control the climate, or anything that's linked to that computer. - No updates yet

 

Hi

Good post. Pretty much sums up the same issues I have had (I have a Sept 2018 A250 - UK model, from new). The transmission is dire and really spoils the car. I would say that is the issue that would stop me buying this car again.

On the airbags I was told by the dealer that they have lots of issues with these. After the 5th trip to repair it they appear to have finally fixed it. Also had a problem with the climate control which others have had on early models - again fixed but took 2 trips.
You also forgot to mention the lane assist which is the worst "assistance" feature and needs to be turned off on every trip .

My car was off the road for 2 months whilst they investigated and fixed a burnt valve in the engine. The dealership were very good though with an upgraded c-class 300 coupe as a replacement car.

The MBUX has been pretty stable for me, but I do occasionally get a completely blank speedo screen on start up which seems to sort itself after the car is left for 10mins

Feels to me like they launched this car before they had it fully refined. Later models may be better, but software updates don't appear to have improved the transmission.

This is my third and last MB.

 

Thanks for doing such a great job of documenting your A class ownership. All of the issues you've noted with your car just makes me love my analog W201 all the more.