My A250 is a nice car let down by features that do not work as intended and cannot be resolved by the dealer.

The positives:

The A250 Premium Plus is a good well specified small hatch back that feels like a bigger car. This was important to me as my previous car was a top end Mondeo Titanium X Sport with all the toys. The 2 litre engine is lively, the gearbox on this model does not seem to suffer from the gremlins of those on the smaller engined cars and it drives well. It is comfortable and quiet on long trips, the boot is big enough for a full super market shop and rear passengers have a reasonable amount of leg room.

The dash is a real stunner and I'm sure that young people will appreciate the MBUX system which is similar in many ways to a smart phone interface and the voice control is the first I have found that works.

So it is a good car but ...................

The negatives:

Although the dash looks stunning it is not as intuitive as say a Kia Ceed that has plenty of knobs that control, things, many of the controls are hidden away within the MBUX in nested menus which means that they cannot be safely accessed whilst driving.

However, the big issue that I think lets the car down are headline features that, on my car at least, do not work correctly that my dealer cannot resolve, coupled with an apparent lack of support from Mercedes.

I originally reported 12 faults to my dealer and after 3, week long visits to their workshop, 7 faults remain.

These are as follows:

1. Speed Limit Assist not working correctly. This feature is designed to keep the driver informed of the prevailing speed limit at all times. The fault manifests itself in a number of different ways but one simple example is driving past a de-restriction sign will sometimes correctly show the 60mph limit symbol on the dash until the next speed limit sign or on other occasions show a de-restriction symbol for 10 seconds followed by no symbol. This is a common problem across this model but the dealer and Mercedes seem to have no answer for this and no way forward.

2. Active Lane Assist, designed to sense when the vehicle is unintentionally crossing a solid white line and applying the brakes on one side to keep the vehicle in lane, however, this frequently senses things other than white lines. These might be lines of shiny bitumen, rivulets of water or boxes around bus stops which means that when it senses these the brakes are incorrectly applied which can be dangerous. This is a problem many people are experiencing but Mercedes seem very reluctant to accept that is a fault or look into it.

3. Easy Entry/Exit, seat not working correctly. This feature is intended to position the drivers seat for Easy Entry/Exit then move it to the driving position when the ignition is switched on. Intermittent problem where when entering the car and switching the ignition on the seat briefly moves backwards and then returns to the Easy Entry/Exit position. The dealer has no way forward on this.

4. Top Ambient lighting LED dash strip is not as bright as other LED strips. The strip has been replaced twice and is now better than it was originally. The dealer agrees that this is not correct but has no solution.

5. When turning right off a main road, if a vehicle has just passed on the right the proximity alarm will constantly sound as you start to turn despite the passing vehicle having already gone past. This is very distracting and therefore dangerous. The dealer and Mercedes have no comment on this.

6. A plastic rather than metallic rattle from somewhere at the back of the car. Several attempts have been made to correct this without success.

7. New problem introduced by the latest software update where satnav Personal POI's no longer give Visual or Audible Warnings. The dealer has found no answer on this.

From many conversations with my dealer, who have done their best to help, it seems that unless there is a known fix or technical bulletin on the Mercedes technical website there is nothing they can do to resolve what are probably software or feature faults. Furthermore dealers do not seem to have an effective means of reporting this type of fault to Mercedes, instead they seem to reply on flagging them on a Trend notification to Mercedes which presumably means if a trend is identified Mercedes 'may' look into it.

This is all a great shame really as I like the car but as my dealer is unable to resolve these problems and Mercedes are unwilling to be involved I have little option but to reject the car which I have done, but still hoping Mercedes will take this seriously and find fixes to these faults