How the Endurance of the New Mercedes GLA-Class was Tested

Giancarlo Perlas February 18, 2014

The things that the new Mercedes GLA-Class had to endure during its endurance trial were definitely tough. For nine months, it was continuously pitted against harsh on-road and off-road conditions to see whether it is ready for series production.

For nine grueling months, the Mercedes GLA had to undergo a track and field test at the Nürburgring Nordschleif and the harsh road conditions in the Alps. Overall, it covered up to 150,000 kilometers which would already equal car’s average lifespan in the hands of buyers.

The test included extensive drives on city and country limits. It was also subjected to off-road grounds. To make matters worse for the car, it was equipped with different “load collectives” for the engineers to determine how much the car could bear.

In Nürburgring, the car had to take 240 laps or a 6,000-kilometer run. It should be noted that a one-kilometer sprint in its track is already equal to 20 kilometers in actual life of a vehicle. So, doing a simple math would give us around 120,000 kilometers in the real life of a car.

On the other hand, the test in the Alps were worse than Nürburgring as the car had to suffer 154-kilometer sprints on its unforgiving environment which consisted 9 passes and 450 turns. The Mercedes GLA had to conquer varying elevations up to 4,300 meters too. Overall, the vehicle had to put up against 20 laps or 3,080 kilometers in the area.

These tests were meant to check how the chassis and the 4MATIC feature of the Mercedes GLA-Class would hold up. These would see how the handling control systems of the car would fare as well.

If you think that the mentioned tests are already enough, the car still needed to prove itself in the tank ring road of Germany’s armed forces. It was required to drive up to 1,000 kilometers against uneven terrains which were used to test tanks.

When all have been said and done, the Mercedes GLA had to be disassembled so that engineers can assess how far its parts and components were able to endure the series of tests it underwent.