Why I bought a Mercedes-AMG A45S instead of the AMG C43

After owning 3 BMWs, everything about this car feels weird.

BHPian LilBimmer recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I went with Auto Hangar. There are zero discounts. The new system of paying Mercedes directly means that going forward there is very little wiggle room or scope for attaining the same. The handling of the purchase was awesome, from first contact to delivery. A stark contrast to the way Infinity handles sales of BMW. Karan Rajani and Inderjit Pardeshi at the AMG Performance Centre were such a pleasure to deal with. Straight forward and upfront with what they could do for me and what they absolutely couldn’t.

I drove them nuts for the first month with multiple test drives of multiple AMG cars. I drove all of them with the exception of the GLA. Then repeated test drives one after the other till the cars were eliminated, as documented at the beginning of the thread. Ultimately it was between the A45s and the C43, but the C43 being ex-demo, older, and driven plus 6-7 months less warranty, and the glorious rush of sound and acceleration of the A45s made it the winner. To finally reduce upfront cost, and be able to justify the purchase, I opted for a BH registration.

This was the last available A45s with Mercedes and was preconfigured by them with every option, which raised the sticker price by 20%. But getting immediate delivery versus waiting for a configured car to be delivered till September, beating the price hike, and (an unexpected bonus) also a hike in interest rate meant that the gap between the configuration that I’d have done, and the fully loaded one become significantly small enough to just go ahead with it. After 3 BMWs, everything about this car feels weird, I still grab the touchpad to change gears.

I have absolutely not even begun to play with the MBUx system or even get into it as yet. The owner's manual is a disaster and generic for all A-class cars. An AMG with so many specific bits (and at this price) should have a specific owner's manual.

The drive is supreme. Very very enjoyable. As is the howl of the exhaust. And that’s all that is important. Everything else is the cherry on the pudding.

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