2022 Mercedes-Benz GLE 350 4Matic, a technological masterpiece
In recent times, Mercedes has absolutely leaped ahead of the field when it comes to technology. In fact, it’s hard to review a brand new Benz without mentioning how damn good the MBUX system is. But I’m going to save that bit for last. First, let’s talk about the car itself.
The GLE is the SUV version of the E-Class, which is Mercedes’ mid-size luxury sedan. It’s got more legroom than its C-Class counterpart, but it’s not as insanely luxurious as the S-Class. It directly competes with the BMW 5-series, and the Audi Q5. Unfortunately here, we’re talking about the GLE, not it’s sedan little brother.
It’s surprising to me why people buy SUV’s in the first place. Aren’t you just buying a more expensive, space inefficient version of a regular sedan that isn’t as nice to drive as a normal car? Well, in short, yes, but I can genuinely think of a few reasons why you’d opt for one. For starters, if you’re an outdoorsy type of person, good luck getting 2 kayaks and 4 bikes on your E-Class sedan. It’s no sweat for the GLE 350 despite the fact the car weighs over 5000 pounds with all of those extra items, and only has 255 horsepower from an engine barely larger than the one in my MINI Cooper. I’d like to see you try hauling all of that along with 7 people in the car AND some luggage. There’s simply no way you’re doing that in a sedan.
Now yes, I’m not one to buy the largest, most practical vehicle on the slight chance that I MIGHT tow something or haul a lot of plywood one day, but it’s not like you’re making a huge sacrifice. In daily practice, the GLE is a very sensible vehicle. It doesn’t feel too large on the road, it’s very easy to drive, and it’s just as comfortable as any sedan. I personally don’t like being higher off the ground, but if you do need the extra seating capacity and ability to carry bikes and kayaks, it makes a whole lot of sense. Notice how I didn’t say cargo capacity though, since with all the seats up it’s quite small. Just about the size of the cargo space in my MINI to be honest, if not worse. But who is doing lots of grocery shopping with 7 people anyway? That’s impractical. People who do end up having that many kids and are in need of an SUV are probably more in the market for something like the GLS, since that’ll hold 7 people and all their very large belongings. But the GLE with the two 3rd row seats down has just about the same cargo space as a large sedan, and it’s quite high up since the folded down 3rd row has to take up some space. Not to mention, it’s really easy to get those seats up and down, although you will be slowly aging while the seats electronically fold themselves into the car.
One thing great about Mercedes is no matter how much money you spend on a brand new one, you can always sleep calmly knowing you got ambient lighting, and a very nice interior. In fact, I don’t really even care what the outside of my Mercedes looks like, since all I want to do is spend time inside it playing with all the settings. MBUX is by far the best car infotainment on the planet, with Audi following close behind. It’s amazingly intuitive, and it makes sure to keep A/C controls completly seperate. The climate is controlled purely by a row of beautiful aluminum switches that click and clack very nicely. I love MBUX because it gives you so much to control, but it doesn’t overwhelm you. If you are driving and want to keep your hands where they always should be, you can simply use the touch pad on the right side of the steering wheel to operate the main screen. That same screen can be controlled by the larger touchpad in the centre console. It’s MacBook quality and also gives you haptic feedback when navigating through the menus. The main infotainment screen is also touch operated, in case one prefers that. You have so many options. Some cars have terrible touch screens, some have hard to operate touch pads, but Mercedes gives you 3 super well rounded options for navigating it’s infotainment system, which is just fabulous.
I want to get more in depth with MBUX now, because it truly is what makes this car special. But before I do, I’d like to highlight that this car shares this infotainment system with every other Mercedes on the market. Yes, it changes based on what model and what options selected, but the basic MBUX system is standard in quite literally every single Mercedes, so this next part of the review will apply to every other Merc on sale today. This isn’t specific to the GLE, but it is so damn good it makes every Mercedes so amazing to interact with to the point where you don’t really care about which one you’re in until you’ve finally experienced all MBUX has to offer, which will take you a very long time.
Let’s start with the fun stuff. You have 3 different styles for the gauges. Classic, which is a nice blueish theme; it’s the defualt option that has some nice blue gradients and it’s very simple but lovely. Sport is the second option, where everything is yellow and red and makes you feel sporty. The final theme is progressive, which has a smooth grey and red theme in the name of efficiency. The tachometer displays RPMS in a number instead of a normal dial, which is sort of weird in my opinion, so I usually steer clear of this theme.
Mood lighting in this car absolutley take the cake for coolest gimmick. The car has tons of ambient strips of light that go around the entire interior and you can adjust the colour profile in the MBUX settings. You can make the car any colour you want, my personal favourite standard option being Red Moon, which illuminates the footwell in blue, and makes all the lighting strips a bright reddish-purple. The strips also serve a functional purpose too. For example, when you adjust the temperature on your side of the car, the strip will light up either blue or red depending on if you’re increasing or decreasing the temperature. This car has a lot of gimmicks, and I absolutely love all of them. Luxury for me is being in a place more comfortable than my house; a place I want to be in. And despite the fact the GLE is just a boring family SUV, I find myself wanting to drive it just so I can look at the pretty screens.
If the MBUX system has just a little bit too much for you and you don’t want to keep changing everything individually all the time (drive modes, gauges, lighting, saftey assists), then you can make a theme. From the factory a few themes are already installed, like Experience, which changes everything to it’s sportiest setting and also shows a massive performance graph telling you about how many horsepowers and torques you’re using at any given moment. It also makes all the lighting on the inside bright red to remind you that you are now ready to go fast in your mid-size 5000 pound 4-cylinder SUV. Other standard themes include Efficiency, which as you can imagine puts everything in it’s greenest setting, including the lights. You get a massive display on the driver display that shows you everything you’d ever want to know about how efficient you are driving. In short, MBUX is fantastic and I’d talk about it all day, but I now want to talk about safety because in this car they have taken it to another level.
The GLE 350 that I got to test was optioned out with Mercedes’ Driver Assistance Package. Now I am a man who drives a very unassisted car. It can’t even shift it’s own gears. This Benz has 9 gears. Already, that is an adjustment for me. The Driver Assistance Package includes various saftey systems that literally make the car drive itself. Now I say drive itself, but it’s truly just Stage 2 self-driving capability. It needs good white lines on the road to truly stay within them, but it assumes you’re paying attention and will correct its mistakes. You turn cruise control on, and you set the speed. Once you do that, a green steering wheel icon at the bottom of the driver’s screen will appear to indicate that it’s trying to drive itself. I warn to not try this on a normal road city or suburban with navigation on (it probably won’t end well for you). Do this on the highway where it will work phenomenally good behind a car, in the lanes, when you have a road trip, etc. It makes those long trips short. It will steer itself, and it will apply throttle and brakes as necessary while you just sit there, all comfortable in your seat. That is luxury; my car not needing to be driven. Of course the steering is completely dead and it’s not an engaging driving experience, me and all car guys are so sad that modern cars fail to deliver that, but while this one lacks in that, one that can drive itself sounds pretty damn appealing too. People fail to realise that cars like the GLE are boring because they have to be. They have to appeal to the right audience and Mercedes has done a brilliant job. I am a petrolhead who is into fast and interesting vehicles, and even I was very excited to drive a family SUV with a cool infotainment system and self-driving capabilities.
All in all, Mercedes has made one brilliant car. It captivated me, and this was merely the base model! It is still a staggering 60 grand, but I really do understand someone in need of a car like this. Of course I’d prefer the sedan variant, but even in SUV form they’ve managed to pull off quite an interesting car. It’s just one massive party trick- an elegant one. I’d take this over the BMW or Audi counterpart any day of the week.
