Post by Big Blue on Jan 4, 2022 7:35:32 GMT
In the words of Clarkson……… “We’re back…!”
First rental for some time (Summer 2020) after which rental I came home and planned to order a hybrid, which I subsequently did. Will I end this rental with the purchase of a mid-size hatchback?
These are not exciting cars and are supposed to be luring in the younger drivers who are choosing Golfs, A3s and a plethora of hybrid and electric cars from across the manufacturer landscape. So it’s not about exciting or driver appeal, it’s all about market share. I remember this was the remit for the W201 - the younger driver appeal, market share against the 3 series using the appeal of the Mercedes badge. It didn’t work then: 190 drivers were seldom young upwardly mobile people as witnessed by the fact my mother bought one new - at age 49. W2.1 is slightly younger than that but she was nonplussed by the A-class.
The W201 was probably the last car developed with 100% Mercedes build integrity (maybe the W140 will claim that title) and in this A-class you immediately see that the display screen is an accountant’s delight - just a piece of cheap IT equipment stuck on a dash. No attempt to angle it, shape it or make it look in any way integrated. This being the case the dashboard, ie the section in front of the driver, just looks like the cheapest LCD device provided on the V-Tech children’s smartwatch my youngest received from Santa. Similar size, too. It sits bolt upright and you feel you should crick your neck like a low-branch feeding giraffe to view it head on, even though you don’t need to. It’s human nature to want to view a screen in front of you head-on which is why TVs over fireplaces are completely wrong unless you have raised, cinema-style seating facing it.
Something akin to desperation to (attempt to) follow the modern car interior ethos means ergonomics seems to have been thrown out of the window - so much so that the bulk of this review will be associated with its craptitude. Buttons for things like rear window heater are in a line of buttons that have no discernible position between one another.
The rear wiper control and washer is two buttons on the indicator stalk, and to wash you need to hold this button down. It’s the least ergonomic thing I can think of in the whole of society and we’ve got a Quad hi fi controller from the 90s in France!
That issue with the wiper is largely to do with the Mercedes desire to only ever one stalk. Older members with W124, W201 experience will remember this as being quite elegant as it did the indicators and the wipers. However with the plethora of modern FG the stalk is not only over busy but the accountants have made sure what used to be the whole chunky end of the stalk being turned for the wipers into a flimsy switch. I’d say that automatic wipers mean this is a rarely used switch but the system is so shite that the wipers only activate when sight of the end of the bonnet is totally unavailable so you need to use the switch.
The other issue with the “must be only one stalk” mentality is a completely jam packed steering wheel. I understand the new C class has a double spoke arrangement so that even more switches can go on the wheel: what kind of nightmare is that? On the left is the cruise, control of the driver dashboard display including a home button, a back button and a haptic button to swipe the menus in the dash. On the right is the volume control, the controls for the centre console section of the dash and the telephone and voice command (although the “hey Mercedes” voice command worked but nowhere near as well as “hey BMW”). I only found the Mercedes version of the iDrive controller when I made the journey back to Schwechat, so user error on that front, but it was not pleasant to use: the touch pad being so dominant that it resulted in error-strewn inputs.
On to that centre console. It’s a very nice screen and pretty clear with what it displays but icon sizing is a major issue. It was days before I saw the icon showing where air supply was being provided. I needed this because the automatic air supply setting was so ineffective that I considered lighting a small campfire on the centre armrest as opposed to trying to discover how to get the (very stylish) three centre vents to blow any warm air. This poor iconology is all over the place on both screens: the cruise icon is tiny, the time displays are tiny, the temperature outside display is tiny, the inside temperature display sits in the corner of the centre screen and is hidden by the steering wheel……. Like I said, ergonomics are just no longer seen as important as showing how much cheaply available tech you can cram on a few microchip wafers.
So what of quality? It’s not the height of bespoke, hand built automobiles but it’s not shit. Sure there are some cheap plastics low down and the parcel shelf clips were absent from ours due to what looked like failed glue. I assume it will go the length of a lease and a couple of years of the subsequent private owner without major elements falling off or failing. Perhaps the best example of the quality datum point was the indicator tick, surely the cheapest sounding thing I’ve heard since a demo by The Quarrymen was played on short wave radio.
So I suppose I’d better tell you I drove it. As expected I covered more miles in 10 days than I have in Eva since September. It was willing enough, fast enough bearing in mind it was winter, and cruised nicely. It’s very likely in line with the Golf / A3 it’s aimed at so the team in Stuttgart got that bit right but I’d sooner be sitting in an A3 Sportback. I drove two 430km round trips to the family in Zlin for medical services on my own so I got to actually feel how it is as a car and it is fun to toss about and goes where you point it. No sign of FWD steering drag at all and the gearshift (yes: a manual Mercedes. W2.1 was “WTF?”) was pleasant - apart from selecting reverse. It was a case of finding it without just being in second.
As far as space is concerned there was lots of cabin room for this size of car but I felt the boot was smaller than an A3 Sportback, although with it being Christmas we had a third hard shell case with us so maybe it was disadvantaged by our non-light travelling. It would certainly fit the bill as the only car on the driveway for a young family and for the [better-off family’s] older child to ferry mates about. I fancy that the latter category would rather have something else, however.
Economy was probably as expected (although I have no idea what economy is supposed to be having gone from 4.4litre twin turbo V8 to 2.0litre hybrid, the first of which managed 8.0mpg around town and the second uses no petrol most of the time in the congestion zone. I covered 1,369kms which is 855.625 miles and used 85 litres, or 18.6915 gallons. This leads to 45.776 mpg according to my calculations but feel free to correct me.
Those drives into Moravia to the hospitals encompassed mountain roads, motorways and fast A roads and it coped with them probably better than I. Driving on the deserted, dark, foggy, snow lined roads where vision beyond the bonnet was at a premium showed one thing if nothing else: modern cars and tyres are amazing, no matter what their price point or market segment. I would have been uncertain of travelling on some of the roads I drove on in a 1980s hot hatch but this was just driving.
All in all that sums it up. It’s modern motoring in its essence which means it does everything but doesn’t enthuse. I’d never have this over an A3 Sportback and probably not over a Golf either, having driven all three over at least similar times, roads and distances. It’s a test of how much you want to have the three pointed star on your car because it’s certainly not a statement of how much you like cars and sitting in them. So to answer my initial question, I won’t be going out and buying a mid-size hatch and if I were it wouldn’t be this kind.
First rental for some time (Summer 2020) after which rental I came home and planned to order a hybrid, which I subsequently did. Will I end this rental with the purchase of a mid-size hatchback?
These are not exciting cars and are supposed to be luring in the younger drivers who are choosing Golfs, A3s and a plethora of hybrid and electric cars from across the manufacturer landscape. So it’s not about exciting or driver appeal, it’s all about market share. I remember this was the remit for the W201 - the younger driver appeal, market share against the 3 series using the appeal of the Mercedes badge. It didn’t work then: 190 drivers were seldom young upwardly mobile people as witnessed by the fact my mother bought one new - at age 49. W2.1 is slightly younger than that but she was nonplussed by the A-class.
The W201 was probably the last car developed with 100% Mercedes build integrity (maybe the W140 will claim that title) and in this A-class you immediately see that the display screen is an accountant’s delight - just a piece of cheap IT equipment stuck on a dash. No attempt to angle it, shape it or make it look in any way integrated. This being the case the dashboard, ie the section in front of the driver, just looks like the cheapest LCD device provided on the V-Tech children’s smartwatch my youngest received from Santa. Similar size, too. It sits bolt upright and you feel you should crick your neck like a low-branch feeding giraffe to view it head on, even though you don’t need to. It’s human nature to want to view a screen in front of you head-on which is why TVs over fireplaces are completely wrong unless you have raised, cinema-style seating facing it.
Something akin to desperation to (attempt to) follow the modern car interior ethos means ergonomics seems to have been thrown out of the window - so much so that the bulk of this review will be associated with its craptitude. Buttons for things like rear window heater are in a line of buttons that have no discernible position between one another.
The rear wiper control and washer is two buttons on the indicator stalk, and to wash you need to hold this button down. It’s the least ergonomic thing I can think of in the whole of society and we’ve got a Quad hi fi controller from the 90s in France!
That issue with the wiper is largely to do with the Mercedes desire to only ever one stalk. Older members with W124, W201 experience will remember this as being quite elegant as it did the indicators and the wipers. However with the plethora of modern FG the stalk is not only over busy but the accountants have made sure what used to be the whole chunky end of the stalk being turned for the wipers into a flimsy switch. I’d say that automatic wipers mean this is a rarely used switch but the system is so shite that the wipers only activate when sight of the end of the bonnet is totally unavailable so you need to use the switch.
The other issue with the “must be only one stalk” mentality is a completely jam packed steering wheel. I understand the new C class has a double spoke arrangement so that even more switches can go on the wheel: what kind of nightmare is that? On the left is the cruise, control of the driver dashboard display including a home button, a back button and a haptic button to swipe the menus in the dash. On the right is the volume control, the controls for the centre console section of the dash and the telephone and voice command (although the “hey Mercedes” voice command worked but nowhere near as well as “hey BMW”). I only found the Mercedes version of the iDrive controller when I made the journey back to Schwechat, so user error on that front, but it was not pleasant to use: the touch pad being so dominant that it resulted in error-strewn inputs.
On to that centre console. It’s a very nice screen and pretty clear with what it displays but icon sizing is a major issue. It was days before I saw the icon showing where air supply was being provided. I needed this because the automatic air supply setting was so ineffective that I considered lighting a small campfire on the centre armrest as opposed to trying to discover how to get the (very stylish) three centre vents to blow any warm air. This poor iconology is all over the place on both screens: the cruise icon is tiny, the time displays are tiny, the temperature outside display is tiny, the inside temperature display sits in the corner of the centre screen and is hidden by the steering wheel……. Like I said, ergonomics are just no longer seen as important as showing how much cheaply available tech you can cram on a few microchip wafers.
So what of quality? It’s not the height of bespoke, hand built automobiles but it’s not shit. Sure there are some cheap plastics low down and the parcel shelf clips were absent from ours due to what looked like failed glue. I assume it will go the length of a lease and a couple of years of the subsequent private owner without major elements falling off or failing. Perhaps the best example of the quality datum point was the indicator tick, surely the cheapest sounding thing I’ve heard since a demo by The Quarrymen was played on short wave radio.
So I suppose I’d better tell you I drove it. As expected I covered more miles in 10 days than I have in Eva since September. It was willing enough, fast enough bearing in mind it was winter, and cruised nicely. It’s very likely in line with the Golf / A3 it’s aimed at so the team in Stuttgart got that bit right but I’d sooner be sitting in an A3 Sportback. I drove two 430km round trips to the family in Zlin for medical services on my own so I got to actually feel how it is as a car and it is fun to toss about and goes where you point it. No sign of FWD steering drag at all and the gearshift (yes: a manual Mercedes. W2.1 was “WTF?”) was pleasant - apart from selecting reverse. It was a case of finding it without just being in second.
As far as space is concerned there was lots of cabin room for this size of car but I felt the boot was smaller than an A3 Sportback, although with it being Christmas we had a third hard shell case with us so maybe it was disadvantaged by our non-light travelling. It would certainly fit the bill as the only car on the driveway for a young family and for the [better-off family’s] older child to ferry mates about. I fancy that the latter category would rather have something else, however.
Economy was probably as expected (although I have no idea what economy is supposed to be having gone from 4.4litre twin turbo V8 to 2.0litre hybrid, the first of which managed 8.0mpg around town and the second uses no petrol most of the time in the congestion zone. I covered 1,369kms which is 855.625 miles and used 85 litres, or 18.6915 gallons. This leads to 45.776 mpg according to my calculations but feel free to correct me.
Those drives into Moravia to the hospitals encompassed mountain roads, motorways and fast A roads and it coped with them probably better than I. Driving on the deserted, dark, foggy, snow lined roads where vision beyond the bonnet was at a premium showed one thing if nothing else: modern cars and tyres are amazing, no matter what their price point or market segment. I would have been uncertain of travelling on some of the roads I drove on in a 1980s hot hatch but this was just driving.
All in all that sums it up. It’s modern motoring in its essence which means it does everything but doesn’t enthuse. I’d never have this over an A3 Sportback and probably not over a Golf either, having driven all three over at least similar times, roads and distances. It’s a test of how much you want to have the three pointed star on your car because it’s certainly not a statement of how much you like cars and sitting in them. So to answer my initial question, I won’t be going out and buying a mid-size hatch and if I were it wouldn’t be this kind.
