Mercedes-Benz CLA (2019-2025) review | Executive style in a compact package

What is the Mercedes-Benz CLA?

Choosing a new car often is often about deciding where your priorities lie. Is practicality the most important factor? Or fuel economy, perhaps? Time and time again, however, research tells car manufacturers that how a vehicle looks is very high on customers’ lists of priorities. Which is where cars like the CLA come in.

If you’re in the market for a small Mercedes-Benz saloon, one already exists: the A-Class, which is available as a hatchback or saloon. So, what does the CLA do differently? Well, it gets an immaculate haircut, then pulls on a sharp jacket and sunglasses. Mercedes has taken the mechanical underpinnings of the A-Class and dressed them in a sleek, coupe-inspired saloon body. It even calls the CLA a four-door coupe (coupes traditionally have two doors), much like its larger sibling, the CLS. Also like the CLS, there is a sleek estate version, called a shooting brake. As four-door coupe is to saloon, so shooting brake is to estate...

The Mercedes-Benz CLA has a more sweeping roofline than the A-Class saloon, and is ever so slightly longer. Its rear lights are different, and so are the bumpers. But overall, you’d be slightly hard pressed to tell the cars apart.

Launched in 2019, production of the second-generation Mercedes CLA seen here ran until 2025, with a mid-life refresh in 2023 to add more technology, revise the engine line-up and give the whole car a minor revamp. If you’re after a brand-new car, you will need to look at the third-generation Mercedes CLA, now available in fully electric guise for the first time.

How practical is it?

The CLA Shooting Brake is more practical, and the one to go for if you want a compact used estate car. Pre-facelift examples of the shooting brake generally offer 505 litres of boot space, or 1,370 litres with the 40:20:40-split rear seats down. Post-facelift models have a little less space: 485 litres with the seats up and 1,350 seats with them folded.

By comparison, the CLA saloon is less practical, providing 460 litres of storage space in the boot for pre-facelift cars, or 440 litres post-facelift. The boot opening is also narrower compared to the shooting brake, and there is a fraction less headroom for rear-seat passengers.

What about the differences between the CLA and the A-Class? There are a few, but not necessarily what you might expect. Logic suggests the lowered roofline of the CLA would compromise rear headroom, and you’d be right – taller rear-seat passengers in the four-door coupe will mess their hair up pretty quickly. Still, the boot in the CLA saloon is bigger than in the A-Class saloon, an unexpected bonus due to its extra body length – and the shooting brake’s boot is larger still. In fact, it swallows more luggage than a C-Class Estate, and offers extra headroom for passengers, too.

When it comes to hauling trailers and the like, with the usual caveat of ‘it varies by model year and engine choice’, the second-generation CLA can tow around 750kg unbraked and 1,600kg braked, while the sporty CLA AMG 35 can haul,800kg braked). Just be sure to check the used example you’re looking at has been fitted with a tow bar.

Mercedes also offered a range of accessories for the CLA. It wasn’t the most comprehensive in the world – family focussed brands like Kia or Skoda generally do better in this department – but there are still plenty of useful gadgets that made your used CLA even easier to live with. Roof bars, roof boxes, a boot load sill protector, child seats, a cool box, boot storage dividers, rubber floor mats and a rubber boot mat were all available direct from Mercedes.

There was even a Mercedes-branded Garmin smart watch at one point, which doesn’t exactly make the CLA more practical, but perhaps it’ll make you feel like the American astronauts of the 1960s? An Omega Speedmaster on the wrist and a gold Corvette Stingray parked in the garage – it’s basically the same thing, no?

What's it like to drive?

The Merecedes-Benz CLA drives rather well. This is the car’s second generation, and the first CLA wasn’t particularly impressive from behind the wheel. Thankfully, it’s a much more positive story this time around. Mercedes has tuned the new CLA to be a bit more dynamic and sporty than the A-Class, but retaining an element of comfort. It’s definitely not a sports saloon, but it does have a streak of zing to it, with poised handling and a reasonably pliant ride.

Both front-wheel-drive and all-wheel-drive versions were available when the CLA was new, with the latter dubbed ‘4Matic’. There are a couple of performance versions from Mercedes-AMG too, in the shape of the CLA 35 and CLA 45. They up the excitement factor, but cost considerably more. More on these in a moment.

The engines on offer changed slightly over the course of the second-gen CLA’s life, but it wasn’t the most complicated line-up Mercedes offered. Smallest of the lot were the CLA 180 and 200, both with the same 1.4-litre turbocharged petrol engine, and offering 134bhp and 161bhp respectively. The CLA 220 and 250 both share an engine too, this time a 2.0-litre turbo petrol with 187bhp and 222bhp respectively.

If you’re looking for a diesel then your choice isn’t really a choice, as there was only one: the CLA 220d with 221bhp from its 2.0-litre turbocharged engine. It has a useful 295lb ft of torque, which will give it a feeling of low-down grunt compared to some of the petrol versions.

If economy is front of mind, you may be interested to know that Mercedes offered a CLA plug-in hybrid for the first time: the CLA 250e. This offered a total of 215bhp from its 1.4-litre petrol engine and electric motor combined, but the pre-facelift and post-facelift models varied slightly in that Mercedes fitted a larger battery to later models. The earlier cars have a 10.6kWh battery that is good for around 44 miles of all electric driving, while later examples used a 15.6kWh battery that could bump the range up to 52 miles.

Turning to the sporty, all-wheel-drive cars from AMG, the CLA 35 has a 2.0-litre turbocharged engine with 302bhp, plus enough grunt to accelerate from 0-62mph in 4.9 seconds and reach 155mph. The CLA 45 S makes 415bhp from the same engine, allowing it to hit 62mph in 4.0 seconds exactly and nudge 168mph flat-out. The latter remains the more expensive of the two on the used market, and it’s worth pointing out that pre-facelift 35s had a seven-speed automatic while the 45 S had an eight-speed – but then post-facelift both were given the same eight-speed transmission. Whichever one you go for, however, it will feel devastatingly quick on any UK road.

All non-AMG petrol models were sold with a seven-speed automatic gearbox (there was never a manual version in the UK) and the diesel always had an eight-speed auto. But a catch-all for petrol doesn’t quite work, as the 250e hybrid used the eight-speed auto as well. Again, you need to pay attention to the model year and the spec sheet to make sure if you have a seven-speed or an eight-speed with your AMG CLA 35.

Technology, equipment & infotainment

Trim levels in the standard CLA range start higher than in the A-Class, reflecting the CLA’s more premium positioning in the Mercedes-Benz product line. So, your choices are three variations of the sporty AMG spoc: AMG Line, AMG Line Premium and AMG Line Premium Plus.

As a general rule, AMG Line gets you cruise control, a choice of driving modes, engine stop-start, keyless go, LED headlights and tail lights, dual zone air-conditioning, heated seats, a 180-degree reversing camera, lane-keep assist, Bluetooth, a DAB radio, ‘Hey Mercedes’ voice control, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, plus wireless phone charging.

AMG Line Premium added illuminated door sills, a choice of 64 interior ambient lighting colours, rear-seat armrests, keyless entry and a nicer 225W sound system. Above that, AMG Line Premium Plus added multibeam LED headlights, a panoramic sunroof, electric front seats with a memory function, a system called Traffic Sign Assist and a 360-degree parking camera.

Mercedes and plenty of other brands like to sprinkle in new trim levels from time to time, making buying a used car that little bit more difficult, but by some miracle that didn’t happen over the course of the second-gen CLA’s life. That being said, what was included in the above trim levels, and what additional packages were on offer as cost options, did vary slightly. Furthermore, a lower-level trim did emerge for post-facelift cars, called Sport Executive. This had air-conditioning but it was only single-zone, the floor mats were plain, there were more basic seat and steering wheel coverings, and the wireless phone charger was removed.

One big difference between pre- and post-facelift cars can be seen in their screens. The central infotainment screen measured 10.25 inches at all times, whereas the instrument screen ahead of the driver was 7.0 inches in AMG Line models and 10.25 inches in AMG Line Premium and AMG Line Premium Plus cars.

Eighteen-inch wheels were standard across the board, including on AMG models, though these featured specific AMG wheel designs. A cost option was for 19-inch rims on the AMG cars, so you know someone has spent a few extra pennies if you spot these on a used example.

Mercedes-Benz CLA running costs

When it comes to fuel economy and emissions, the CLA 220d should manage 51-57mpg (WLTP) according to official fuel economy ratings, depending on the model year and body style. That means it’s the only non-hybrid model with economy figures into the 50s.

As for petrol cars, the smaller engined 180 and 200 will achieve somewhere in the region of 44-46mpg, while the 2.0-litre 220 and 250 will deliver approximately 40mpg. The AMG cars will manage 32-36mpg at a push, but drive enthusiastically and it’ll be much lower than that.

The plug-in hybrid 250e is the economy champion, on paper at least. The best-case for the early, smaller battery car is a quoted 256mpg, while the later car with a larger battery is able to deliver around 310mpg. You’ll almost certainly never see this in the real world, unless all your journeys are short and you recharge every time, but you might see an easy 100mpg – or not use the petrol engine at all. Just ensure you charge when possible, otherwise you’ll be carrying around an empty, pointless battery and burning more fuel thanks to additional weight from the motor and battery.

Mercedes-Benz cars have flexible service intervals, depending on how they are used, but the car will flag up when a service is due. If you don’t cover many miles, you may not get a service reminder for up to two years. However, we’d advise getting your used CLA serviced every year, a principle that should be applied to every car. Servicing a CLA won’t be cheap, but Mercedes offers fixed-price deals which can still apply to used cars. Alternatively there are many brilliant independent Mercedes specialists who can take care of servicing and any repairs you need.

Mercedes-Benz CLA reliability

There’s no way of sugar-coating this: Mercedes does not have a good reputation for reliability. As a brand, it regularly sits towards the bottom of independent studies, and has done for some years. In the latest What Car? Reliability Survey, for example, Mercedes ranked joint 22nd alongside Audi out of 30 car brands. Arch-rival BMW was up in sixth place.

The latest CLA is too new to have any meaningful data about its reliability, but there’s some positive news that the A-Class, upon which this car is based, appears to be faring OK in customer surveys. The What Car? Reliability Survey ranked the A-Class 16th out of 30 cars in the family car class. We hope the CLA is, at worst, similarly middle-of-the-road as time goes on.

Should anything go wrong with your CLA, newer used cars may still be covered by their three-year, unlimited-mileage manufacturer warranty. This is the same as offered by Audi and BMW.