Mercedes C-Class Estate - Reliability & safety (2014-2021)

Mercedes’ reputation for building sturdy cars is legendary and Mercedes C-Class Estate seems as well made as ever. It isn’t short of safety features, either, and if you count the options, there’s a wealth of sophisticated technology to keep both occupants and pedestrians safe.

Mercedes C-Class Estate reliability

Mercedes has an excellent reputation for quality and the C-Class came 27th out of the top 75 models in our 2018 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey of cars currently on sale in the UK. Of the owners who responded, 18.1% reported experiencing a problem with their car at least once. The C-Class didn't appear in our 2020 results.

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Safety

When Euro NCAP tested the Mercedes C-Class saloon, it achieved the maximum five-star rating. The car comes with seven airbags as standard, as well as traction control, driver drowsiness detection and a tyre-pressure monitoring system. All C-Class Estates have standard safety gadgets such as an Active Bonnet (which can detect a pedestrian impact and raise itself to soften the blow), Attention Assist (which can alert the driver if it detects they’re falling asleep) and an adaptive braking system.

The Driving Assistance option pack comes with a suite of hi-tech safety gear. It isn’t available on the entry-level SE model, but you can specify it on the Sport and AMG Line versions. It adds Distronic Plus (which can automatically apply the brakes or accelerator to keep you a safe distance from the car in front), lane-keeping assistance (which will warn you if you’re straying out of your lane), Pre-Safe (which prepares the car to deal with an accident if it detects an impending collision) and blind-spot assistance (which warns if there’s a vehicle sitting in your blind spot).