Yeah, We Told You This Was Going to Happen - Audi's A3 Continues To Reel In Mercedes CLA In Sub $30K Luxury Race

Audi is making sure base models are available and has put money to the dealers to deal and the lease rates on the base and lightly optioned models is VERY attractive. Now is the time to lease. If you want one, now is the time.

Right, I'd like Germannut009 to release an article on the S Class outselling the A8 4 to 1

When a LUXURY manufacturer's bragging rights all pend on sub compact economy cars...its downhill from there

Car4Life, nice excuse on trying to make Mercedes seem like it is more of a luxury brand than Audi or BMW. The bottom line is all three compete against each other and Mercedes-Benz screwed up with the CLA and is now losing customers to Audi and its A3 Sedan.

Mercedes-Benz should have created a better entry-level vehicle with the CLA rather than rush to market some half-cooked econo-box. Relying on the S-class and E-class for global sales growth is a poor growth proposition.

Can we "sack" "reviews" post; he never seem to add anything to the present discussion; just some silly post. "Review" - Get back on your tricycle and pedal down to the playground please.

Please explain your vag Mercury comment. Then tell us the year and make of your car. No internet b.s. Tell us what year that rusted out Pacer is.

This is EXACTLY what I said so many times before. The Mercedes-Benz CLA was only selling well because there was no competition. Mercedes had the entry-level market to itself.

What happened when the A3 Sedan arrived at U.S. dealers? Sales of the Mercedes-Benz CLA fell because buyers realized the A3 Sedan was a better and more complete entry-level vehicle.

Reviews, you clearly don't understand the benefits of platform, parts and research & design sharing across the Volkswagen Auto Group on profitability. I suggest you takes Economics 101 to understand why sharing parts, platforms etc. across the Volkswagen Auto Group's brands is a HUGE benefit for Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche, Bentley etc.

Reviews....it is so obvious why you either are currently or did get your as&I kicked every day in high school.

CLA sales were down BEFORE the A3 came out. CLA sales figures don't appear to have been affected much by A3 sales either. The A3 is a more conventional entry-level luxury car so it makes sense to more buyers.

I did a quick check on a couple of local dealer inventories and found something very interesting. There are only 5 CLAs available at 2 Mercedes Benz dealerships in the DC area. On the other hand, there are a whopping 106 A3s available at two Audi dealerships in the same area. If this is representative of inventory levels across the country, I am surprised the CLA sells as much as it does and that the A3 is not selling in greater numbers.

How about looking at the merits of the two cars? The article mentions the fact that the A3 comes out on top in most comparison tests. One person who bought an A3 said she test drove the CLA but felt like she was in a Honda. As one of the comparison tests put it, the CLA feels like a cheap Mercedes while the A3 feels like a scaled down luxury Audi.

By all accounts the CLA is a fake Mercedes. The Mercedes Civic.

Who would want that? I'd just buy a used C-class.

Nearly every article or magazine I've read mentions the interior cabin noise is extremely LOUD, the ride is very rough and the interior cabin materials not up to the ALWAYS nice interiors that MB has been known for. (This may have been to keep cost lower??)

I'm totally with your comment randy3023 and I've been saying that for months. The CLA doesn't look to me like the type of car a young professional would want to be seen in. If you have the $35k to spend and you want to break into the luxury segment buy yourself a CPO C-class. The A3 looks far more like it's older brother the A4. I can see why they sell so much better. The CLA looks like a toy driving down the road.

And you'd be an idiot making stupid assumptions. If you actually SAW those who are driving the CLA, as I see tons of them in my town, you'd know they are young, up and coming professionals, as well as older, established folks who don't need backseats anymore.

And let me just add that the people I've seen driving the CLA are exactly who Mercedes targeted. Again, those young, college grads with no kids and no need for a backseat, and older individuals, i.e., empty nesters, also who do not need a full time backseat. And I see an average of 3-4 every day, and I don't get out much (I work from home). Only once did I see a family of 5 loading into a CLA and I, honestly, almost went up to them and told them that they should have gone with the A3 because there was clearly just no room for them in the rear. If Accord and Camry buyers are trading into the A3, then it can be assumed that they still needed rear seat room and they did, in fact, go with the right choice with the A3.

These cars are really nice but after a lot of test drives, I decided to go with a 2015 GTI. Its got just as much personality as these two and I'm really liking the less is more approach. Really great, fun car.

AGAIN, let's keep things in perspective. The A3 is a mainstream entry level offering. The CLA is a niche product by all intents and purposes. AND the CLA is/was facing production constraints. All this "no competition" is just nonsense since sales of the CLA were already dropping off well before the Passat..oops, I mean, A3..came to market.

Please explain your Passat-A3 reference. I am just dying to know the correlation.

Agent001-PLEASE-institute a cursory automotive industry knowledge assessment as a precursor to allowing visitors to the site to post comments. You will lose the real car guys because of I continual idiot posts by paste eating people.

Aw, Occarnut, you mad? Get over it.

Occarnut, it is strange that you are getting after people's comments on this topic by calling names and saying comments have no value because they demonstrate a lack of automotive industry knowledge. Yet, your own comments are not adding any value either. And nothing you've written demonstrates your own knowledge of the auto industry. At least GermanNut (with his utter lack of objectivity and holistic analysis) offers up something on the actual topic. Do you have anything useful or interesting to add to this topic?

Race to the bottom.

Agent009, how does 2,452 vs 1,658 represent almost a 2 to 1 ratio? A more accurate remark would be something like a 50% higher sales number than the CLAs.

I think part of the problem for Mercedes is that at the 3 local dealerships here, there is never more than one CLA in stock at a given point in time. For the 2 Audi dealerships, they have at least 20 A3s on the lot between the 2 of them.