Hi all,

Just got a lease on a loaded GLA250, can't say i am 100% happy with the car, but its what my company got me for work at the moment,

here are my pro and con: (personal opinion only, please don't take it seriously)
+ good amount of torque, pretty surprising on a 2.0L turbo 4 banger
+ great handling, good interior quality
+ looks like a Nike shoe from the side
+ lot of storage rooms
+ great visibility

- bad MPG, 35 on paper, manage to get only 23, (only use 91 fuel, no ethnol blend)
- really jerky and noisy transmission on sport mode, Econ mode shift up too much on low speed
- really bumpy/stiff suspension, guess it couldn't be help for a vehicle with these type of ride height and still want to retain the sport car like handling especially with 19 inch AMG wheels
- blind spot monitor are never accurate, not sure if my car is malfunction or thats how it is, my SLK seems to work better
- seat doesn't breathe, sweaty back (Vegas heat avg 115 currently)


now my question is, is there way to permanantly disable the engine "auto on off"? i always have to switch it off everytime i start the car and i found that feature totally useless, it shut off the engine whenever i come to a complete stop, even for half a second, almost feel like the car is stalling. and even at a red light the engine shut off but only for 2mins max i guess its because the battery couldn't keep the car running without the engine running so it kick the engine back on. I guess its just some way of Mercedes say its for gas saving, but i found it super annoying.

driver attention assistance, on my previous E class and current SLK, whenever i start to drive off my lane the steering wheel would vibrate, for some reason this wouldn't.

collision assist (or collision prevention i forgot what its called) i see that feature in my car, does it mean the car will automatically apply brake for me? or would it just beep? I don't want to test it the way how James May try to run over Clarkson.


thanks in advance

 

What a great company you must work for!

RE the "auto on off" function, there is a seller on that dreaded auction site (hopefully you know the one I speak of) that sells a plug-in gizmo advertised as a "Auto Window Closer/Seat Comfort/STT Stop Start Off Disable" for $75 delivered from China. Not sure abut MBWorld non-sponsor sales linking policy so I will leave it to you to do the search if you so desire. Not sure about the effect on the warranty, but then maybe that is not a factor for you.

RE the transmission, read around. Your impressions are not uncommon.

RE the blind spot assist, I would have it checked out. The one on my wife's GLA is spot on.

RE driver attention, Owner's Manual says a warning "may be given" by means of "intermittent vibration" of steering wheel. Who knows what that means.

RE the seat not breathing, same problem here.

RE collision prevention, I am led to believe that under some circumstances, in theory, it will automatically brake.

 

The collision prevention is supposed to kick in if the there is no intervention from the driver. If you are already breaking, it won't break more, but if you are traveling at speed and are not taking any action to prevent a collision, then it kicks in and breaks, but it will sound an audible alarm beforehand. I've heard that alarm a few times already driving in stop and go traffic.

My salesperson said when they first got the GLAs in the showroom, they took all of the sales persons to an airfield and had them drive at 15 ml/h at some cardboard boxes without breaking, and the car stopped itself.

 

haha ya, i asked for a electric fiat, since charging station are everywhere in my area, they think GLA is much more practical for the size and MPG, which it appear not much better.. but can't complain no more

i did some google search its call engine eco start/stop, i found at least 3 pages google result everyone hating on it and also found it useless.
glad i am not the only one.

transmission i also found in the forum people say there will be a software update going out soon hopefully it make things better, it almost remind me of the smart fortwo i had driven few years back

the blind spot assist works fine when everyone is driving same speed as you, but if someone speeding 5mph over you the system is too slow to catch up, 10mph needless to say.

i kinda don't think our car have real leather, feels more like synthic leather or bonded leather

collision prevention, i don't think i ever want the car to slam the brake for me if their blind spot sensor take that long to catch up

 

cardboard?

volve test it on real human!

 

Ouch.....that didn't work too well. I hope the guy wasn't seriously hurt......

My salesman demonstrated the feature in the C class I test drove. It really does work. While I'd prefer to apply the brakes myself it's comforting to know my car will should it determine it's necessary.