Mercedes GLA SUV (2014-2020) - Reliability & safety

Mercedes has a good reputation for reliability, but the A-Class on which the Mercedes GLA is based hasn’t enjoyed the best of times in our customer satisfaction survey.

Mercedes GLA reliability

The Mercedes GLA wasn’t featured in our 2018 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey but its sister car, the Mercedes A-Class, was – and it put in an average performance, coming 56th out of 75 cars, with 11% of owners reporting a fault within the first year of ownership. Given the number of parts shared across the A-Class and GLA, we’d expect the GLA to achieve a similar score. Neither car finished in the top 100 in our 2019 list.

Mercedes has dipped significantly for overall customer satisfaction in our manufacturer rankings, dropping from 12th out of 32 carmakers in 2016 to 26th out of 30 brands in 2019 – falling behind Jaguar and Audi in the process.

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Safety

The Mercedes GLA achieved the maximum five-star rating from Euro NCAP when it was crash-tested in 2014, scoring 96% for adult occupant protection and 88% for child occupant protection, indicating that it's a very safe car.

There’s a wide range of equipment as standard, including a bonnet that pops up to protect pedestrians from injury, a wide range of airbags – including a knee bag for the driver – and a feature that warns if the driver is becoming drowsy.