Transcription
This is the new Mercedes GLS, and according to Mercedes, it's the S-Class of SUVs. But is it really? Well, I'm going to try and find out in this video by driving it on-road, yeah, taking it off-road, wow, seeing how spacious it is, well, we are trying out its technology, yes, it's working, taking it to the car wash, using it to park a big trailer, no, take, making it dance, new, ha, and of course, poking it with a stick. We have some real exhaust in there now, guys. Make sure you subscribe to this channel so you don't miss any of our reviews, and hit that bell icon so you're alerted when we make a new upload.
[Music]
For a change, I'm going to start this review by taking the new Mercedes GLS off-road. So, this one is fitted with the upgraded off-road packs. I've got some underbody protection, I've also got a low-range mode. I'm about to go down a steep descent. I'm actually going to use low-range mode for this. But why? I'm going to do is put the car into off-road plus mode. I'm also going to raise up the air suspension, and I can actually start a little game that is built into the car's infotainment system, which will basically grade my ability to drive off-road. So, start that up.
So, we've got hill-hold control, and it's slowing the car down now. As standard, this model comes with air suspension. Then you can upgrade it with something called E-Active Body Control, and it's a bit like what you had in the S-Class, where it can monitor the road ahead, and it uses a camera, just a bit, to do that, and sensors in the body as well, to know what the wheels are doing, and it can alter each wheel individually. And it figures out, well, okay, closes and bushes, so the car figures out what to do with the suspension to maximize traction at each wheel. What is remarkable is how comfy this is, not only when you're off-roading, you're getting shaken around like this, but because you've got that system fitted to the car, it's working out what to do with the suspension, that it's just leveling it off, and basically just walking me a bit like a cat. Tearing this steep hill now, I'm getting some comments here on the screen saying, "Do not brake when descent control is operational." So I can just let the car do it. I was feathering the brakes, so I'll stop that. Do as I'm told. Apparently, the best any journalist has done down here is 70 points, and I'm on 28. That's a way to go.
So, I'm being told now to steadily accelerate during axle articulation because this is going to really test the car. Nagisa's is very tricky. So I should accelerate slowly. Apparently, the car's actually braking. Accelerate most deadly. I can't do most deadly car. So now it's getting pretty tricky. I'm going to take the car up into level three. So, here we go. Oh my god, this is tricky stuff. This is steady acceleration. No, I'm not accelerating down here. Me a couple of big bangs there as I just dropped off a rock. So, finally, I'm reaching the finish line. See what my score is. Forty-one out of a hundred, which is sort of could do better, but not totally terrible. And I should point out to you guys that when I went over that big bang, wow, it shocked the car's suspension system, and so it's thrown up a malfunction. Now, the car probably isn't broken, but it just needs to check all its sensors to make sure that it, everything's fine, and to do that, I have to turn it off and on again. And if, when I turn it on again, it's still showing, then I've damaged the car. So, let's find out. Come on, I haven't broken it. It's going to cost me a lot of money. The car is alright. Who can get on with the journey?
Okay, so now the tracks are leveling out a bit. I'm going to lower the air suspension into setting one, which means that I can go above 12 miles an hour. Actually, do you know what? Let's see what it's like being in the back seats when you're going off-road. I'm just going to hop into the back then.
Alright, so here we are. Back seats of the new GLS. Well, I say back seat, it's the middle row because, of course, it has three rows as standard. This is a six-seater version, so we've got individual chairs, which I quite like because you have these armrests. Now, I have the car and it's fully relaxed position, so seat is reclined as I can have it, as far back as I can have it as well. And yes, there is loads of room. We're driving off-road, and it feels suitably comfortable. Once again, that E-Active Body Control, using the camera looking at undulations in the road and just smoothing things out. In fact, it feels like I'm on a normal road. And if you want to see the difference that it has having this E-Active Body Control, I'm going to show you a little cutaway now, but you can see one car with it and one car without it going over undulations. It really is quite incredible.
What's it like, though, in the very back of this car? Well, I'm going to give it a chance. I'm going to move my seat into the fully forward position. Oh, it's pretty hard to do because of the seatbelt is not happy. Okay, so that's fully forward. I'll put it upright a little bit now. This is still really spacious and comfy. Let's see what it's like back there. There with me? Yep. Well, there we are. Pop this up. So, Mercedes has tried to make this car as roomy in the back as possible, and people over six-foot will be okay in the very back, and the floor is fairly flat as well. I should probably put my seatbelt on, actually. You have the largest panoramic glass roof fitted to any production car, apparently. There is one small complainer, half though. In a BMW X7, you have an extra portion here, which does make it feel a bit light in the very back of the BMW. In fact, if you want to see my full in-depth video review of the X7, just click up there on the papaya banner to watch that video review. But I must say, it's quite comfy back here, and we've got some mod cons, such as we've got two USB charging points there, under the two, over the other side. In fact, in total, this car has 11 USB charging points, so enough for everyone to charge their mobile devices. They might be wondering, wait a minute, this is a six-seater. I thought the GLS was a seven-seater. Well, it is. You can get it with seven seats as well, and if you get the seven-seater version, you can upgrade it to have a special rear entertainment package where you have a tablet in the center armrest which allows you to control various features on the car. You can even control the massage function or the middle row seats if you have that fitted as well. So, it's all super, super comfortable. Let's what Mercedes is about.
Now, I know what you're thinking, "Help, yeah, I want that E-Active Body Control fitted to my GLS." There is one problem, though. It costs around £7,000, which is a lot of money. But then it does include some serious componentry. So, you basically have the normal air suspension there, but then it adds a separate chamber here, and then you have a special electrically controlled pump. And what I can do is pump oil or remove it from that chamber, which effectively moves the wheel up and down. And of course, you have that on each corner, hence the cost. One of my favorite things about the E-Active Body Control, you can make it do a little dance. So, if I put it into individual wheel control, I can actually move each wheel up and down as I like to make the car rock about. The idea is, is that you can use this when you're off-road to help free you if you're stuck. Also, if you really are stuck, say in sand, you can make it jump up and down on the spot. So, it kind of gets jiggy with it. Yeah, if the GLS is a rocking, you can actually come knocking because it's just bouncing up and down on its suspension, trying to get free. Nothing untoward happening at all. No. Yeah, it's like the rodeo.
Right, then. Let's talk about the design because this thing is absolutely massive. It's even bigger than a BMW X7, so it's over 5.2 meters long, and it's taller and wider than the previous GLS, and it's certainly imposing. But I just need to go and get something. Yes, an American rustic car wash sticker. Truth. So, I want to check for fake vents. These are real. They're, they're real there. But we have some fakery down here. And now we'll move to the back, and as we do, you'll notice this thing's riding on 23-inch alloy wheels. The wheel sizes actually start at 19s, and when you see the 19s, they look tiny compared to these 23s. Big question is, though, at the back, have you got some fake exhausts? Oh, well, we've got a fake surround. But at least in here, on this particular V8 petrol model, we have some real ones in there. Now, on the diesel model, they're completely fake. And apparently, there's a little bit of an internal argument going on within Mercedes. Some people want them to scrap the fake exhaust, whereas others want to continue. Now, why don't you send a message to them? So, click on the pop-out banner up down the top right-hand corner of the screen to vote if you think they should just scrap the fake exhaust, and I'll pass the results on to Mercedes.
This GLS is absolutely packed full of kit to help make your life as easy as possible. So, I've got the augmented reality set. Approaching a junction, and rather than just telling me left or right on the screen, it's going to flip up a little live feed from a camera just up there, and then it's going to superimpose directions over it. And it's telling me to turn right with the graphic on the screen. So, I cannot get it wrong unless I'm a total numpty. Comments about that, thank you guys. This particular car is also fitted with the Driving Assistance Plus package. So, that includes a clever cruise control system. So, it's using radar and cameras to keep your safe distance from a car in front. It's also hooking me up to the middle of the lane and steering. Now, you should actually do this with your hands off, but I need to illustrate it to you guys. Is there a way I can do it? That's my disclaimer. Don't do it yourself at home. Now, this system actually has another feature. So, I've got a slow-moving lorry in front of me, and if I put the indicator on, the car will use its sensors to check that the lane is clear next to me, and it's going to take me around that slow lorry. So, it's really cool that it'll actually change lanes itself. Also, what it will do is, when you approach a turn, it knows that you're doing that because of the satellite navigation, and it automatically slows you down. That's clever, but I've seen that before on one of the Mercs. What this car has that's new, though, is the fact that it can actually use the traffic data and it can tell if you're approaching a traffic jam, and then what it will do is actually slow you down even before you see the jam itself. So, there's none of that sudden braking that you sometimes get with these systems. So, it just makes it all very comfortable and relaxing. So, change lane again itself because why should I have to bother?
Mercedes has fitted something new to this car called car wash mode, and I'll demonstrate it now by going through a car wash. So, driving a big vehicle through this would be a bit tricky, but what I can do is just hit this button on here to put the car into car wash mode. Now, what that's going to do is fold in the mirrors. If you know European car, I'll shut the sunroof and the windows. It's not allowed to in the US for some legal reasons. It'll also raise the car up on its air suspension, and what that does is move the wheels in slightly by about two centimeters, which can be the difference between scraped alloys or not scraped alloys when you're trying to fit between the two metal rails of the car wash. Also, it puts the air conditioning into recirculation mode. It turns off the rain-sensing wipers. So, you should be all good to go. So, here we go. The parking sensors are off, seating at the beeps, but you still have the camera helping you out. I've never really done a review in a car wash before, but there's a first time for everything. Isn't now?
This is a good time to talk through the interior design of this car. It's exactly the same dash as in the GLE, so it's quite a nice layout. Two huge, beautiful screens as standard. The infotainment system is really good as well. You can control it with a button on the steering wheel, or the touchpad down here, or via voice commands. The problem is that, in parts, it feels a little bit cheap. So, the switches here, a bit cheap. The scratchy plastics down there. The parking brake is horrible. You know, this is supposed to be the S-Class of SUVs, but quality-wise, yeah, it doesn't feel S-Classy enough, does it really? And this seems to start from £74,000. So, you click on the pop-out bone in the top right-hand corner of the screen, you can get a car wire to see how much money you can save on a new car through our trusted dealers. Anyway, now, if you haven't subscribed to this channel, make sure you do, and come and join the car wire family. That's all done. Made it through. No code wheels absolutely fine. All I've got to do now is stop car wash mode, and I'll put everything back to normal.
You can get the GLS with Mercedes' new trailer assist. Now, I had a go at parking this 7-meter long boat in a parking bay over there without using it, and I was rubbish. That way, no, that way. I've got this so wrong. Dog, no, Jake. However, I'm now going to do it with the trailer assist. So, first thing I do is put into reverse, press this button down there to engage trailer assist. I'm going to press that button to make the trailer go dead straight on that heading. The car'll do the steering, I do the throttle and the brakes. It's actually quite hard to make a trailer go straight back. So, in this case, it's dead easy. Now, I'm going to move it to that setting so I can change the angle of the trailer to what I think I need to get into that spot. Then that should do it. Once again, it's doing the steering. My poor little brain isn't having to think about doing the steering in the opposite direction to moving the actual trailer. Here we go. Come on. Oh, much easier. Look at that. That's it. Set up now. All I have to do is press that button and make the trolley go straight back on that heading, and it should be pretty nicely parked, neatly in that spot. Done.
One of the great things about having a big-ass car is that you also have a big-ass boot. Fact, the GLS's load capacity is class-leading, regardless of which configuration you have it in. So, here it's in seven-seat format, and you have 355 liters of space there, which is about the same as you get in the boot of an A-Class. I'm going to show you how much stuff you can actually cram into it below the window line. Not bad. Now, let's try it in five-seater mode. To fold the seats down, I'll just press these buttons here. But this is the bit while I demonstrate the boot, but the seats are playing up. Government. I actually had a similar problem with the GLA when I had it with its middle row. Yeah, so the guys managed to get it working again. They think that the, the back tree was having a bit of a problem, so it's sort of fixed itself and he's working. So, I'm going to try to continue with the demonstration. Right, so there you go. Lots of luggage. Now, I'm going to show you how much stuff you can get in it with all the seats folded down. All I have to do is fold the rest of the seats down, and it should happen automatically. Please stay with the video. You're probably eaten really bored of this. And there we go. Knock. So, now we have 2,400 liters of space, which, in case you're wondering, is the same amount of air volume as is in all these basketballs.
Okay, so I guess I should appraise this car dynamically. It's been hard to hear in the States because every road is straight. Oh, I can tell you though, is that this car is super comfy over bumps. In that way, it is like the S-Class of SUVs. In fact, I don't think I've been in a comfy SUV than this car. To be fair, though, most people driving this car will be cruising along the motorway, and it does go round corners as well as you need an SUV to. Actually, if you have the E-Active Body Control, it does something right, or tilt the car into the corner a little bit like a motorcycle to make it feel even more sporty. Or there, I don't know how sporty a big thing like this is ever going to feel. In terms of engines, well, I'm driving a 4-liter twin-turbo V8. It has 429 horsepower, but it's also supplemented by an electric motor, which when you put your foot down, will give you an extra 22 horsepower boost. You can also get a straight-six 3-liter petrol engine with 370 horsepower, that also has the electric motor boost function as well. There's two diesels, a 350 and a 400 D, both are 3-liter straight-sixes, one with 290 horsepower, the other with 330. That's the one we'll get in the UK. Now, I should really be driving that diesel because we're not going to get this V8. But do you know what? I didn't want it. I wanted a V8 power, and why not? Yeah, much better than a diesel.
So, then, what's my final verdict on the new Mercedes GLS? Is it really the S-Class of SUVs? And in terms of interior quality, no, it's not quite. But in every other aspect, yes, it is. So, it's very spacious, it's super comfy to travel in, and it's packed full of groundbreaking technology, which is exactly what you expect from a flagship Mercedes. Do you agree with my verdict? Let me know in the comments section. Also, please subscribe to this channel for more videos. And if you click on the deals box to the right, you can see how much you can save on a new car at Carwow, or click on the video windows below to watch another of my videos.