Mercedes C-Class coupe (2011-2015) - Reliability & safety

Like all Mercedes, the C-Class Coupe has a host of hi-tech safety equipment – much of which has filtered down from the Mercedes S-Class luxury saloon. A dip in Mercedes reliability in the late nineties and early 2000s now appears to have been rectified – something which is borne out by strong results for the brand in recent customer satisfaction surveys.

Mercedes C-Class Coupe reliability

Mercedes has a great reputation for build quality and reliability and the C-Class Coupe should prove to be very dependable. It's certainly impressed owners, coming 37th in our Driver Power 2013 satisfaction survey's Top 100 Cars league table, ahead of the Audi A5 Coupe and BMW 3 Series coupe (the predecessor to the BMW 4 Series). Mercedes as a brand was highly rated, too – it came fifth out of 32 companies in the manufacturer ranking – ahead of both Audi and BMW.

Mercedes C-Class Coupe safety

Mercdes engineers are clearly committed to keeping you safe, judging by their cars' array of safety systems. In the C-Class Coupe, this includes Attention Assist, which alerts you if it senses you're falling asleep at the wheel, plus an active bonnet that protects pedestrians in the event of a collision. The Adaptive Brake System primes the brakes so they're ready before you even need to use them (and an audible warning alerts you if the car believes a crash is imminent), while Speed Limit Assist displays what the legal limit is on a screen.

A full complement of airbags is also included, along with electronic stability control and ISOFIX child-seat mountings. All of this explains why the Coupe was awarded the maximum five stars in the Euro NCAP crash tests. If you do have a crash in your C-Class Coupe, as long as you have a mobile phone connected to the car, Mercedes' emergency call system will send your GPS co-ordinates to Mercedes' emergency call centre, which can alert the emergency services.