Category: Superminis 
Price Range: £14,290 to £18,645
Low emissions, cheap to run, comfortable, high driving position, quiet cruiser on motorways.
Noisy on start-up, drab interior, slow, no five-door option, pricey.
A serious option if 'green' driving is a priority.
The original A-Class launched in 1999 was some way short of expectations, but things have slowly improved and this latest incarnation looks like a sturdy effort.
The 2005 A-Class, on which this car is based, kept a fairly clean sheet. A few owners reported electronic and electrical problems, including issues with the Autotronic gearbox, and easily worn clutches in hard-driven city cars.
The cabin has had a few updates but it still looks dated and conservative. It lacks either a fashionable feel or a reassuringly-expensive atmosphere as in larger Mercs but it does have a soft-touch dashboard. Still, it's not quite enough and the overall effect is somewhat dismal.
Still, the drabness doesn't mean poor reliability. If you take the previous-generation A-Class as a guide things are looking good. In the 2008 JD Power Survey into customer satisfaction it finished 26th out of 100 models - not bad - and Mercedes itself finished 6th out of 28 in the manufacturers league table.
Latest Readers' Drives About the Mercedes A-Class
wrote on 16 08 2006