32 AUTOCAR.CO.UK 2 1 AUGUST 2019
Δ given the sporting billing that
Mercedes has applied to the CLA,
there are a few reasons why you
might not feel inclined to extract an
enthusiastic pace from this car or
particularly enjoy it when you do.
The first and most obvious one
is a telling shortage of both high-
range mechanical refinement and
aud i ble r ic h ne s s f r om t h at fou r-
cylinder engine, the former coming
as a bit of a surprise since we haven’t
encountered it in other applications
of t h i s e n g i ne i n c ompa c t mo de l s
on the same platform. The motor is
quiet and smooth enough a lot of the
time, when cruising and operating at
lowish revs, but it sounds quite coarse
on start-up and takes on a distinctly
strained harshness when pulling
hard above 4000rpm.
The hastiness of the CLA’s dual-
clutch gearbox to actuate those
clutches during upshifts, blended
with the motor’s responsiveness
and its very healthy provision of
accessible torque, means you needn’t
work the engine to high revs to whisk
the car along briskly, which is good
news. Unfortunately, we can’t report
that the transmission is otherwise
entirely blameless in its operation.
When driving our test car in ‘D’,
testers reported a hesitancy to
disengage its clutches when slowing
to a crawl in heavy traffic, and when
coming to a stop, making the car
seem to struggle and shunt against
the inf luence of the brakes slightly in
the former respect, and also to allowsome of the energy from the stopping
crankshaft to fight its way through to
the drive wheels during engine start/
stop phases. Drivability gremlins of
t h at s or t h av e n’t b e e n u n k now n i n
two-pedal examples of the current
A-Class and B-Class we’ve tested but
certainly haven’t been as pronounced
or intrusive as this; and they’re the
opp o sit e of w h at y ou e x p e c t i n w h at
ought to feel like a carefully finished,
premium-branded driving experience.
HANDLING AND STABILITY
AAABC
The CLA 250’s handling delivers
on Mercedes’ dynamic selling pitch
up to a point – more convincingly,
just, than its performance does, at
least. The car isn’t blessed with a
particularly adhesive outright grip
level but uses what it’s got fairly well.
The suspension resists pitch andlateral body roll effectively, the chassis
changes direction with a keenness
that’s just above the ordinary, and
it g r ip s w it h de c e nt ba l a nc e on a
middling throttle, although you can
easily disrupt that grip by trying
to deploy too much torque too soon
through the driven front axle.
Mercedes offers only one wheel
size and one passive damper
specification on the car, with bigger
rims and adaptive shocks being
reserved for AMG versions and with
Mercedes’ UK distributor choosing
to offer only ‘cooking’ versions of the
car in AMG Line trim. This means
that although the car’s driving mode
selector allows you to adjust power
steering weight and powertrain
calibration to suit your preference,
there’s no potential to tailor the way
the CLA handles, or to rebalance ride
comfort and body control either on
the move or in the showroom.
Unfortunately for Mercedes, this
is a car that could really do with a
set of good, well-tuned adaptive
d a mp e r s i n orde r t o w ork w e l l at pa c eon more challenging surfaces of the
sort that British B-roads so often
supply. Stuttgart’s decision to switch
to firmed-up settings costs the CLA
some basic composure here, making
its vertical body control seem reactive
and excitable. Body control can seem
brittle and lacking in f luency, too, at
motorway speeds.
T he c a r i s at it s mo s t n at u r a l-
feeling in its default Comfort mode
of operation. Sport mode adds a little
too much steering weight for our
z CLA lives up to its sports-flavoured billing only so far, so it’s competent enough at middling speeds but fails to reward an enthusiastic driver, especially over typical B-roads
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You needn’t work the engine hard
to whisk the car along briskly
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