Category: Small Family 
Price Range: £18,424 to £22,070
Spacious, practical, high driving position, good visibility, quick witted stop/start, economy, huge boot.
Expensive, average to drive, you have to keep your foot on brake to activate the stop/start, dull.
Fuel-saving revisions are welcome, but B-Class continues to trail its competitors on price, drive and ability.
The B170 with the Blue Efficiency treatment returns 44.1mpg and emits 156g/km of carbon dioxide. That's a modest saving of 2.6mpg and 7g/km of CO2.
It's no surprise then that all the competition beats the B-Class and Volkswagen and Audi's small 1.4TSI engines are a case in point.
In the Volkswagen Golf the turbocharged 1.4 averages 45.6mpg and emits 144g/km of CO2 despite being almost two seconds faster to 62mph.
The BMW 116i Sport leads the class, emitting just 139g/km of carbon dioxide while averaging a fine 48.7mpg. This helps the 1-Series slip into VED Band E while company users pay 15% in Benefit-in-Kind tax. Compare that with the pretty average VED Band G and 18% BIK tax bracket the B170 falls in and it's easy to see why we're not that impressed.
