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Mercedes-Benz GLA 250 4Matic 2020 review


The rear gets a fixed seat as standard but, as with the latest B-Class and the new GLB, there’s an optional bench with 140mm of fore and aft adjustment and, crucially, 116mm more rear leg room than before. Longer door apertures with less intrusion from the rear wheels arches also ease entry to the second row, although rear head room has been reduced by 6mm, due to the new GLA’s more heavily sloping roofline.

Despite the decrease in overall length, Mercedes has managed to squeeze an extra 14 litres of load volume into the boot, which, with a capacity of 435 litres, now offers 30 litres more than the Q2 but still 35 litres less than the X2.

Out on the road, the GLA 250’s engine provides solid performance. It never feels quite as refined as the 2.0 TSI unit used by the Q2 nor as smooth in nature as the engine that powers the X2 xDrive20i. But with little obvious lag and a good deal of low-end torque, it endows the junior Mercedes crossover with purposeful off-the-line and midrange acceleration, as reflected in its claimed 0-62mph time of 6.7sec.

Scrolling through the various driving modes alters the acoustic qualities quite markedly. In Comfort, the exhaust note is nicely subdued and distanced from the cabin. Switch into Sport, though, and it becomes instantly more determined in nature, with a raspy timbre under load and the odd crackle on a trailing throttle serving to engage enthusiast drivers.

The action of the gearbox, which can be controlled via steering wheel-mounted shift paddles, is quite decisive on upshifts. However, it’s sometimes caught out as you step off the throttle in automatic mode, leading to the odd less-than-smooth downshift as you brake to a halt for traffic lights. With quite long gearing, it also helps endow the GLA 250 4Matic with a reasonable, if not outstanding, combined fuel economy figure of 40.9mpg.

It’s the chassis and the improvements that Mercedes’ engineers have brought to the ride and handling that really stand out, though. The basis for this is the updated MFA platform, which brings increased rigidity and stiffness, as well as a decision to provide all new GLA models with a suspension featuring a combination of MacPherson struts up front and multi-links at the rear, together with optional adaptive damping control.

Along with the 30mm increase in the wheelbase, the tracks have also been widened by 36mm at the front and 46mm at the rear, giving the new GLA a larger footprint than its predecessor and, in combination with increased volume to the wheel houses, the ability to offer a wider range of alloy wheel sizes, from the standard 17in up to 20in.



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