(First Posted January 10, 2016 – This originally appeared out of order since we still had it during the original run of this series, now it is in the correct chronological purchase order) And…I’m back with more of what our dear late contributor Kevin Martin named my “extended test drives”! It’s been almost two years (four and half now) (February 6, 2014) since we traded in our 2012 VW Touareg TDI (presciently dodged that resale bullet in 2014 which with further hindsight would have turned into a TDI ka-ching payout had we kept it) on a Certified Pre-Owned Mercedes built by the fine workers at the factory in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, U.S.A.
While we liked the VW and at the time still had the Honda Odyssey, we knew that the Honda’s days with us were numbered and while we had thought our three kids could peacefully co-exist on the rear bench of the VW that was sadly proven wrong. So we decided to do like many others and look at the world of 3-row SUV’s with all of the benefits (and some definite drawbacks) that they entailed.
Potential candidates included the then fairly new Pathfinder (great access to the third row, good pricing, many scary reports regarding the transmission durability after only one year on the market); Toyota Sequoia (way too big for my wife to comfortably drive, very pricey); used Suburban (again too big and fit and finish was a big step down once used to a Touareg); Audi Q7 (never been a fan of the styling, getting old, pretty much a longer Touareg for even more money) as well as several others but those mentioned were the ones most considered.
Then our eyes turned to the GL. Basically a lengthened ML platform with bigger engines, these had always appealed but not at the prices they commanded new. However with Mercedes’ (and other luxury makers) strategy of “lease it the first time, then sell it for 50-60% of the original price after three or so years with a warranty” these were coming down into the realm of possibility.
In addition our community had just received our own Mercedes dealership within ten miles of our house, previously the nearest dealer was almost an hour south which put a definite damper on Mercedes ownership in our area.
The GL (platform code X164) was initially offered for 2007 and received some minor upgrades/changes for 2010. Three engines were offered, a 6-cylinder diesel (GL350CDI), a 4.6 liter V8 (GL450) and a 5.5 liter V8 (GL550). As I mentioned it is based on the ML chassis, but stretched to accommodate the third row and with completely different bodywork.
When jumping from an ML into a GL and back again, the interior cabin appears to be the exact same width with the same basic dashboard (albeit with an attractive stitching pattern that the ML does not get). The GL450’s V8 puts out 335hp and 339 lb-ft of torque and uses Mercedes’ ubiquitous 7-speed automatic transmission. Full-time AWD is standard across the range. This, we thought, could work.
So, off to the new local dealership we went and were met with what can only be called a poor sales experience for a brand-new dealer that had a giant lot full of inventory, room for a dozen new cars inside, a bunch of well dressed staff, and our Touareg as the ONLY car in the parking lot for shoppers in the middle of a weekday.
We drove a good example of a 2011 GL450 that fit what we wanted, sat down to talk numbers and were offered a deal that corresponded to exactly the price marked on the window with a low-ball trade-in offer on the VW. I suggested that together we make some adjustments to the figures which was met with an incredulous look and the statement that they could not possibly do so. I politely confirmed that they were serious and then we left.
After that we drove down to the other dealer that it turned out owns the new local dealer, found several GL’s on their lot, selected one, drove it, and were pleased to find that the management at this dealership was willing to haggle significantly. They also gave me what I was hoping for on the trade-in as well as two free services to be used at the dealer of my choice.
The two free services were due to the salesperson that originally thought that SUV’s were part of the special promotion that MBUSA was running at the time which turned out to be wrong (it was only for sedans) but they offered to honor it anyway, and plied me with plenty of free coffee and food as I waited for the papers to be drawn up.
Mind you, it was still far from a perfect experience. Many dealers in Colorado seem to think that they can just take a car in trade, run it through their quickie car wash and put it on their front line and people will just buy it. This includes high-end dealerships that decide to not correct obvious flaws until they are pointed out to them.
In our case, before I actually accepted delivery, the car received a new windshield (was scratched from a bad wiper), new wiper blades all around, a new battery as well as a new auxiliary battery as they screwed up the job the first time, a cracked piece of wood console trim, as well as the power port cover in the rear seating area that was cracked. And then they wonder why cars sometimes sit for months without selling.
All of the repairs were put back on Mercedes as “warranty” so it’s not like the dealer was out any money. On the plus side they were able to print me the entire service and warranty history of the car which all looked good and they had fitted new tires. As an additional bonus I was informed that since they owned my local store I was welcome to go there any time I wished and avail myself of their free concierge car wash services.
So for the last few years we have been going there, greeting the salesperson that was not willing to sell us a car and have them clean it while we drink free coffee, eat complimentary muffins, and use the free WiFi in the frankly very comfortable lounge. Life is good.
Sure, one would say, they make it all up when the car breaks down. Presumably yes, that’s the idea, however when we purchased it it still had almost a year of the initial warranty left and at the time Mercedes was offering for their CPO vehicles an additional year of warranty up to a total of 100,000 vehicle miles. That all expired based on time just before Christmas so at this point we are “running naked”.
Our original thought was that we would use the warranty period to see how the car held up, if it didn’t it would not be staying. Well, we’ve driven it right around 25,000 miles so far (the total is about to hit 60k) and the only things that we really had occasion to use the warranty for were a rear door lock that went haywire and would try to lock and unlock about a dozen times in rapid succession whenever the unlock switch was hit as well as the driver’s door mounted release for the rear power hatch stopped working. Both issues were handled without a problem, in fact the local dealer in both cases delivered a replacement ride and took ours and then came back out again to switch back.
The first time we got a GLK which I kind of sniffed about a bit to the service manager but in the end was happy with (it’s a fun little SUV, way better than I imagined!) but then the second time they sent us a brand new GL450 which was extremely nice (too nice, I was worried about damaging it). The first time we ended up keeping the GLK for a whole week as the service personnel actually lost the key to our car and had to order a new one.
The repair invoice seems to indicate the replacement key was handled as a warranty claim which I found a bit ballsy on their part. The local dealer also handled the two free services which are scheduled 10,000 miles apart. Reliability surveys tend to show that the GL is far from a good choice but there are a surprising number of owners that do their own service and repairs that post on the internet and many of the things that supposedly go wrong are not that complex to fix if one knows where to look.
At the end of the day, Mercedes’ tend to be built solid and the mechanical parts at least are not usually all that bleeding edge in my experience, i.e. usually fixable by someone with tools, common sense and instructions. Not that there aren’t also some idiotic things such as the air filter that requires at least half an hour and several tools with non-standard attachments to access the first time…
I myself replaced the front brakes (pads and rotors) when they got within the wear limits and the warning message illuminated. That was quite straightforward but needed the loan of my neighbor’s impact wrench as the hardware is large and was very tight.
The Germans usually do brakes well, the calipers are huge, the discs are massive and the pads put out tons of dust… We’ve never experienced any fade or shudder while driving through the mountains as opposed to the Honda minivan which was good for maybe one medium length downhill pass, and then the brakes would let you know they were not happy.
The OEM parts (rotors, pads, sensors, paste) cost me under $275, the local independent wanted around $600 with non-OEM parts and the dealer wanted almost $1000 using Mercedes parts, obviously. I work for free.
The one thing that has been a constant has been failing light bulbs. At this point the dealer did one headlight bulb under warranty during the first service, I did the other one myself two days after we got it back, then one rear license plate bulb, and recently both front parking lights within days of each other.
The front end contains a total of ten(!) different bulbs, and when one fails there is a large display whenever you turn the car on so it is a constant annoying reminder until corrected. The CPO warranty does NOT cover light bulbs, btw.
The replacement windshield cracked last year as well due to a rock but I was able to source a replacement including installation for less than $375 which I found acceptable, it includes a one-year warranty on the glass so if it cracks again within the year we are only on the hook for a $75 installation fee.
So what does ours have on it? Standard items include the three rows of seats with the rearmost ones folding electrically via a button, sunroof, extra sunroof over the third row, dual zone climate control, MB-Tex upholstery that I love, burl walnut wood trim, heated front seats, and electric pretty much everything.
Options include metallic paint (Palladium Metallic), a heated steering wheel (one of the best things ever invented, ranks just ahead of sliced bread and just behind pre-peeled hard boiled eggs), class IV trailer hitch with 7500lb towing capacity, rear seat entertainment (2 screens, DVD player, remote, headphones), parking sensors front and rear, backup camera, memory package (seats, steering wheel, mirrors), navigation system, power liftgate, running boards and 20″ alloy wheels instead of the stock 19’s.
As an aside a full list of specifications, measurements, and other data for the GL450 can be found at this Mercedes link.
Of those options we could for sure do without the rear entertainment system, all the kids have their own tablets and have never tried it. The running boards are nice for the kids but difficult to step over for me when it’s dirty outside and a bit slippery for large adult feet. The 20″ alloys look nice, but are unbelievably heavy as I first noted when I did the brakes and can’t help the ride.
The suspension is an air system and while the compressor and the units can fail they are not difficult or overly expensive to replace and can be sourced via the aftermarket, it is much less complex than the system Mercedes used on the E-Class for example. The repair history shows that one of the front ones was replaced by the previous owner before we got it. This winter I found a used set of 18″ alloys off a 2008 GL450 and added a set of Blizzaks for the winter (as seen in all pictures except 1, 3, and 4 which have the summer wheels/tires).
The ride is definitely better but the wheel and tire combination is not much lighter. I also got a set of OEM TPMS’s via ebay which literally was plug and play so I don’t have a warning message illuminated all winter long. The tire shop put everything together earlier this year and then when winter came I swapped the wheels and the sensors reset themselves to the car without any intervention. The difference in winter traction is astounding relative to the Bridgestone Dueler All Seasons that we use for the rest of the year. This thing is now simply a tank in the snow.
We’ve driven it all over; several times to California, and then at the end of this summer we took it on an impromptu road trip to Nashville. Lately I’ve had occasion to go to Wyoming a lot both for business as well as pleasure and was there just last weekend during a low of -24 degrees Fahrenheit. The high that we’ve seen with it is around 115 degrees Fahrenheit passing through Arizona.
No matter what it just always starts and keeps chugging along. On a long freeway drive such as the trip to Nashville it is very serene to drive, plenty of power, quiet, comfortable for the whole family and imbued with an absolute sense of solidity that I’ve rarely experienced previously.
The new ones will be renamed GLS next year (ML is now GLE, GLK is now GLC), in order to convey that Mercedes considers it their S-class of SUV’s which is certainly apt in my opinion. In town it seems a bit ponderous when pulling away from a light, much in the traditional old-school Mercedes way but when you step on it, this big girl really lifts her skirts and starts to move.
Gas mileage is a bit of a mixed bag, our average since we’ve owned it is just over 15mpg, around town I usually get 14-15, on the highway 17-20. My wife gets about 2mpg less consistently, probably since I tend to make a game out of the mileage. To add to that pain it requires premium unleaded but at least the prices are low and predicted to stay that way for a while. (Update: Over the total ownership period with me as the main driver for probably 75% of the total mileage, I upped the average to over 17mpg, not great but I suppose on par for such a large, heavy vehicle)
How’s the third row? Actually not bad. I can fit back there but realistically it’s better for kids and smaller adults. But better than a lot of others, the fairly vertical sides help a lot. The actual mechanism to get back there, well, it could be better and that is being charitable with my choice of words. First of all, the driver side second row 60% only folds the seatback down, so no luck on that side.
The passenger side 40% split entry entails (from outside the car) pulling a lever to fold the seatback. Then pull the lever again to flip the whole folded seat forward but only if you remembered to push the headrest down first. Then, once it is pushed to about vertical and almost touching the front seat, an electric motor takes over and pulls it snug against the front seat while actually moving the front seat up and forward.
Then you can climb in and manually lock the seat back down and raise the headrest back up for the second row as otherwise it digs into that occupant’s back but the front passenger seat stays all the way up and forward unless the occupant moves it back manually via the electric buttons at the side of the front seat. To get back out from inside the third row you have to pull a strap at foot level twice to fold the second row seat.
I made SURE that the kids could do it before buying the car and they could. The still can, but they don’t love doing it. The Suburban for example was much better in this regard with an optional electronic button to do it all automatically. The Pathfinder’s manual way is also much easier. The new generation of GL is better as well but not hugely so. Maybe next time they’ll get it right. In reality my two littler ones just jump over the seat backs. So much for “the best or nothing”.
This was originally mainly my wife’s car for day to day work, I used the other cars and drove this on family outings and trips. When we got get another vehicleI was supposed to get that one but then as we were driving it home my wife decided she really liked it and handed this down to me. I could think of worse hand-me-downs and so far am not regretting letting her take the new one at all. But that’s a story for another week.
UPDATE 7/15/2018: Alright, here we are two and a half years after I wrote the above. In a development that will shock absolutely nobody, we do not have this vehicle anymore. However, it was with us until late this February so it made it over four years, putting it comfortably in the top-five longest-termers in our fleet.
First tank of gas on journey to Detroit CC Meetup last year. Not a terrible average.
So what happened in the meantime? Well, the mileage went all the way up to about 93,000. We used it as a daily driver in all weather conditions. It made the trip to California several more times and up to Wyoming more times than I can count.
I also used it to pick up Mr. Shafer in Missouri and Mr. Cavanaugh in Indiana on the way to the 2017 Detroit CC Meetup last year where we also shuttled Paul from and back to the airport. As long-distance high-speed transportation on the interstate, it performed extremely well, no surprise for a German-badged vehicle.
Mechanically, as soon as the free services were done with, I took over the servicing myself. The biggest service was around 65k miles which included changing the eight sparkplugs which was no big deal, the air filters again which was a pain like the first time and some small items to check.
Other than that I did the rear brake pads when they got low around 70k miles (rotors were still fine) and then oil changes every 10k miles with Mobil 1 Synthetic, handily the same exact oil I use on the Porsche.
Last summer I was caught in a massive hailstorm while on I-80 In Wyoming. Visibility dropped to near zero, everyone pulled over and the hail was banging on the car like I’d never experienced before. Ten minutes later it was all over. Surveying the car revealed damage on almost every body panel as well as some broken plastic (the grille and hood vents as well as a few other trim pieces.) but thankfully no broken glass.
The insurance covered the bill which was almost $6,000 and involved almost two weeks in the body shop after a two-month wait due to the backlog with a LOT of paintless dent repair (well over 100 dimples), a new Mercedes hood as well as a repainted roof. When it came back to us it looked better than it ever did though with no more rock chips, no door dings, no faded plastic, and an excellent match on the paint; our body shop did a magnificent job.
Also last summer we sold our house. A few weeks before the sale was finalized, it was time to change the oil again. As usual I did it in the garage (above) which had a fully epoxied floor and was generally very clean. I crawled under the car, removed the belly pan and got my oil tub ready – this is sort of a wide pan with a solid top and a small hole in the middle with a threaded plug that you unscrew and leave in place due to its built in barb where the oil kind of drains on top and then funnels into the middle and goes into the pan (pictured below.)
Well, I placed the pan correctly, then loosened the oil plug, it came out and I caught it while the oil started gushing out and I watched it start to accumulate in the top part of the pan. But IT DID NOT GO DOWN THE HOLE! Somehow this time the oil was flowing out of the engine MUCH faster than it was draining down into the pan. I watched in absolute frozen horror as the level rose and then started to overflow onto the garage floor.
The engine holds almost ten quarts, of which about eight ended up on the floor. You have NO idea how fast eight quarts of hot oil spread on a flat surface. I had sprinted to the kitchen for the paper towels and started to build dams around the car and then started to mop everything up. I couldn’t move the car out of the way since there was no oil in it and I couldn’t get under it to put the drain plug back with an oil slick so I spent the next half hour or so mopping up oil while trying to reach as far underneath as possible. Eventually I cleared enough up until I could get the plug back in the oilpan and fill it with oil and start it up in order to back it out of the way while avoiding getting any on the tires.
After that it was a matter of several more rolls of paper towels and a lot of Simple Green degreaser to get the oil off the floor and the floor looking good again and not being slick. I think what happened is that the drain hole plug got dislodged and dropped back into the hole, thus blocking it, which had never happened previously with this pan. I didn’t realize what happened until it was too late to reach back over and try to dislodge it. Oy, what a mess that was. My Dad had had a similar incident when we was still alive wherein he refilled the oil in his car but neglected to replace the oil pan plug after draining it prior to doing to refilling it. That occurrence is still referred to in family history as “Dad’s Valdez Incident”. Now I have my own…
Other than that, the air suspension was the only other item to act up. One side of the front had been replaced before we got it, but eventually the other side started to sag overnight. There is a company named Arnott Industries that has built a business making and selling replacement assemblies for air suspensions that are far better quality than the factory bits with a lifetime warranty at much more reasonable prices. I ordered a new front strut assembly and had my mechanic install it. Good as new.
Eventually the back started to sag as well, but both sides in unison and not every night. It was very arbitrary as to when or how fast it would leak down. I let it go for a couple of weeks but then one day as I was driving out of my subdivision heard a huge bang and all of a sudden felt very lopsided. It turned out that the right rear bag had exploded and was in shreds.
Thankfully I was very close to home, turned around and pulled into the garage and took the rear wheels off to see what happened. The rear bags are much easier to replace than the front ones and so I ordered two from Arnott and replaced them myself, they just sit in between the suspension arms and the body, you can compress them by hand to get them to fit and that’s pretty much it, nothing really holds them in besides inflation pressure. I can’t imagine what would have happened had this occurred at speed on a highway. Kids, when these things start to fail, don’t wait, replace them immediately!
Again, Arnott sells an excellent product and is a good way to keep ownership costs down on something like this. However, it’s an annoyance that they need to be replaced in the first place at a relatively young age and I’m not convinced they are any better than a regular steel suspension besides the obvious fact that the suspension can be raised and lowered both by operator choice as well as by the vehicle itself based on speed and road conditions.
In the end, after purchasing another vehicle, we realized this one had more or less outlived its welcome with us. While still very capable at its job, I didn’t feel I was getting much benefit by paying for Super Unleaded as required by it and the mileage wasn’t great. I had reset one of the trip computers when we bought it and took the below picture on its last day with us. Over our ownership period we had added 56,465 miles at an average speed of 28mph and a trip computer average of 16.2mpg (likely a bit optimistic).
Compared to the other car in the garage this one started to feel a bit ponderous around town. We also felt we had generally been on the winning side of the maintenance and repair equation thus far. So, time for it to go which again was easier said than done. Turns out there isn’t a huge market for a German luxury SUV with almost 100k miles on it in Northern Colorado, at least not for what I was asking. After several months with a few tire-kickers I decided to shop it around to some dealers.
In the end, CarMax actually gave us an offer fairly close if a little lower than what we were asking in our ads which we decided to take. I wasn’t sure if I did alright but a month later actually ran across it on Craigslist for sale at a small dealer in Denver for only $1500 more than what we had sold it to CarMax for. At that point I realized I had likely gotten all the money there was to be gotten for it.
While it was a vehicle that we had always admired and were very excited and happy to own and enjoy, I think I’ve finally (finally!) reached the point where to me a vehicle is a vehicle and I am much less concerned with the badge on the hood and much more interested in total cost of ownership both in money and time as well as ongoing expense charts, value for money, etc.
Another part of the change was selling our relatively large house and then at that time deciding to relocate into a smaller one in an older neighborhood that we had bought earlier last year with the intent to renovate and sell again. But now we live in it (and I’m still slowly working on it). Having made the choice to slow down a bit and enjoy ourselves more while having lower expenses and no more “Joneses” to keep up with has been a great experience so far. And there are way more CC’s on our new street as well!
These are splendid family vehicles. I’ve been running a couple of ML’s for years now, and they truly serve all purposes with grace and ease. A used GL turbo diesel is very tempting to me, but I’ll wait. Depreciation is a car guy’s best friend!
These are very good looking, impressive rigs. Like all SUVs so convenient and versatile if not economical. No wonder that no one buys sedans anymore! Very nice!
It’s good to see your Mercedes in a setting other than a tight parking lot at a micro-brewery in Columbia, MO!
When we bought our house in September, I was talking to our agent’s husband. They both have Mercedes SUV’s, with his being the GL550. He said it was great for raising the walls of an addition he put on their house, as he could hook up to the receiver hitch and climb a hill in their yard while pulling up the wall. The downside was its acceleration as she was driving and did not realize she could so easily and quickly hit 70 mph in their subdivision.
It sounds like you have a very good one. Is she a keeper or a more extended test-drive? 🙂
Yes, I’m still sorry we didn’t have more time that day! The 550 is even more impressive both for its power as well as its thirst, must be a nice ride for doing his home improvement projects. And around 2012 or 2013 the whole 550 line changed to a twin turbo set-up for even more power.
So far we are quite pleased with it. It’s kind of a “tweener” size, not as large and wide as a Land Cruiser or Suburban but bigger and more capable than the regular sized ones (Grand Cherokee etc). Hopefully it keeps up the good behaviour but I have little tolerance should it start to wet the bed so to speak…Its stablemates are no doubt talking about me and it has witnessed several others leave the stable.
Allison used to talk about eventually getting the diesel version; while the extended drive time vs gas stops would be nice, with fuel prices being as they are there is little reason to consider switching.
Congrats on your Mercedes purchase Jim! A great-looking, powerful, and luxurious family car. Personally, I prefer the first generation GL’s more chiseled looks to the current GL/GLS.
The extended warranty is definitely a plus when buying a CPO luxury vehicle. My mom’s former X3 was bought at three years of age with one year left of the original factory warranty, plus two years CPO warranty. Everything but wheels and tires was covered, and the dealer made right on covering a repair for free of charge after the CPO warranty expired, as it was related to a repair done earlier. Unfortunately BMW is beginning to cut back on what the CPO warranty covers.
She is still loving her ’13 GLK by the way. Clearly not the optimal vehicle in your case for a family of 5, but for her it’s a great little SUV.
Great article! I especially love the part where you greeted the uncooperative salesperson and enjoyed his or her services after the “parent” dealer put down the welcome mat. Man, that was brilliant as well as satisfying to read and helped me a little with my Merc dealer PTSD.
Enjoy your Mercedes 🙂
…
And retrospectively speaking, enjoy your Mercedes now that the local dealer “shouldn’t be a problem anymore…”
Even more satisfying was the call I received a week after initially walking out asking if I was still interested and that if so they could still honor the “deal” they had offered me. When I informed him that he had reached me as I was actually driving my new GL that I had purchased from his parent store a few days earlier he was so shocked he started to stutter and didn’t really have a script for how to address that. I am NOT a mean or vengeful person by any means but that was satisfying. Something very similar had happened when we were buying the Touareg a few years earlier, these people don’t seem to get it. I have no interest in going back and forth on a commodity. I’m in the chair with my checkbook once, if I leave I’m not coming back.
Amen. You have one chance to impress me. I want you to make a profit so you can fix my warranty items tomorrow should there be any.
These articles make me miss Colorado and that sure is a sharp looking SUV which I hope you enjoy for years to come.
It is a good thing Colorado does not have safety inspections since that place is rough on vehicles which caught me off guard. At first I was not used to higher mileage used vehicles, but in certain places you have to drive a while to get anywhere.
Nice rig! I could have seen Stephanie happily behind the wheel of one when we had kids.
Didn’t you just get that Chrysler a year ago?
I rather like the dealer experience at my local Benz dealer. I popped in a few weeks ago just to kick tires on a day off and made that clear to the salesman. Even so, we got to shooting the breeze and then he said, “Hey, wanna take an S class for a spin?” Hell yes I did!
Yes sir I did! Had my fun with it, then decided to move on… I will say that the Chrysler was absolutely perfect from a quality standpoint in every way. No issues whatsoever from that perspective and I looked long and hard at the Grand Cherokee based on my good experience with the Chrysler. Don’t you have one too (300 I mean)? Want to buy a set of perfect condition WeatherTech Digital Fit Floor Liners in black?
That’s good to hear, I was hoping it wasn’t a lemon or something. Yes, I do have a 300c, its nice of you to remember that!
As to the floor liners, front or back or both? I might be interested in those for this time of year as I don’t like seeing the carpet dirty.
No, far from a lemon, it did not need a thing and if anything got faster as I added the miles on. And service at the dealer was cheap and professional too, although the muffin selection in the waiting area isn’t on par with that of the Mercedes dealer. Down the road I know I may regret selling yet another perfect car…
Floormats are a set of 4. But I am not sure if your car is AWD, apparently the floor is slightly different so the mats are a different part number for RWD and would fit differently. Mine was AWD. The mats are black and in perfect shape and cover the front completely. Back is also covered except the transmission tunnel. WeatherTech wants $169 plus shipping, I will sell them to any CC’er for $120 including shipping (and it’s a big box, I still have the box they came in). Their link is here: http://www.weathertech.com/chrysler/2014/300-300c/floorliner-digitalfit/drive/all-wheel-drive/ Best quality and fitting mats ever, we’ve now had them in several cars.
Jim,
That was a very informative post. Just one question, did you check out the 2010-2015 Kia Sorento in your quest for a 7 passenger SUV? I have several friends buy them and love them(including a friend that worshiped at the alter of the almighty German car until she got her Sorento and she has not looked back since)
No, we did not although I think the new ones are very nice, I believe it was just revised for 2016 (or was that 2015?) . H-K has come a huge way over the last decade and a half. That new concept they are showing right now looks interesting too.
I had a 2011 GL350 and replaced it with a 2015 GL350. I appreciate the increased driving range of the diesel and in my area at least, diesel is the same price or even cheaper than premium unleaded. Alas, in reference to you referring to yours as a “tank,” to that I can also attest. In November I was headed to lunch with two friends in the car on a two lane one-way street, in the right lane. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a car barreling toward us on a cross street that was obviously not going to stop at the stop sign. I yelled an expletive and tried to move to the left lane, when BAM he made impact with the right front quarter. We limped to a stop and luckily no one was hurt. It was a college kid in his Jetta late to class. His car was unrecognizable as a Jetta. It spun 270 degrees after hitting us. The damage to my tank of a GL doesn’t look nearly as bad, but after 6 weeks of back and forth his insurance company totaled the Mercedes.
Here is the kid’s Jetta for frame of reference comparing damage.
Wow, glad you guys are ok, that Jetta looks in bad shape! Bummer about your car but sounds like the replacement is nice too. As a used vehicle the diesel seems to command a premium that I couldn’t justify recouping via gas savings but if you buy new the diesel I believe is actually the least expensive so it totally makes sense.
There was a study done in which the GL was one of only 9 vehicles sold in the US that did not have a single accident fatality during the course of the study which I found interesting. http://www.freep.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/29/study-chances-of-dying-in-a-car-crash-plunged-over-3-years/22521103/
Interesting read Jim. Don’t see a lot of these around, they only sold 756 last year! It seems that diesels are more popular by about 60/40; fuel costing roughly 3 times what you pay explains part of the difference, even though they cost $120k plus (new).
They seem to be pretty similar to the Land Cruiser 200, but I imagine are a bit roomier inside.
Dealers tend to do repairs after the car is sold so they do not tie up money in unsold stock but you are right faults do not really sell the vehicle do they?.
The 1st gen MLs had cheapo build quality for a MB. currently yours is as good or bad as the rest of the German built range. Remember the 95-01 210 E class, that was an all time low!.
Nice-looking vehicles, and it sounds like it’s done quite well for you so far! For something like this I think CPO is exactly the way to go. Someone else takes the huge initial depreciation hit, but you still get a factory warranty.
Roll Tide, Jim! Glad you keep going through cars so that I can enjoy your writing. I’m excited to hear what’s next.
Thanks for the good article Jim. Does this (or any of your other current fleet) have radar/laser assisted cruise control? I’m in the market and looking for a vehicle with such a feature, but it’s hard to find in the real world. I drive from Fort Wayne, IN to Warsaw, IN every day on US 30 (I think you’re from or have been to this area) and want the next whip to have this feature.
This one does not however the Chrysler 300c did. I used it several times driving back and forth from Fort Collins, CO to Laramie, WY and was astounded at how great it was, at first I really thought it to be more of a gimmick and I was never really a normal cruise control fan. But this is completely different. You set it at maybe 1mph faster than you really want (81) and set the distance to max. Get in your lane and if you come up on someone it gently lets off the gas until they move them it speeds back up. Someone merges in front of you it slows down. You signal and move over it sees the open road and speeds up.
The only problem I see with using it on US 30 is the traffic lights in that area, I never tried it in a low speed environment with stop and go. You’d have to check into it or better yet take some test drives. If you were going from the Fort to Indy or up to Auburn on 69 then it’d be a no-brainer. But I do think some of them DO allow it to be used in stop and go, just not sure if those are low speed systems only, I.e. they ONLY work in stop and go.
For me although I liked it a lot it isn’t something I would pay much more for though. Our newest car (next week) had it as an avalable option as part of the next higher trim level and we made a conscious decision not to have it)
I hope that helps!
My Charger has it. Love it, but it only get’s used rolling north on the I-5 corridor through Seattle and beyond.
Great review Jim. You just can’t get this kind of detail from mainstream publications. How would you compare the ride of the GL vs the Touareg? Which one does a better job of isolating you from potholes expansion joints and other pavement defects? I test drove an 2015 Touareg and was very impressed with the ride quality and seat comfort. I thought it rode much better than the Acura MDX and Ford Flex Ecoboost.
The GL is better but not hugely so for ride especially on the highway. Around town it’s more kind of a tossup. The GL is a bit quieter though although our GL is a gasser while the Touareg was a diesel. If you liked the Touareg seats (I did) you should REALLY like the GL seats (I do even more). The infotainment (Nav, Stereo) on the Touareg is vastly better though, although still a bit laggy. Neither’s is as good as the UConnect 8.4 in the Chrysler (or Grand Cherokee) though.
My (future) in-laws have a GL350 that I’ve driven on a yearly trip to a favorite, remote camping spot of my fiancee and I. It’s located two states away, in rural Eastern Colorado.
Our vehicles–my 200 and her Jetta–can make the 400 mile trip perfectly fine except for the last seventeen miles to the destination–it is only for 4WD vehicles with clearance. Both cars wouldn’t hold all of our gear for a weeklong trip and finding a 4WD available for rental was an excercise in futility. My parents’ Fusion and Accord were no more a match than our own cars. So what happens? My crazy father-in-law lets us use his GL350. I protest: not for a camping trip! He insists. My girlfriend insists. So, we take it.
I thought my future father-in-law was insane for openly offering the use of an $80k vehicle to go on our camping trip, but it’s just as capable as the usual 4WD lineup. It cruises smoothly down the highway as expected. It drives as if it were a car and not something the size of a Suburban.
What surprised me was its ability to handle rougher terrain without sloshing around and feeling every rock, branch and tree limb (yes, there were a few tree limbs!) on the long, winding and narrow road to our favorite spot. The drive up there was quite smooth.
Nice write up and hail storms sure can be a doozy. I had a teacher in trade school that bought a totalled Yaris from Colorado and they replaced all the glass. The exterior still looked like a golf ball and they kept finding bits of glass, however they did all their own work.
Not sure how I missed this originally. Having spent some time in it (including a stint behind the wheel) I could see how it could be easy to live with.
I do recall that the built in nav system was a little difficult to deal with sometimes. But then I am a Google Maps kind of guy so a built-in nav system is kind of surplus junk for me.
Yeah the Nav system was temperamental to say the least, at least for the voice commands. It worked better when one would enter things manually but who does that anymore? I’ve switched almost exclusively to the phone as well, just am a bit afraid of those areas where I have no coverage which is not that uncommon in some areas out here and further west.
“Valdez Moment.” I had one just last weekend when I was draining the hydraulic sump on my NH Boomer 8N, which, had I read the manual first, I would have known had a capacity of 9.3 gallons – 4.3 more than a five gallon bucket will hold. I happened to glance underneath in time to screw the plug back in just before the bucket overflowed, but still got oil everywhere.
Then there was the time the black five-gallon bucket I used to change the (four gallon capacity) oil in my former F-250 Powerstroke had a sizable crack in the bottom…
You got lucky but I’m glad to read I’m in good company! I now know what it is like to be “paralyzed” by a situation. Obviously I knew my choices but was literally unable to act and couldn’t believe what I was (about to be) seeing. I can’t even fathom what a mess 4.3 gallons would make, my 8 quarts is obviously just under half that.
I had my own Valdez Moment when I bought my 66 Fury III. I decided that no transmission fluid should be asked to serve more than 20 years so I changed it. I didn’t do the math first so after draining drom the pan, I decided to loosen the drain plug of the torque converter before emptying the drain pan.
As the beautiful red fluid overran the pan all I could do was watch while repeating “there can’t be much more”. This was in an old detached garage with a brick floor so there was really nothing to do but sop up the liquid with paper towels, spread some Oil-Dri and hope for the best.
As much as I enjoy your postings (and I really do!), it’d be comical to see us show up at… say Carmax… and run in opposite directions as we search for the ideal vehicle.. We’ve owned a slew of big SUV’s when the kids were growing up. All GM or Ford- period. My kids (all grown), don’t do SUV’s at all. One of each- Dodge, Ford, and Chevy. Two are gas crew cabs, one a Powerstroke supercab, all 4×4’s. If it wasn’t for the Bronco parked in one kid’s garage, it’d just be pickup central.
Interesting observation about the GL’s Air Suspension. There were two of them at the top of the next street. Both failed- now a Sequoia in one driveway, a Denali in the other. The Sequoia’s the outlier- in this area, you can’t go a couple of blocks without passing at least one Escalade or Denali.
And that’s generally where you’d find me too – Ours is closed on Sundays but there is no fence and the cars are all unlocked, they encourage you to check them out then. I often go on Sundays (I just got back!) and sometimes take the kids, they enjoy checking out everything too.
I’m kind of surprised Lexus hasn’t offered a version of the Sequoia – it’s bigger than the GX and less expensive than the Land Cruiser, seems like a good fit to battle the Denali etc, at least the regular wheelbase one.
Although our kids (3) are getting larger every day (and only one is getting close to driving age), we currently have the smallest fleet with the smallest vehicles that we’ve had in almost a decade. So maybe we would be heading for the same things to check out after all… 🙂
Maybe. Where we have more in common is house. With three adult children on their own, this is getting to be way more than I need or want to take care of. A single-story ranch is sounding awfully darned attractive.
CC effect- wife saw the pics of the new Rav4 and she’s really liking it. I’m reminding her to stop looking on my side of the garage if she’s wondering what to trade-in for one.
Glad you had a generally good experience with this one. They’ve always looked intriguing, but the reputation for reliability issues you mentioned always gave me pause. Nice to hear that yours gave you good service. Looking forward to your next installment.
Oh boy, what did Jim buy next?!