Mercedes CLA 250 - What do you think of it?

[henners88]

Mercedes are for old people, period.

I drive a Toyota!

There'll be a recall along shortly.........

Already had 2, but nothing serious. The last one I had was for the rear window mechanisms, and when I picked it up they'd changed the oil in the car and valeted it! Couldn't fault the service. Still, I am the youngest person I've seen driving the same model lol. They are very reliable though.

[555-04Q2]

Mercedes are for old people, period.

I drive a Toyota!

At least they are reliable

[Gregor-y]

With no option for a manual transmission I wouldn't consider it. That's more important to me then what wheels are driving it, maybe even the price. That said sitting in a current WRX makes me feel like I'm sitting in a well.

[555-04Q2]

With no option for a manual transmission I wouldn't consider it. That's more important to me then what wheels are driving it, maybe even the price. That said sitting in a current WRX makes me feel like I'm sitting in a well.

WRX's are great cars. My bugeye REX was my second favourite car after my Golf 2 GTI. My Rex gave me almost 10 years and 140,000 km's of hassle free driving. Bulletproof is the best word to describe it, never gave me a days problem, simply amazing car!

[henners88]

You don't see so many Impreza's around these days over here. Prodrive are based in my home town so they had quite a local following and you'd see quite a few kicking around. Since Prodrive moved on to Aston, people can't quite afford to emulate them any more lol.

[555-04Q2]

Not only that, but they aren't the bargain they used to be Current generation Opel OPC's, Renault RS's, Golf R's etc are doing the same job for less! But, nothing compares to the boxer burble of a Rex

[Jag_Warrior]

A 2.0 liter turbo 4 (in a luxury/performance brand) doesn't impress me at all. The Hyundai Veloster has a 1.6 liter turbo 4 and it produces 201 hp. The 2.0 liter turbo in the Cadillac ATS has 270 hp on tap. My (aging) 2.0 liter WRX had around 230 hp when it was stock and was pushed to nearly 300 after mods and tuning. Maybe 208 is "adequate" for the Merc. But I find myself stuck on that low hp figure for a car of this type. IMO, they should have set 250 hp as the entry level target and still have the AMG variant at 355.

To piggyback on the discussion about WRXs, after the Great Recession lightened people's pockets (and they could no longer afford to support their kids' passions and desires), the import tuner scene seems to have severly fallen off in the U.S. That may just be my perception, but I certainly don't hear as much about NOPI events or the hot little cars that attended those events and races. Subaru actually set a sales record here in the U.S. - so they're doing quite well. But I'm not sure that the performance cars in the lineup (particularly the WRX and STI) are as popular as they used to be. Mine is an '04. And after '05, I thought they became ugly as sin, so I've held onto mine in hopes that at some point, they'll make one that doesn't make me want to vomit. But as far as performance/$ and reliability, these things really are amazing! I've had a lot of cars over the years and this thing is bulletproof. About all I've done in 10 years is change the oil (and pack on lots of performance goodies ). And because it's a wagon, people don't realize what it is until they try to blow by me or get silly... then those 300 ponies come on tap. Fun! So much fun in this car!!! It's like a go-kart that I can haul stuff in!

[Gregor-y]

I think most cars in the first tuning craze were less expensive new, and even cheaper used. The used cars were more reliable as well compared to, say a used WRX. Once the gold standard changed from an $15,500 Civic Si to a $24,000 WRX between 1999 and 2002 the price difference started weeding out the turner crowd in favor of older/wealthier/more in debt people. The WRX/STI and Mitsubishi ended up taking the performance market too high, just like the Supra, RX7 and 300ZX did in the early 90s.

Most of the early WRX owners I knew had jobs with salaries pumped up by the tech boom. And most of them made their engines go boom within three months. 2001-2003 was rife with manual boost controllers, untested ECU reprogramming, light weight crank pulleys from a friend's machine shop, and so on. To say nothing of the stripped gears these motors would cause before detonating. Personally I always thought a lot of that was from ham-fisted shifting; Subarus aren't nearly as smooth as even the old 85 Honda I owned many years ago.

I finally bought one in 2004, went with a proven ECU program and other than a CV boot tearing it's been trouble free for 138,000 miles.

[555-04Q2]

I had an bugeye 02 Rex and I had a factory approved Prodrive exhaust, intake system, turbo and engine management kit flown in from the UK and fitted to increase power from 276 BHP to over the 300 BHP mark. Went like the clappers, was dead reliable and if you drove it like a normal car was also surprisingly fuel efficient. It was not an expensive car to buy or maintain, which can't be said of the current generation.

The Rex's were cheap up until about 2008 when the current cars came out. Prices jumped and they were no longer the performance bargain they once were due to the substantial increase in power of the hot hatch brigade that are offering similar performance at 80% of the price. They have now moved to a more premium market as you mention that fits between the GTI and M3 markets. Another problem is Subaru have tried to go more mainstream with their cars and designs to appeal to a wider audience and that has also seen many of the old faithful customers, like myself, move to another manufacturer.

[veeten]

Actually, Jag, the 'bang-on' match to the Merc is none other than the VW CC. Just did a comparison, and it's a wash. Overall length, wheelbase, F/R width, engine, the whole nine yards. I wouldn't be surprised if that was where they got the chassis from for the CLA.