Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake Review 2024

The Mercedes-Benz range of small cars can be confusing. There’s the Mercedes-Benz A-Class hatchback and saloon, the Mercedes-Benz GLA SUV and the Mercedes-Benz CLA, which is a sleek four-door coupe. Then there is the car we’re focusing on here: the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake – basically an estate version of the Mercedes-Benz CLA Coupe. The two cars are identical up to the front doors, but from there the Shooting Brake’s roof sweeps further back, then plunges down towards the rear lights. The longer roof creates more boot space, while the top-hinged tailgate makes loading easier.

The Mercedes-Benz CLA Coupe is a handsome car, and we reckon the Shooting Brake looks even better. There’s just something very cool about this kind of estate car, which puts as much emphasis on style as practicality. It’s also a car that sits in a class of its own, as there are no estate versions of the Audi A3 Sportback or BMW 1 Series. 

There are three versions to choose from: AMG Line Executive, AMG Line Premium and AMG Line Premium Plus Night Edition. They all come very well equipped with climate control air-con, cruise control, leather and cloth upholstery and heated front seats. The Night Edition looks the sportiest.

The highlight inside is Mercedes’ brilliant MBUX infotainment system. This is packed with features, including sat-nav and Apple CarPlay/Android Auto smartphone connectivity. There are five different ways of controlling the system, some of which work better than others, but the ‘Hey Mercedes’ voice commands are particularly effective. The driver also has their own widescreen display.

The Mercedes-Benz CLA’s cabin is a lovely place to spend time. It looks great, the materials are suitably upmarket and the dashboard layout is easy to wrap your head around. The seats are tactile and comfy, too, and the whole interior feels as solid as you’d expect of a Mercedes-Benz. It‘s a bit dark in there, particularly in the back, but you can order a panoramic glass roof that really brightens the interior up.

There’s a decent amount of space inside the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake. Four average-sized adults will fit comfortably, along with their holiday luggage in the boot. However, the high-set back windows aren’t ideal for small kids and practicality is ultimately limited by the sloping roof and relatively small boot opening.

There are four different engine configurations available. The Mercedes-Benz CLA 180 and Mercedes-Benz CLA 200 both use a 1.3-litre turbocharged petrol engine that produces 136PS or 163PS respectively. The Mercedes-Benz CLA 220d has a 2.0-litre turbodiesel engine generating 190PS. The plug-in hybrid has the 1.3-litre petrol engine and an electric motor for a combined 218PS.

All the engines come with a dual-clutch automatic gearbox and drive the front wheels only.

There’s not a dud choice among the engines here. Performance is pretty good, and 99 percent of the time they’re smooth and quiet – only revealing a slight roughness when you really floor the throttle. Either petrol engine will suit most people perfectly well, while the diesel is great for regular motorway journeys.

The plug-in hybrid’s low CO2 emissions mainly appeal to company car drivers, although its 39-mile electric range could work for you if you mostly drive in town. There’s the potential for 200mpg-plus fuel economy as well. The petrol and diesel engines are also very efficient and can reportedly exceed the official figures quite easily.

On the road, the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake feels quite sporty and you quickly build confidence to drive it briskly. If you’re inclined to drive at a more relaxed pace, you will enjoy the light steering and smooth, quiet ride. It’s not the easiest car to park, but it’s a fine motorway cruiser.

At the time of writing, Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake prices start at around £36,000 and go up to just under £46,000. That kind of money buys some considerably bigger estate cars, but they’re nothing like as stylish as the Mercedes-Benz.

The Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake is an excellent car in many ways. It looks great inside and out, has genuinely useful and user-friendly tech, is good to drive, comfortable to travel in and fuel-efficient. However, its family car credentials don’t quite add up and it does cost quite a lot. Still, it could be just the ticket for a couple who want a stylish premium car with a useful dose of practicality.

The Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake feels rather sporty from behind the steering wheel. The car sits close to the ground, the driver’s seat is mounted low down and it’s relatively wide. Add in responsive, accurate steering and a near-absence of body-roll, and the Shooting Brake gives you plenty of confidence in its ability to get around corners at higher speeds.

It’s not the most fun car to drive, but there’s satisfaction to be had in how easy it is to drive on twisting country roads at any (sensible) speed.

In town, the Shooting Brake’s controls feel nice and light, but the low driving position can obscure your view of its extremities. Equally, there’s not much of a view out of the back window, but there are sensors and cameras to help out when manoeuvring.

The Shooting Brake is a highly competent motorway cruiser, feeling resolutely safe and stable. The ride is generally very smooth on all but the most ruined of roads, and the interior is quiet. However, the bottom edge of the front bumper is prone to catching on large speed humps and kerbs.

Many years ago, the number in a Mercedes’ name indicated the size of its engine. These days, the number indicates how much power an engine has, relative to the others that are available in that particular car.

In the case of the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake, your options are the petrol Mercedes-Benz CLA 180 and Mercedes-Benz CLA 200, the plug-in hybrid Mercedes-Benz CLA 250e and the diesel Mercedes-Benz CLA 220d.

The petrol and plug-in hybrid cars all use the same 1.3-litre four-cylinder turbocharged engine. In the 180, it generates 136PS, while the 200 has 163PS. The engine and electric motor in the 250e together produce 218PS. The 220d has a 2.0-litre four-cylinder turbocharged diesel engine that produces 190PS.

All the engines come with a dual-clutch automatic gearbox and drive the car’s front wheels.

The petrol engines provide perfectly adequate performance, although they need to be worked quite hard to make rapid progress. The plug-in hybrid and diesel feel a lot punchier and post quicker 0-62mph acceleration times.

The petrol engines start to feel a bit rough under hard acceleration and the diesel sounds rattly when idling. Once you’re on the move, though, all of them are quiet and smooth.

Which engine is best depends on your needs. The plug-in hybrid’s low CO2 emissions and 39-mile electric range make it the best option for company car drivers. Unfashionable though it is, diesel remains the best fuel if you do a high annual mileage. For everyone else, the petrol engines blend performance and efficiency perfectly well.

Safety experts Euro NCAP awarded a full five-star rating to the Mercedes-Benz CLA Coupe and that also applies to the Shooting Brake. The Mercedes-Benz CLA picked up a notably strong set of marks, scoring more than 90 percent for protecting adult and child occupants in a crash, and for protecting vulnerable road users such as cyclists.

Euro NCAP’s rating of 75 percent for the car’s safety features looks a little disappointing in comparison, but there are still plenty of them. These include cruise control with a speed limiter, automatic emergency braking, lane-keeping assist, driver attention monitor and many airbags.  

The towing capacity of the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake is as we’d expect of a compact car like this. The entry-level Mercedes-Benz CLA 180 can tow up to 1400kg. The Mercedes-Benz CLA 200, Mercedes-Benz CLA 250e and Mercedes-Benz CLA 220d can all tow 1600kg: enough for a fairly large two-berth caravan.

There’s a surprisingly large amount of space packed into the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake’s sleek body. In the front seats, there’s pretty generous headroom, legroom and shoulder width – certainly enough for someone over six feet tall to get comfy.

There is sufficient space for average-sized adults in the back of the Shooting Brake, and headroom is pretty generous compared to the Mercedes-Benz CLA Coupe because of its longer roof. It’s certainly spacious enough for kids in the back, but little ones may not be able to see out of the high-set windows.

The boot is quite large, having a capacity of 505 litres up to the window line (454 litres in the hybrid 250e). That’s plenty for holiday luggage. Folding the back seats down opens up 1370 litres of space if the car is loaded up to the roof (1310 litres in the 250e). The boot is square and flat, but the sloping back window and relatively small opening do limit the size of objects you can load in.

There’s a real pizazz to the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake’s interior. It’s dominated by a two-foot-long sweep of display screens across the top of the dashboard. The circular air vents look like big pieces of jewellery and an interesting mix of tactile materials is used.

The seats are lovely, too, upholstered in soft Artico synthetic leather and Microcut microfibre. There are some cheap-feeling plastics dotted about the place, although not in places you’ll particularly notice. Everything feels very solidly built.

It’s a slight disappointment that the Shooting Brake’s interior is pretty much exactly the same as that of the cheaper Mercedes-Benz A-Class hatchback. Nonetheless, it’s still a lovely place to spend a journey.

Mercedes’ MBUX infotainment setup features in the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake. It’s arguably the best system out there at the moment. Here, it lives in a 10.25-inch screen on top of the dashboard. The graphics look super-sharp and bright, the menus are easy to navigate, and the touchscreen responds promptly.

There are more ways of controlling the system. A touchpad on the centre console works well if you’re left-handed, but the thumb pads on the steering don’t really work at all. Certain gestures can also activate particular functions surprisingly effectively, while ‘Hey Mercedes’ voice commands can call up features and info. You can even ask it to find a restaurant or read out the news headlines.

Among the many features included in the system are sat-nav, DAB radio and Bluetooth. You can also connect your phone via Apple CarPlay or Android Auto to use whichever navigation and streaming apps you prefer. Many of the car’s other features and functions are controlled via the MBUX, the only buttons on the dashboard are for the climate control.

The driver has their own 10.25-inch display screen. It shows the usual driving data and vehicle info, plus a whole lot more. You can choose from several design themes and configure it to show the information you’re most interested in.

At the time of writing, Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake prices range from £36,245 up to £45,665. That’s not exactly cheap – indeed it’s more than you’ll pay for some bigger premium-brand estate cars like the Audi A6 Avant. Judged purely rationally, the Shooting Brake is questionable value for money, but what price can you put on style?

According to the official figures, both petrol-powered versions of the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake can return average fuel economy of 45.6mpg. We’ve seen reports of over 50mpg being achievable, though.

The diesel can average 55.4mpg on paper, and if the petrol engines are anything to go by it could be even more efficient in the real world.  

The plug-in hybrid posts the highest economy figure, at 256.8mpg. But obviously the car’s ability to get anywhere near that number is dependent on you being able to regularly maximise use of the 39 miles of electric range.

Mercedes-Benz doesn’t publish CO2 emissions figures for the Shooting Brake, but it’s certain the petrol and diesel models are in the £180-per-year vehicle excise duty (VED, or road tax) bracket. If you spend more than £40,000 on a Shooting Brake it becomes liable for an extra annual charge of £390 from its second through sixth years of life. Low benefit-in-kind tax rates make the plug-in hybrid the best option for company car drivers.

The rates Mercedes service centres charge for routine maintenance can be quite high, but it’s worth using them to avoid invalidating the warranty. As standard, the Shooting Brake is covered by a three-year warranty, Mercedes also offers several extra-cost extended warranty plans.

There are three versions of the Mercedes-Benz CLA Shooting Brake currently available: AMG Line Executive, AMG Line Premium, AMG Line Premium Plus Night Edition.

Those are complicated names, but it’s actually quite easy to interpret them. AMG Line denotes a sporty-looking model with bigger wheels and a bodykit consisting of deeper bumpers and side skirts, plus a rear spoiler. The other terms refer to the package of features that particular model comes with.

In the AMG Line Executive, those include Mercedes’ brilliant MBUX infotainment system with a 10.25-inch touchscreen display, sat-nav, Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity, DAB radio and Bluetooth. You can also access features and info using simple ‘Hey Mercedes’ voice commands. The driver has their own 10.25-inch digital display that can be configured to show whatever info is needed.

Elsewhere, you’ll find two-zone climate control, leather and cloth upholstery, heated front seats, keyless go, cruise control, lane-keeping assist and a driver attention monitor.

The Premium package adds keyless entry and a back-seat centre armrest with two cupholders. Premium Plus Night Edition gains 19-inch alloy wheels, adaptive LED headlights, an opening panoramic glass sunroof, electrically adjustable front seats, an electric steering column and a driving position memory function.