Any advice on what to look out for especially on older style ones.

It looks like i’m heading out to test drive one so any tips would be greatly appreciated before tomorrow.

Iain

Yep. Don’t buy an auto. They have terrrible reliabity on the auto boxes. Strangley for Merc who generally know their stuff with autos.

Any advice on what to look out for

Yes. A different car. Horrible things, IMO.

2 years ago I had a lovely Saab estate. It blew up big style. I needed a car, went on ebay and bought an A190 for £1000 as a temporary measure. I still have it, 145k miles, never had a problem with it until the power steering went this week. Can be rattly, build quality not great, but I can never find a reason to bin it. Pretty roomy for a very little car. Good seat combinations etc.

You probably won’t read anything positive on-line about them but I can’t fault mine.

Having said all that, I’ll buy something else next time…..

Lots of info here – http://www.aclassinfo.co.uk/mypage.1.htm

I work with someone who has one. Can’t comment on reliability etc but can say they are terrible in the snow. We all help out to push it out of the car work even in the lightest covering.

yeah, awful in the snow as there’s no weight over the front wheels – OK with snow socks though

does anyone know if they are a chain or a belt for the timing side of things.

The most horrible car I have ever owned. My wife bought one and it was quite practical (but a bit unreliable, the electrics kept going wrong and I am someone that usually buys French or Italian!) As soon as I had to drive it regularly I sold it. Impossible to drive well, everything felt three steps behind me. Replaced it with a different car and now happy again.

Righty, I’ve owned 2. An A140 and an A160. The A140 was a 51plate Aventguard and lovely to drive, nippy, quiet, leather, yadda yadda, then after it’s first mot it went…. well not very far. Having covered only 30k by this time the front springs broke, then the rears, then the discs broke, then the steering colum broke, then the power steering broke, then the aircon broke then the rear springs went again , then the front springs went at 50k then the steering failed again, and yet it was a lovely car to drive and own, such a shame we sold it, got very attached to it. THen the 160 came and it was excellent, an 04plate and kept until 09 when I bought a BClass. The 160 was a far better car, the rattles were almost non existant, no failures on the springs nor discs etc, the only thing to go was the steering again, but hey..
They’re expensive to fix, even ex merc lads charge a lot cos’ everything is hard to get to, having said that they were no more expensive to run than any other car I had at the time, but I love the shape, masses of room, quiet, calm, nippy, neat and compact, I miss both, and I miss the BClass too but thats another story.

I’d say FSH a must, so too a careful owner, make sure the springs are still in one piece, the aircon works, the starter motor disenguages when it should (£500 bill for that alone) watch for flimsy plastics and switches that pretend they work.

Other than that would I own another, yes deffo, excellent car.

Don’t. They’re rubbish. I briefly had an A140 and it was an awful

I had a new 190, brilliant car, carried three adults and a motocross bike and never let me down. My neighbour has a two year old one and she loves it. If your going older fsh is important!!

Don’t buy one expecting proper Mercedes quality. Having said that I quite liked the design. Nice high driving position. With one rear seat removed I once transported three people and a fridge quite comfortably. Good on the open road but strangely as it was designed as a town car its stiff suspension meant a rough ride round town.

In the year we had our A160 it required a new ECU and rear springs. Fortunately this was covered by a one year Mercedes warranty. We moved it on after that. I missed it but the build quality and reliability just wasn’t up to Merc standards.

http://www.honestjohn.co.uk/carbycar/mercedes-benz/a-class-1998/?section=bad

Older ones? Get the long wheelbase one. It’s more practical than the stubby one. Full service history. And then all the regular used car stuff. You’ll see all the different revisions to the model on wikipedia I guess.

Nippy? Nippy?! I had one for a year and it was quite literally the most sluggish car I’ve ever driven. Up to 40 it was fine, but joining dual carriageways on slight inclines was a bloody nightmare. Overtakes needed half a click of open road to plan.

Also, you’ll have no way of transporting bikes – you can’t fit one inside (unless you remove the rear seats, which is a viable option as they’re designed to be removeable) and the exterior just will not take a bike rack as all the usual mounting points are plastic. Roof rack might work…

They look quite good (IMHO) and mine was comfortable for long drives but there’s no way I’d buy another.

Buy an A2 instead.

If you really want one, if you are able try and get a new(ish)shape car (Changed at the end of 2004) and if you do get the old shape. As above DO NOT buy an auto.

Not really a Mercedes IMO, and I deal in them !

the motoring press’ general consensus is that the early mk1 shape was pretty woeful, the latter mk2 shape isn’t too bad. If you’ve only got the budget for an early one, get something else instead. A low point for merc build quality

CHB – Member
Buy an A2 instead.

Seconded, although you won’t find one nearly as cheap as an equivalent age/mileage A class as they’re very sought after at the moment. especially the tdis.