Mercedes CLA saloon (2013-2019) - Reliability & safety

The Mercedes CLA comes loaded with standard safety kit and even more features are available as options should you wish to have them. Mercedes has had its fair share of reliability problems in the recent past, but this seems to have been addressed with its newer models – of which the CLA is one.

Mercedes CLA reliability

The Mercedes CLA has been built on the same platform as the Mercedes A-Class, which has been on sale in the UK since the end of 2011, so any teething troubles with shared components should have been sorted by now.

In our Driver Power 2017 customer satisfaction survey, Mercedes finished 21st in the manufacturer rankings, out of 27 brands. This is a significant drop from 12th in 2016 and puts Mercedes behind rivals BMW and Audi. The CLA didn't feature in our top 150 individual cars, but the A-Class on which it's based came in 69th place, with 11% of owners reporting a fault within the first year of ownership.

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Safety

The Mercedes CLA was tested by Euro NCAP and achieved a five-star crash safety rating. It also scored an impressive 91% score for adult occupant protection.

The CLA comes with a whole host of safety equipment as standard. All cars get a system called Attention Assist, which detects drowsiness and warns you with an audible alert and a message on the dashboard. Another bit of kit is Active Brake Assist – a system that helps protect the CLA from accidents at speeds of more than 4mph by automatically applying the brakes if a critical situation arises.

There are seven airbags as standard, along with Mercedes’ automatic emergency call system (which notifies the emergency services in the event of a serious crash) and a pop-up active bonnet for pedestrian protection.

A lane-tracking package is available as a £595 extra, including blind-spot assistance and lane-keep assistance. You can also add rear side airbags for around £400.