Dear Mercedes,

I have this new GLA car for a month and a half now, 2300 miles on it. It looks nice on the outside, it drives ok. But i do have a pretty lengthly wishlist.

1. Is there a way to make the seats get to their memory position with a single touch of a button, instead of having to hold the button pressed until they're there? If it's not too much to ask, can the seats start adjusting when the door is unlocked from the remote? Maybe the radio to also switch to each driver's settings?

2. Do you have any aerodynamicists that could maybe drive the car on the freeway at slightly illegal speeds, and figure out how to reduce that howling wind noise? Or maybe that flapping vibration under the driver's feet?

3. How about doing something about the hot air or cold air, whatever happens to be outside, that gets blown in your face at full fan speed as soon as you start the engine, regardless of the settings that were last time the engine was turned off?

4. Is there a way to make a message appear somewhere on the dashboard, when that double-ding sounds? I'm talking about the "ding-ding" that i hear every time about 5 minutes after the engine is started. I really can't understand what it is about.

5. Is there a way to provide a suitable place in front, to put a cellphone, and maybe even charge it? A lot of people have cellphones today, and a lot of people don't smoke anymore and they dont need ashtrays. Got the hint?

6. Talking about phones, a lot of today's cellphones have touch screens and voice recognition. The fact that they don't have a keyboard is not like they expect the car to provide it.

7. I read the reviews and easily decided not to buy the GPS (except for the wiring, i bought the wiring for it). What are the other uses of that tiny screen with one inch thick frame, in the middle of the dashboard? Show the radio station, and what else? Is that low resolution analog clock displayed on it supposed to be, uh, somewhat classy, and i just don't get it? Is it considered an offense if i just cut that whole display unit down, and put like a nice flower instead?

8. Now that Christmas is over, how can i turn off that $600 illuminated badge on the front grille?

9. Can you do something about that ECO mode to be more predictable? Or write a good novel about its character, so we can empathize with it. I understand a few good millions of research went into it, but i still don't understand how is it going to save me money if it turns the engine off when i stop, and then turns it back on when i shift in park. Or why would it turn off the climate control if it turns off the engine at a traffic light. Or simply why would it turn off the engine immediately after stopping at one traffic light, and keep it running for 30 seconds more at the next.

Sincerely yours, the customer.

 

I'm not having any of the problems you're having. There are annoyances like the memory seats, but that's across the Mercedes line. As for the becker navigation, the Multimedia Package has a lot more to offer than the navigation, that's why I decided to "splurge" on it. It's not as feature rich as the one I had in my last Lexus. The wind noise, not terrible, I traded in a 2013 GLK for my GLA and that had wind noise.

 

True, i would go even further and call them little annoyances - none of them, by itself, would make me not buy a car. It's just that there's too many of them.

As for the Becker GPS, i can't have an opinion, since i dont have it. I barely use the GPS on my phone 3-4 times a year, so having a GPS in the dashboard would be a poor investment for me. I thought about buying the Becker too, and checked its ratings on Amazon - it has no 5-stars, one 4-star, one 3-star, one 2-star and the rest are 1 star. Easy no-go.

 

Welcome to mercedes Benz ownership. All the complaints are MB exclusive. You should have test driven it before buying it maybe. I think you will like Korean offerings of Kia or Hyundai as they have these features of touchscreen nav included, folding mirrors, one touch seat memory settings etc at less cost.

 

I did test drove it. None of the mentioned would probably show up on a test drive. I think touchscreen in cars is a bad idea (much better to feel the buttons and keep the eyes on the road), and GPS is something i won't fall for, as i said above. However i would expect a luxury cars company to care about wind noise and integration with modern technology, even on their base product.

You think safety features like the blind spot assist system, or the rear view camera, should be considered extras? Or that one-touch memory seats are so much more complicated than hold-down-til-i-get-there memory seats? Is saving somewhere around $15 by using a low resolution display with a 1 inch frame something that we shouldnt shame Mercedes for? I have a different opinion.

I'm not familiar with Hyundai and Kia, but if they include a $20 GPS, a $12 rearview camera and a few $5 proximity sensors in the base model, cheers for them. Mercedes decided they would rather shove down our throat a $600 illuminated badge. Am i supposed to put up with that, and not make fun of the situation?

 

Unfortunately everything else is extra. It doesn't even have blind spot mirrors standard and parktronic sensors.

 

Not sure what the "ding-ding" problem is after five minutes as I don't have that problem. Seat belt on?


The nav screen/info screen is a bit ridiculous. I have Becker too.


One thing I learned yesterday is that if you are driving with the radio and the nav screen up, you can't turn off the radio without turning off the nav screen. Am I missing something here?


While I'll b1tch about the extra-cost features that are standard on most Asian cars, there is no arguing the build quality and suspension tuning is light years ahead of the Asian cars.


Maybe that's a personal thing, but it is certainly noticeable to me.

 

This is so true. That's why the MB is so balanced.

 

This quirkiness is present throughout the MB range I believe. What you can do is switch the audio source to something like USB / external with nothing connected via USB or Bluetooth.
The other feature which I thought they could improve is that if you turn off the navigation screen and then shut off the engine, it remains "off" the next time you start; even while reversing the car, the reversing camera won't turn on unless you manually turn on the navi screen.

 

Thank you for the tip on the radio!

 

Is the double ding you hear maybe the collision warning? I've had a number of false warnings at night on country roads, usually shortly after start up. I couldn't figure out what it was for some time until I just happened to catch a red triangle lighting up on the right side of the speedometer dial. Light lasted no longer than ding, so hard to catch.

My biggest complaint is how long it takes to warm up. I have a three car garage, but my wife's GLK and my two car toys take up the space. When my GLA sits outside overnight in under 30 degree weather, interior never warms up during my 15 minute commute. Not something I could catch on test drive in September. I blame the problem on the small 4 cyl 2 liter engine. It has been over 30 years since I drove a 4 cyl car, and forgot what that was like. Good thing I got heated seats.

 

Yup, it's the same sound as in the collision warning, but it goes off even if there's nothing is in front of the car for a mile, or even when stopped. I can't imagine it could be that bad. I will call the dealer and see what they have to say. The collision detector that cried "wolf"?...

 

my collision detector has only gone off when I was too slow to stop in front of a car or when changing lanes in traffic and accelerating with a car in front. If you're goes off often, you should get it check out.

 

I checked on collision warning on a CLA forum. Seems it is a common complaint. Some CLA forum posters reported dealer replacing radar sensor, but problem still exists.

 

For example:

https://mbworld.org/forums/gl-class-...ctivation.html

 

Or this link:
http://www.mercedescla.org/forum/64-...cceptable.html

 

I think that for the money my 45 should have adjustable dampers. I had to switch to 18s/more sidewall from the stock 20s to get an acceptable ride quality. The competition has this in cars 1/2 the cost. I don't have a problem with noise as it is by far better than an evo or sti and the thing is so calm at ridiculous speeds with the motor turning 2200 rpm @100 compared with like 4k in the golf gti/r family. I really like the multimedia/navigation. I really don't like that you cant dim the instrument lights way down at night and that the dimmer is a cheesy plastic twig.

 

The inability to defeat the random auto-engine-off feature is annoying as ****.