What an odd car…. Mercedes A180
Discussion
I admit, I don’t drive “modern” cars all that much. But I have been in a few. I’ve just dropped my ’17 plate Smart ForTwo off at the Mercedes/Smart dealer for a service and have been given a new Mercedes A180 6 speed manual petrol to play with, as a courtesy car.
I think it is arguably one of the most unpleasant and dare I say it, hateful cars I’ve driven.
I know some may not agree with this. And superficially the car doesn’t look that bad on face value. The fit and finish and general tactile feel of the materials are all good. But, my word, what an ergonomic mess it is!
Never, in all my driving career have I sat in such uncomfortable seats. They look lovely and the material is nice, but they are nasty things to sit in. All of the manual controls seem difficult to get at or operate, such as the slider to move the seat back and forth. If my arm was 4 inches longer I might be able to reach it, without needing to headbutt the steering wheel.
And while on the subject of the steering wheel, this too is an oddity. Again, it looks nice on first sighting and the tactile touch of it is great. But, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to actually put your hands on it!
If you use the “ten, to two” hold. You are straddling the stitching change, which is just uncomfortable. I prefer the “quarter to three” hold. But the metal from the controls then rubs your hands just below your thumbs. And your fingers end up on an uncomfortable ridge on the back of the spoke. Most odd, the wheel and the seat are the things a driver is in contact with the most in any vehicle. And they are appallingly bad in the A-class. How can a car maker get it so wrong?
The oddities don’t stop here either. On the way into work I was driving on a smooth dual carriage way, when you change lanes and run over a cats-eye, the most strange thing would happen. The steering wheel actually vibrates and jiggles. Maybe this is some kind of feature, but I’m not sure what it is for. The only way I can describe it is, when you leave your mobile phone face down on the desk and you get a text message and it vibrates. It makes the whole top of the desk vibrate, this is the exact same sensation. I tried the suspension in Sport and Comfort modes and the steering exhibited the same behaviour. If you missed the cats-eyes it didn’t do this.
The brake pedal is similarly odd. At first the brakes feel massively over assisted and way too sharp. Which they probably are. But in slow traffic you then notice that at the top of the pedal travel it feels like a momentary switch, as you gently come on or off the brake pedal. There is definitely a “click” type feel on the pedal. The result is, the car is a nasty jerky mess in traffic. It really is not nice.
The throttle pedal too seems to have inherited oddness as well. Firstly, the travel feels far too short. Closed throttle to wide open seems to be hardly any movement at all. And at the bottom of the travel it has a distinct click as a switch is activated. This causes resistance to the pedal and makes the travel feel lumpy as you have to push harder to overcome this additional resistance. Once again, I’m unsure what the purpose of this is. It’s a manual car, so can’t have anything to do with “kick-down” for the gearbox. And activating this switch on the throttle peal appeared to have no impact on what the car was doing.
Other oddities, well I’m not tall, but even with the seat fairly low my head appeared to be quite close to the roof. The completely black roof lining was also miserable and oppressive, it makes you feel as though there is a dark cloud above you while you are driving. This is probably made worse, as I felt like I was sitting so high in the car. The windscreen also feels very slit like. And despite feeling like I’m sitting so high in the car, you can see absolutely nothing of the front of the car from the driver’s seat.
Buttons also seem to be randomly placed about the cabin. From sitting in the driver’s seat, you cannot see where the engine Start/Stop button is. Once you know it might be fine, but why hide it in the first place? It is a feature you will use twice at least every time you use the car.
Can you spot the Start/Stop button...
The handbrake is also a great example of poor thinking. Firstly, I still don’t understand the obsession with electronic handbrakes, they serve no practical purpose. And in the case of the A-class haven’t even resulted in more interior space, as there is just a blank in the centre console where one would expect to find a handbrake lever. But why oh why have Mercedes put the handbrake switch on the opposite side of the steering wheel from the gearstick? You pull up, reach out with your left hand and select neutral with the gearstick and the natural thing would be to use the same hand to then apply then handbrake, as more than likely your other hand is still on the steering wheel. But, no. This is not the Mercedes way, you have let go of the steering wheel with your other hand, “hey look Mamma, no hands…”, to then activate the handbrake. It just feels clunky and unnatural.
Found it!
The engine is harsh at higher revs, although it seems to go ok. And seems fairly smooth just pottering about. The gearbox is probably the best thing from a driving point of view, very nice gear selector and feel. Although if you are changing gear above 4000rpm and using the loud pedal, it becomes very jerky and really doesn’t like you to try and change gear quickly. Which again is something I find odd in a modern car. I think my 1979 Land Rover can produce quicker and smoother gear changes. And the gear lever throw in that physically moves from one county to another during gearchanges.
The UI and button layout is also hugely complex. I know modern cars have to be “digital” everything. And the dials are all an LCD screen that spreads to a secondary screen in the middle. If you have time to read the manual of have someone show you all the features, I’m sure it’s ok. But it is total information overload and doesn’t make for an intuitive interface. If you are jumping into a car, you really just want the important things being displayed and a quick easy way to interface with them. This is far too noisy and complex to allow you to do this and certainly not safe to interact with it while driving, unless you are very familiar with it.
I guess overall it is rather a shame. The car on paper probably isn’t bad at all. And maybe as a passenger you won’t notice most of the problems. But there are so many irritants. I could never drive a car like this daily, it’d drive me completely insane.
I think it is arguably one of the most unpleasant and dare I say it, hateful cars I’ve driven.
I know some may not agree with this. And superficially the car doesn’t look that bad on face value. The fit and finish and general tactile feel of the materials are all good. But, my word, what an ergonomic mess it is!
Never, in all my driving career have I sat in such uncomfortable seats. They look lovely and the material is nice, but they are nasty things to sit in. All of the manual controls seem difficult to get at or operate, such as the slider to move the seat back and forth. If my arm was 4 inches longer I might be able to reach it, without needing to headbutt the steering wheel.
And while on the subject of the steering wheel, this too is an oddity. Again, it looks nice on first sighting and the tactile touch of it is great. But, there doesn’t seem to be anywhere to actually put your hands on it!
If you use the “ten, to two” hold. You are straddling the stitching change, which is just uncomfortable. I prefer the “quarter to three” hold. But the metal from the controls then rubs your hands just below your thumbs. And your fingers end up on an uncomfortable ridge on the back of the spoke. Most odd, the wheel and the seat are the things a driver is in contact with the most in any vehicle. And they are appallingly bad in the A-class. How can a car maker get it so wrong?
The oddities don’t stop here either. On the way into work I was driving on a smooth dual carriage way, when you change lanes and run over a cats-eye, the most strange thing would happen. The steering wheel actually vibrates and jiggles. Maybe this is some kind of feature, but I’m not sure what it is for. The only way I can describe it is, when you leave your mobile phone face down on the desk and you get a text message and it vibrates. It makes the whole top of the desk vibrate, this is the exact same sensation. I tried the suspension in Sport and Comfort modes and the steering exhibited the same behaviour. If you missed the cats-eyes it didn’t do this.
The brake pedal is similarly odd. At first the brakes feel massively over assisted and way too sharp. Which they probably are. But in slow traffic you then notice that at the top of the pedal travel it feels like a momentary switch, as you gently come on or off the brake pedal. There is definitely a “click” type feel on the pedal. The result is, the car is a nasty jerky mess in traffic. It really is not nice.
The throttle pedal too seems to have inherited oddness as well. Firstly, the travel feels far too short. Closed throttle to wide open seems to be hardly any movement at all. And at the bottom of the travel it has a distinct click as a switch is activated. This causes resistance to the pedal and makes the travel feel lumpy as you have to push harder to overcome this additional resistance. Once again, I’m unsure what the purpose of this is. It’s a manual car, so can’t have anything to do with “kick-down” for the gearbox. And activating this switch on the throttle peal appeared to have no impact on what the car was doing.
Other oddities, well I’m not tall, but even with the seat fairly low my head appeared to be quite close to the roof. The completely black roof lining was also miserable and oppressive, it makes you feel as though there is a dark cloud above you while you are driving. This is probably made worse, as I felt like I was sitting so high in the car. The windscreen also feels very slit like. And despite feeling like I’m sitting so high in the car, you can see absolutely nothing of the front of the car from the driver’s seat.
Buttons also seem to be randomly placed about the cabin. From sitting in the driver’s seat, you cannot see where the engine Start/Stop button is. Once you know it might be fine, but why hide it in the first place? It is a feature you will use twice at least every time you use the car.
Can you spot the Start/Stop button...
The handbrake is also a great example of poor thinking. Firstly, I still don’t understand the obsession with electronic handbrakes, they serve no practical purpose. And in the case of the A-class haven’t even resulted in more interior space, as there is just a blank in the centre console where one would expect to find a handbrake lever. But why oh why have Mercedes put the handbrake switch on the opposite side of the steering wheel from the gearstick? You pull up, reach out with your left hand and select neutral with the gearstick and the natural thing would be to use the same hand to then apply then handbrake, as more than likely your other hand is still on the steering wheel. But, no. This is not the Mercedes way, you have let go of the steering wheel with your other hand, “hey look Mamma, no hands…”, to then activate the handbrake. It just feels clunky and unnatural.
Found it!
The engine is harsh at higher revs, although it seems to go ok. And seems fairly smooth just pottering about. The gearbox is probably the best thing from a driving point of view, very nice gear selector and feel. Although if you are changing gear above 4000rpm and using the loud pedal, it becomes very jerky and really doesn’t like you to try and change gear quickly. Which again is something I find odd in a modern car. I think my 1979 Land Rover can produce quicker and smoother gear changes. And the gear lever throw in that physically moves from one county to another during gearchanges.
The UI and button layout is also hugely complex. I know modern cars have to be “digital” everything. And the dials are all an LCD screen that spreads to a secondary screen in the middle. If you have time to read the manual of have someone show you all the features, I’m sure it’s ok. But it is total information overload and doesn’t make for an intuitive interface. If you are jumping into a car, you really just want the important things being displayed and a quick easy way to interface with them. This is far too noisy and complex to allow you to do this and certainly not safe to interact with it while driving, unless you are very familiar with it.
I guess overall it is rather a shame. The car on paper probably isn’t bad at all. And maybe as a passenger you won’t notice most of the problems. But there are so many irritants. I could never drive a car like this daily, it’d drive me completely insane.
swagmeister said:
OP Your opening line was "I admit, I don’t drive “modern” cars all that much. But I have been in a few. I’ve just dropped my ’17 plate Smart ForTwo off at the Mercedes/Smart dealer for a service "
Id say your 17 plate car was modern. Im confused.
I guess my point was, in terms of "features" the smart is probably a lot more old school. It's comfortable with leather, heated seats, climate, remote central locking. But it has a proper key you put in an ignition barrel, it doesn't have 'auto' anything, and not even a touch screen or tablet looking thing for the radio.Id say your 17 plate car was modern. Im confused.
UPDATE
So my smart is in for a new bluetooth unit. This time I've been given an A200 automatic A-class.
I still find it an oddly hateful car. It's not that it is a bad car, it just has so many annoying traits. It does have good points too.
The headlights are very good, dip and mainbeam. It actually rides quite well, it doesn't feel stiff or bouncy. I like the tactile touch of many of the materials used inside and in this guise the engine feels quite peppy in the mid range, although maybe a little breathless at high rpm.
However the annoyances and oddness (or lack of design thought) continue.
The low fuel warning for instance. You get a big message overlaying both of the screens when the fuel gets low. So you ok the message to get rid of it, only you have to do this on both screens separately!!!!! And sometimes on oking one of them, it instantly brings up another low fuel warning. So you end up having to clear 3 messages!!!
But lets roll back a bit.
I never got a picture of the gauges before. The look like this, notice the red halo type effect at the end of the rev counter needle. Looks great doesn't it.....
but what happens is, as you approach the red line, it completely masked the where the red line starts. Not such an issue in the auto, but the manual made it very difficult to eyeball to shift at the red line.
Gear selection..... I have no idea why. But Mercedes seem to have decided to replace one of the steering column stalks with a plastic gear selector. Now don't get excited, it's not like a column shifter in US cars of old, this is something that looks and feels like an indicator stalk.
I can sort of see that they were trying to make it ergonomic. But there are a couple of concerns. Firstly several of my cars have the indicators on this side, the ones that don't, usually have the flick wipe here instead. Now let me tell you, you don't want to accidentally "flick" this while moving, else you'll end up with the transmission in Neutral
honestly I only did it once!
I also find it odd that you push down/backwards for select Drive and push up/away to go backwards. Several of the tractors on the farm have column selectors, but they are all the other way round. I know it's just a learning curve, but it does seem a little backwards.
While on the column stalks, Mercedes did take the effort to illuminate the gear selector stalk, but not the wiper/indicator one
Some other things of note, the left stalk has some buttons for the rear wiper, it looks like you should just be able to use the back of your finger to use them, but no, doing this will move the entire stalk and activate mainbeam.
The mood lighting is quite a cool feature many cars have these days. But, it does really reflect in the windscreen. If I was doing a lot of night driving, I'd have to turn the mood lights off I think.
Some more annoyances, things seem to keep resetting or changing. Last night I left the left hand screen displaying mpg. Started the car this morning and it's showing the nav - why??
The radio volume also seems to reset each time you turn the car off.
And the drive mode of Sport or Comfort also seems to mostly reset, although not every time. No idea if there is a way of making this things persist in one of the menus, but it certainly isn't obvious on how to do this.
The car also has some sort of modern safety feature about being too close to another car. I can't quite get my head around this, as too look at the display you have to take your eyes off of the road QED...
But between the speedo and rev counter, there is a picture of car and measure of distance in yrds. Sorry you can't see the numbers, but the display is saying the car infront (the one in the same lane I presume) is over 50 yrds away. I'd have said, it looks closer to 50 feet than yards.
I also found it quite amusing that while driving about I got a few error messages appear:
Which only serves to reinforce my opinion that driverless cars are really a long way away, as they would be relying on similar tech. and it seemed all too easy to fail in a driver controlled car.
One of biggest gripes, apart from the steering wheel, which is truly the most uncomfortable steering wheels ever invented. Is while the dash looks funky and modern. It is just way too noisy and yet despite the info overload, you can't eyeball it and see what radio station you are on or what song is playing. I know you can configure this to show inplace of something else, but it's at the expense of something that you want to see. Old cars with separate radios didn't suffer such simple problems. So it appears to be something new that has been created as a modern issue.
I'd also like to mention the wipers at this point. They are dreadful, they are "auto", but just don't get it right. I was in rain/sleet last night and the heavier it got, the slower the wipers went. Oncoming traffic also seemed to impact the speed they worked at. It wouldn't be so bad, but the manual controls are just clunky (and don't illuminate!) to work around it. At one point I thought I'd have to pull over so that I could consult the manual on how to wrestle control of the wipers. They are arguably dangerous in my opinion.
There rear wiper is just a dumb too. Iced up this morning, so the blade wasn't touching the glass correctly and therefore didn't wipe all the water away. so it just kept on going making a horrible screeching sound on the glass.... I couldn't find a way of stopping it doing this.
So how does it drive? Well the brakes are still horridly over assisted and the steering is quite strange. It's super smoother and rather weighty, the Comfort and Sport are meant to change it, but not to any degree I could really detect. At low speed it is massively over assisted and makes the car quite jerky when doing 90 degree turns round junctions on a housing estate.
The oddest thing is, apart from the car changing direction, which is actually quite darty and responsive. You'd never know the steering wheel was directly connected to the front wheels. There is no feel what so ever.
The 7 speed auto box isn't that bad, it's pretty smooth tbh and much better than the manual when pressing on. No idea why the manual is so jerky, older cars aren't. However having paddles on the auto box are pointless, you don't have any real control, just an opinion and the box will happily up and down shift on it's own when in manual mode. And then automatically change back into auto mode. Oddly if you accidentally select manual mode, there doesn't seem a way to switch back to auto, you just have to drive it until it decides to do it itself. It's quite detestable really.
The engine, no idea on displacement or power. It feels nice, lots of mid range punch and using half throttle it picks up and goes really well and feels more powerful than it probably is. High rpm performance is a bit lacking and the engine noise sounds like a 1990's Amiga computer game. Not at all pleasant. It also feels a lot faster than I think it is, some roads I've felt that I'm flying down having been at WOT for an extended period, only to look down and see I'm at the same mph as I would be in my smart ForTwo.
For me the Sport mode drives a lot better than the Comfort mode, it feels much more peppy and alive and actually downshifts as you slow. But like most autos it can be rather dimwhitted. I mentioned half throttle above and if you are at motorway speeds 65mph and floor it, the engine seems to make a load of noise, sounds like something slips and then it goes. Half throttle and it'll lift the bonnet and be much more responsive in terms of reaction.
I've also had a few occasions off of round abouts where I've floored, it's shot off, then feels like you'd run into deep water, where it completely stops accelerating and then up shifts and goes again. Rather an odd sensation, not sure if it's gearbox and/or TCS causing it, but it hasn't always been spinning the wheels.
And yes, this is an issue. This car is too powerful for fwd. It is wheelspin city, with the peppy mid range and lots of gears, it wheel spins every where and all the time. I admit I was driving a bit hard, but even just briskly pullling out of junction or from a roll it would light up the tyres. And if I owned such a car I know it would eat through tyres.
I would say, on the flip side I'm truly impressed with the economy. I reset the trip at an unfavorable time while sitting in the car waiting for someone. Yet it has managed to average over 36mpg on the way to work and just under 35mpg overall. I'm sure driving a little more sensibly this would be over 40mpg daily use, and maybe by quite a bit. My ForTwo being driven less hard only manages 44mpg in a car weighing far less, with far less power.
Lastly, and I know this is just a bit of a learning curve. But it did make me smirk. There are simply loads of buttons in the A-class, and if you don't know what the symbol means, you have no idea what they do.
Scenic parking:
The sky at night:
Removable doors:
Tired air con:
Car mode:
So my smart is in for a new bluetooth unit. This time I've been given an A200 automatic A-class.
I still find it an oddly hateful car. It's not that it is a bad car, it just has so many annoying traits. It does have good points too.
The headlights are very good, dip and mainbeam. It actually rides quite well, it doesn't feel stiff or bouncy. I like the tactile touch of many of the materials used inside and in this guise the engine feels quite peppy in the mid range, although maybe a little breathless at high rpm.
However the annoyances and oddness (or lack of design thought) continue.
The low fuel warning for instance. You get a big message overlaying both of the screens when the fuel gets low. So you ok the message to get rid of it, only you have to do this on both screens separately!!!!! And sometimes on oking one of them, it instantly brings up another low fuel warning. So you end up having to clear 3 messages!!!
But lets roll back a bit.
I never got a picture of the gauges before. The look like this, notice the red halo type effect at the end of the rev counter needle. Looks great doesn't it.....
but what happens is, as you approach the red line, it completely masked the where the red line starts. Not such an issue in the auto, but the manual made it very difficult to eyeball to shift at the red line.
Gear selection..... I have no idea why. But Mercedes seem to have decided to replace one of the steering column stalks with a plastic gear selector. Now don't get excited, it's not like a column shifter in US cars of old, this is something that looks and feels like an indicator stalk.
I can sort of see that they were trying to make it ergonomic. But there are a couple of concerns. Firstly several of my cars have the indicators on this side, the ones that don't, usually have the flick wipe here instead. Now let me tell you, you don't want to accidentally "flick" this while moving, else you'll end up with the transmission in Neutral
honestly I only did it once! I also find it odd that you push down/backwards for select Drive and push up/away to go backwards. Several of the tractors on the farm have column selectors, but they are all the other way round. I know it's just a learning curve, but it does seem a little backwards.
While on the column stalks, Mercedes did take the effort to illuminate the gear selector stalk, but not the wiper/indicator one
Some other things of note, the left stalk has some buttons for the rear wiper, it looks like you should just be able to use the back of your finger to use them, but no, doing this will move the entire stalk and activate mainbeam.
The mood lighting is quite a cool feature many cars have these days. But, it does really reflect in the windscreen. If I was doing a lot of night driving, I'd have to turn the mood lights off I think.
Some more annoyances, things seem to keep resetting or changing. Last night I left the left hand screen displaying mpg. Started the car this morning and it's showing the nav - why??
The radio volume also seems to reset each time you turn the car off.
And the drive mode of Sport or Comfort also seems to mostly reset, although not every time. No idea if there is a way of making this things persist in one of the menus, but it certainly isn't obvious on how to do this.
The car also has some sort of modern safety feature about being too close to another car. I can't quite get my head around this, as too look at the display you have to take your eyes off of the road QED...
But between the speedo and rev counter, there is a picture of car and measure of distance in yrds. Sorry you can't see the numbers, but the display is saying the car infront (the one in the same lane I presume) is over 50 yrds away. I'd have said, it looks closer to 50 feet than yards.
I also found it quite amusing that while driving about I got a few error messages appear:
Which only serves to reinforce my opinion that driverless cars are really a long way away, as they would be relying on similar tech. and it seemed all too easy to fail in a driver controlled car.
One of biggest gripes, apart from the steering wheel, which is truly the most uncomfortable steering wheels ever invented. Is while the dash looks funky and modern. It is just way too noisy and yet despite the info overload, you can't eyeball it and see what radio station you are on or what song is playing. I know you can configure this to show inplace of something else, but it's at the expense of something that you want to see. Old cars with separate radios didn't suffer such simple problems. So it appears to be something new that has been created as a modern issue.
I'd also like to mention the wipers at this point. They are dreadful, they are "auto", but just don't get it right. I was in rain/sleet last night and the heavier it got, the slower the wipers went. Oncoming traffic also seemed to impact the speed they worked at. It wouldn't be so bad, but the manual controls are just clunky (and don't illuminate!) to work around it. At one point I thought I'd have to pull over so that I could consult the manual on how to wrestle control of the wipers. They are arguably dangerous in my opinion.
There rear wiper is just a dumb too. Iced up this morning, so the blade wasn't touching the glass correctly and therefore didn't wipe all the water away. so it just kept on going making a horrible screeching sound on the glass.... I couldn't find a way of stopping it doing this.
So how does it drive? Well the brakes are still horridly over assisted and the steering is quite strange. It's super smoother and rather weighty, the Comfort and Sport are meant to change it, but not to any degree I could really detect. At low speed it is massively over assisted and makes the car quite jerky when doing 90 degree turns round junctions on a housing estate.
The oddest thing is, apart from the car changing direction, which is actually quite darty and responsive. You'd never know the steering wheel was directly connected to the front wheels. There is no feel what so ever.
The 7 speed auto box isn't that bad, it's pretty smooth tbh and much better than the manual when pressing on. No idea why the manual is so jerky, older cars aren't. However having paddles on the auto box are pointless, you don't have any real control, just an opinion and the box will happily up and down shift on it's own when in manual mode. And then automatically change back into auto mode. Oddly if you accidentally select manual mode, there doesn't seem a way to switch back to auto, you just have to drive it until it decides to do it itself. It's quite detestable really.
The engine, no idea on displacement or power. It feels nice, lots of mid range punch and using half throttle it picks up and goes really well and feels more powerful than it probably is. High rpm performance is a bit lacking and the engine noise sounds like a 1990's Amiga computer game. Not at all pleasant. It also feels a lot faster than I think it is, some roads I've felt that I'm flying down having been at WOT for an extended period, only to look down and see I'm at the same mph as I would be in my smart ForTwo.
For me the Sport mode drives a lot better than the Comfort mode, it feels much more peppy and alive and actually downshifts as you slow. But like most autos it can be rather dimwhitted. I mentioned half throttle above and if you are at motorway speeds 65mph and floor it, the engine seems to make a load of noise, sounds like something slips and then it goes. Half throttle and it'll lift the bonnet and be much more responsive in terms of reaction.
I've also had a few occasions off of round abouts where I've floored, it's shot off, then feels like you'd run into deep water, where it completely stops accelerating and then up shifts and goes again. Rather an odd sensation, not sure if it's gearbox and/or TCS causing it, but it hasn't always been spinning the wheels.
And yes, this is an issue. This car is too powerful for fwd. It is wheelspin city, with the peppy mid range and lots of gears, it wheel spins every where and all the time. I admit I was driving a bit hard, but even just briskly pullling out of junction or from a roll it would light up the tyres. And if I owned such a car I know it would eat through tyres.
I would say, on the flip side I'm truly impressed with the economy. I reset the trip at an unfavorable time while sitting in the car waiting for someone. Yet it has managed to average over 36mpg on the way to work and just under 35mpg overall. I'm sure driving a little more sensibly this would be over 40mpg daily use, and maybe by quite a bit. My ForTwo being driven less hard only manages 44mpg in a car weighing far less, with far less power.
Lastly, and I know this is just a bit of a learning curve. But it did make me smirk. There are simply loads of buttons in the A-class, and if you don't know what the symbol means, you have no idea what they do.
Scenic parking:
The sky at night:
Removable doors:
Tired air con:
Car mode:
yellowbentines said:
See in the above photo, in the top right hand of the screen, where it says 'owners manual'...click it, tells you what all the buttons do 
It may well do, not very handy at 70mph on the dual carriage way though.In fact, without a proper hand over or dedicated time to go through and understand everything, the car is quite dangerous. It runs at speed comfortably, but it is far to easy to get distracted trying to do something simple.
chazd said:
I’m sorry but I struggle to take your criticism seriously.
Having had a look at your current fleet (and previous) you can hardly slate a car to this extent and it seems your main gripe is because The A Class has technology!
I mean who complains there is no separate stereo displaying the radio station. Welcome to 2019
I think I was quite honest in my opening post. Having had a look at your current fleet (and previous) you can hardly slate a car to this extent and it seems your main gripe is because The A Class has technology!
I mean who complains there is no separate stereo displaying the radio station. Welcome to 2019
And why would you not want to know what is playing? My smart shows the radio text for digital radio. Which tells you the song title and artist currently playing.
And tbh my main gripes with the A class is the annoying things like the steering wheel, jerkiness and multiple messages saying the same things. So not really the “technology”. Just poor design detail.
While the new Mercedes A-Class may not be 100% to my tastes and it certainly had a few aspects that irked me. I have to admit I am impressed with the engine.
In fact, it is probably the first engine I've driven that I can see/feel a clear generation gap from other engines. I've actually driven the A180 in manual guise and the A200 in automatic guise. The latter I also had over night, so managed to get some good seat time and distance covered in. Both being petrol, not diesel engines.
I'll be honest, I was completely ignorant to what these engines were, as the cars aren't the sorts of things I'd typically look at owning. But last night I thought I'd look up some stats.
Surprisingly both of these engines are only 1.3 litres.... I know the trend of smaller displacement and turbocharged has been common over the last 5 years. But if asked based on how they drove, I wouldn't have said they were 1.3's.
The A-Class itself is actually a lot lighter than I'd have thought by looking at it. This may contribute to the overall performance of the cars, but has little bearing on how the engines 'feel' to drive.
The headline figures are not huge, but somehow these cars feel like they drive beyond their base statistics. I mean, lets face it, you could buy a 136bhp Rover 400 some 20 years with a 2.0 na engine and less weight.
The official acceleration stats aren't all that impressive either. 9.2 sec 0-60mph for the manual A180 and a reasonably brisk 8.0 for the A200 auto.
As a diehard lover of manual gearboxes. I will say the automatic did drive better than the manual, the manual just didn't want to be rushed.
But the thing that really stuck me, was how instantly accessible the power is in these vehicles. There is no doubt the A200's engine drove better than the A180's. The A180 just didn't like the high revs much and felt flat towards the red line. The A200's engine, despite being the same engine, was more happy at higher revs. Still a little breathless, but would rev happily enough that you would use the revs.
I know this is all about the turbo and the 7 speed auto in sport mode really complimented this. It made the car/engine feel supremely responsive. Now I'm not a complete turbo newb here. I've owned a Nissan 200SX, Subaru Impreza Turbo, Smart Roadster and my current 2017 plate Smart ForTwo are all turbocharged. The Smart ForTwo's engine also belongs to the Mercedes family and also being a small displacement. None however drive like these new breeds of engine.
In fact, I've never driven an engine quite like it before. I'm used to low end grunt in cars. I have four V8 powered cars, some capable of 95% of their torque from 1500rpm (that's over 300ft-lb). And I also own turbo diesels.
But these new petrols are something else. They are free revving, instant and punchy. And they have the least lag of any turbo engine I have ever driven. The Smart ForTwo feels comparatively "old school" by comparison. The engine in that prefers revs to perform and while it has more grunt than a 1.0 litre na engine. You do notice the lag, e.g. if at 5000rpm, lift off the throttle completely, then put your foot flat to the floor -- count -- one -- two and the turbo kicks in. It's quite predictable and on tight corners you learn to floor the accelerator pedal before the corner apex, so that it starts to actually accelerate at the right point.
But tbh, I could not detect the turbo or lag on these new 1.3 litre engines. The auto probably masks this to some extent. But even in the manual car I couldn't really tell it had a turbo, just a fat end of instant torque.
I am, on reflection, quite gobsmacked how the A200 drove from an engine/gearbox point of view. From pretty much any legal speed the engine would instantly plant you backward in the seat. I suspect a lot of this is more sensation than outright performance, although the speedo would move quick enough to make even this fairly mundane entry model something very easy to overtake in and confidence inspiring. The A-class itself isn't built for driver enjoyment, but this engine certainly has potential to be fun.
And I don't think it's about the headline figures. 163bhp really isn't a huge amount of power. Not even in 1990, let alone 2019. But somehow this little engine when coupled to the auto box would pretty much instantly light up the front tyres of the A-class at any speeds below 20mph. In fact, it was a great demonstration that fwd really is not sufficient for this level of performance. Which is odd, as there are other more powerful fwd cars which wheel spin a lot less. And I don't think it's down to tyre choice. It's how the engine delivers the power.
And that power delivery is just so accessible. That is the real difference. It's not like powerful engines of old that you can plant it in any gear and let it labour through the lower rpms. These engines scream at low rpm, making the power they have just so deployable and easy to access.
On top of this, they also seemed to get great economy. Even driving in the most enthusiastic way in the A200, I still managed mid 30's+ mpg.
One of these engines and yes, even the auto box in a 2 seat rwd sports car weighing in around the 1 tonne mark. Would I think be quite an interesting vehicle. Not something to win ultimate HP wars, but something that would be an immense blast being driven round the mountain roads in Snowdownia and the like.
In fact, it is probably the first engine I've driven that I can see/feel a clear generation gap from other engines. I've actually driven the A180 in manual guise and the A200 in automatic guise. The latter I also had over night, so managed to get some good seat time and distance covered in. Both being petrol, not diesel engines.
I'll be honest, I was completely ignorant to what these engines were, as the cars aren't the sorts of things I'd typically look at owning. But last night I thought I'd look up some stats.
Surprisingly both of these engines are only 1.3 litres.... I know the trend of smaller displacement and turbocharged has been common over the last 5 years. But if asked based on how they drove, I wouldn't have said they were 1.3's.
| A180 | 1332cc Inline 4 | 136bhp | 148ft-lb @ 1460rpm | 6 speed manual | kerb weight 1350kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A200 | 1332cc Inline 4 | 163bhp | 184ft-lb @ 1620rpm | 7 speed automatic | kerb weight 1375kg |
The A-Class itself is actually a lot lighter than I'd have thought by looking at it. This may contribute to the overall performance of the cars, but has little bearing on how the engines 'feel' to drive.
The headline figures are not huge, but somehow these cars feel like they drive beyond their base statistics. I mean, lets face it, you could buy a 136bhp Rover 400 some 20 years with a 2.0 na engine and less weight.
The official acceleration stats aren't all that impressive either. 9.2 sec 0-60mph for the manual A180 and a reasonably brisk 8.0 for the A200 auto.
As a diehard lover of manual gearboxes. I will say the automatic did drive better than the manual, the manual just didn't want to be rushed.
But the thing that really stuck me, was how instantly accessible the power is in these vehicles. There is no doubt the A200's engine drove better than the A180's. The A180 just didn't like the high revs much and felt flat towards the red line. The A200's engine, despite being the same engine, was more happy at higher revs. Still a little breathless, but would rev happily enough that you would use the revs.
I know this is all about the turbo and the 7 speed auto in sport mode really complimented this. It made the car/engine feel supremely responsive. Now I'm not a complete turbo newb here. I've owned a Nissan 200SX, Subaru Impreza Turbo, Smart Roadster and my current 2017 plate Smart ForTwo are all turbocharged. The Smart ForTwo's engine also belongs to the Mercedes family and also being a small displacement. None however drive like these new breeds of engine.
In fact, I've never driven an engine quite like it before. I'm used to low end grunt in cars. I have four V8 powered cars, some capable of 95% of their torque from 1500rpm (that's over 300ft-lb). And I also own turbo diesels.
But these new petrols are something else. They are free revving, instant and punchy. And they have the least lag of any turbo engine I have ever driven. The Smart ForTwo feels comparatively "old school" by comparison. The engine in that prefers revs to perform and while it has more grunt than a 1.0 litre na engine. You do notice the lag, e.g. if at 5000rpm, lift off the throttle completely, then put your foot flat to the floor -- count -- one -- two and the turbo kicks in. It's quite predictable and on tight corners you learn to floor the accelerator pedal before the corner apex, so that it starts to actually accelerate at the right point.
But tbh, I could not detect the turbo or lag on these new 1.3 litre engines. The auto probably masks this to some extent. But even in the manual car I couldn't really tell it had a turbo, just a fat end of instant torque.
I am, on reflection, quite gobsmacked how the A200 drove from an engine/gearbox point of view. From pretty much any legal speed the engine would instantly plant you backward in the seat. I suspect a lot of this is more sensation than outright performance, although the speedo would move quick enough to make even this fairly mundane entry model something very easy to overtake in and confidence inspiring. The A-class itself isn't built for driver enjoyment, but this engine certainly has potential to be fun.
And I don't think it's about the headline figures. 163bhp really isn't a huge amount of power. Not even in 1990, let alone 2019. But somehow this little engine when coupled to the auto box would pretty much instantly light up the front tyres of the A-class at any speeds below 20mph. In fact, it was a great demonstration that fwd really is not sufficient for this level of performance. Which is odd, as there are other more powerful fwd cars which wheel spin a lot less. And I don't think it's down to tyre choice. It's how the engine delivers the power.
And that power delivery is just so accessible. That is the real difference. It's not like powerful engines of old that you can plant it in any gear and let it labour through the lower rpms. These engines scream at low rpm, making the power they have just so deployable and easy to access.
On top of this, they also seemed to get great economy. Even driving in the most enthusiastic way in the A200, I still managed mid 30's+ mpg.
One of these engines and yes, even the auto box in a 2 seat rwd sports car weighing in around the 1 tonne mark. Would I think be quite an interesting vehicle. Not something to win ultimate HP wars, but something that would be an immense blast being driven round the mountain roads in Snowdownia and the like.
Max_Torque said:
JERK.
No not you 300, but that's what you are feeling, the "jerk" and the German manufacturers are masters in using JERK to make their slow cars feel quick! The small, close coupled turbo DI gasolines now use all the tricks in the book to be able to respond very aggressively to drive torque demands, and use their "modes" to determine the optimum condition to operate at.
For example, in eco, the engine mapping drops any pretense at performance or response and sits at a speed / load comensurate with minimum consumption, ie cam timing to lowest voleff, max egr, wastegate fully open, MBT spart, LBT fuelling, highest gear possible. But pop it into "sport" and the engine can rebalance itself, still making the same torque, but at a condition that allows a much more rapid response. For example, it will swing the cams to best voleff, reduce the EGR as much as possible (within emissions constraints) shut the wastegate and make boost whilst CLOSING the throttle to maintain plenum density. However, now when you snap the throttle open, all that boost and turbine energy is available pretty much instantly to bring the engine to peak torque very quickly. Often at low speed, a transient overboost is also allowed to further increase the inital surge as you open the throttle.
this does two things:
1) provides a lot of JERK, making the car feel quick to the driver
2) often provides a lot of trouble for the front wheels as they suddenly scrabble around trying to do something with all that torque....
Thank you, very interesting No not you 300, but that's what you are feeling, the "jerk" and the German manufacturers are masters in using JERK to make their slow cars feel quick! The small, close coupled turbo DI gasolines now use all the tricks in the book to be able to respond very aggressively to drive torque demands, and use their "modes" to determine the optimum condition to operate at.
For example, in eco, the engine mapping drops any pretense at performance or response and sits at a speed / load comensurate with minimum consumption, ie cam timing to lowest voleff, max egr, wastegate fully open, MBT spart, LBT fuelling, highest gear possible. But pop it into "sport" and the engine can rebalance itself, still making the same torque, but at a condition that allows a much more rapid response. For example, it will swing the cams to best voleff, reduce the EGR as much as possible (within emissions constraints) shut the wastegate and make boost whilst CLOSING the throttle to maintain plenum density. However, now when you snap the throttle open, all that boost and turbine energy is available pretty much instantly to bring the engine to peak torque very quickly. Often at low speed, a transient overboost is also allowed to further increase the inital surge as you open the throttle.
this does two things:
1) provides a lot of JERK, making the car feel quick to the driver
2) often provides a lot of trouble for the front wheels as they suddenly scrabble around trying to do something with all that torque....
Monkeylegend said:
The one big issue with the cars I have driven with these small turbo engines is turbo lag and being off boost when going up hills.
Second gear, rev to 5k for example, change up to 3rd, revs drop to below the boost threshold , no boost, foot flat to the floor, you go nowhere so have to change back to second gear, rinse and repeat.
And they are not that economical either.
I know exactly where you are coming from. But these Merc engines couldn't be further from this. Literally at any speed from any revs the engines pull incredibly well.Second gear, rev to 5k for example, change up to 3rd, revs drop to below the boost threshold , no boost, foot flat to the floor, you go nowhere so have to change back to second gear, rinse and repeat.
And they are not that economical either.
I pride myself on being sensitive to boost threshold and lag. As it's a particular trait when I compete in off road trials competitions. My preference being an n/a V8 over the turbo diesels, mostly down to the lack of lag. But if I'm brutally honest, even with the manual A180, I really could not detect that had any lag and the boost threshold was so low (1460rpm for peak torque according to the published spec, so the turbo is puffing away a bit before this), that you where never in an off boost situation.
DaveTheRave87 said:
I've spent the last 3 months driving a 1 litre turbo. It's impressive how quick it feels.
However, I'm not fussed about the actual speed. I'm happy enough fooling myself into thinking I'm going fast without troublingRevenue Speed Camera operators.
What impressed with these engines specifically was not the outright power and WOT performance, but how much poke and grunt they had. And particularly how instant, deploy-able and accessible it was.However, I'm not fussed about the actual speed. I'm happy enough fooling myself into thinking I'm going fast without troubling
I've had small turbo engines before, 798cc in my Smart Roadster and 898cc in my current ForTwo. Plus there have been cars like the Charade GTii with a 1.0 litre Turbo. None of these drive in anything remotely close to the same power delivery.
It's the "under the curve" performance of these new engines and how they respond at those revs. Coupled with the 7 speed auto and it is an amazingly different experience.
Monkeylegend said:
Car-Matt said:
Monkeylegend said:
These little engine are revving their guts out pleading for you to change up.
The boost levels are too high for comfortable driving up hills and can you imagine the fuel economy driving for miles at 5k plus rpm in second gear
I literally have no idea what you are talking aboutThe boost levels are too high for comfortable driving up hills and can you imagine the fuel economy driving for miles at 5k plus rpm in second gear
Having driven numerous cars with little boosted engines I really cant think what cars you're actually commenting on.
Nope, no good going up mountains.
They are very good on the flat though
Monkeylegend said:
No, you can feel the turbo come on boost. It's the hills that kill it, as I say they are very impressive on the flat.
Ford 1 litre ecoboost turbo, and the Peugeot 1.2 litre Pure tech turbo.
Something doesn't add up there.Ford 1 litre ecoboost turbo, and the Peugeot 1.2 litre Pure tech turbo.
The Ford engine makes 148lb ft at 1400-4500rpm, while the Pug is 170lb ft at 1750-3000rpm. Neither will be coming on boost at 3500, in fact in terms of toque the Pug is past it's best by 3500rpm.
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