2022 Mercedes-Benz GLS 450 Review _ A three-ton luxury bus!

This is how Mercedes-Benz does a shuttle bus. All right, it's a large SUV with three rows of seats, but just look at this thing. The GLS 450 is plus size. I'm proud of it. This GLS is almost 100 grand before sales tax. And for that kind of money, the GLS has to be excellent, built with the very best materials and technology. On the surface, it looks good. But at this price, I better be wowed. As should you be. Subscribe to the CarGurus YouTube channel. The GLS has a major change for 2022. Two of the engines are missing. The chip shortage forced Mercedes to pull their most expensive models for this whole year. You can't order a GLS 580 or the AMG GLS 63. Those V8s are in very short supply. The only choice you have is this GLS 450, a six-cylinder base model. Not to worry, nothing about a GLS is base. You're looking at almost three tons of Mercedes. When you load everybody up in here, it's easily 6,000 pounds going down the highway with all the options. Everything about this truck is massive, especially the tires. On the AMG line, they actually have to add fender extensions because the things are so darn wide, they can't fit otherwise. 285 width in the front and 325 width in the back. That's something that sports cars, the highest-end sports cars, don't even have in that size. That's pretty crazy. You're looking at 22-inch wheels here. 20s are standard and you can get 23s. Things are just getting bigger all the time. Now, if you get this AMG line here, this one is the darker package. It darkens the window trim, darkens part of the grille, and it changes the front and the rear bumpers. A little sportier effect. This also has air suspension as standard with three adjustable height levels. It's self-leveling. I'll show you more of that later. This one has running boards. They don't really do anything because they don't really help you get in. And when you do, you kind of have to get over the side here. But check out these doors. That's like a bank vault. That's how you know this is built well. The GLS, to me, has all the aesthetics of a coach bus. Yes, it's sleek, but it's kind of featureless and it's just tall, right? How else do you design a bus? It's gigantic. I don't think Mercedes-Benz puts the same level of attention and thought into these SUVs and crossovers like it does all its coupes and sedans. That's just me, but I'm not really sold on any of the Mercedes SUVs, except the G-Class. Cargo space is 17 cubic feet, which is a pretty good amount behind the third row. And you can drop the air suspension with a flick of a finger. It drops it silently, so you can load cargo that much easier. It does make a difference when the vehicle is this tall. And you can keep going. Because you don't have to do anything in a Mercedes. Things just drop for you. Not only do the power third row fold, but the power second row also folds, which is very unusual in an SUV. 43 cubic feet behind the second row and 85 when everything's folded. In normal cars, if a seat ahead is too far back, when you fold the seats behind them down, it won't fold. Not in a GLS. It moves the seat ahead to clear the space, then moves it back exactly where you had it. And it does this for every individual seat in the car. The GLS seats seven unless you order the six-seat configuration for zero dollars. That's a pretty good deal in Mercedes-Land. Power headrest. That's not what you get in most vehicles. Power backrest and power sliding. All accessible in the doors here. Now the heated rear seats, the panoramic roof and the side shades. This vehicle doesn't have them. Those are all optional. But what's standard are two USB-C ports down here, a 115-volt power outlet and four-zone climate. That's awesome to have. And five zones is an option for the third row. The right seat is fully automatic. That's a really nice feature. But there's a problem for anyone in the third row who wants to exit out the left. The left side is fixed. It doesn't slide and it doesn't tilt. But if you order the bench seat, you can enter and exit on both sides. Another concern are the rear headrests. These are the only manual headrests in the whole vehicle. And the spring tension here is actually really high. So say if you want to actually lower this without dropping the third row, check out what happens. Your finger can get caught. Not a great idea. Everything is high-end, except for the hard plastic on the lower door panels. At this price, they should be padded and lined with carpet. I also dislike the flimsy stalks on the steering wheel. The design is sedate and it's understated. You got big wide screens. These big grab handles here. Large square air vents. Pretty minimal decoration. This one has the black Nappa leather for almost $3,000 more. It's really soft. It also has MBTEX leatherette on the dash up here and below. But I gotta say, for this price, I think the BMW X7 and the Audi Q7 feel a bit richer for less money. Even the Hyundai Palisade feels extra special. The only way the GLS feels truly up to snuff is in the Maybach GLS 600. But that's $160,000. I wish the regular GLS had the look and feel of the new S-Class. But until Mercedes launches a refresh, the interior is starting to fall behind. The technology is top of the class. Because this is a Mercedes, you'll find features in here that you didn't know you needed. And when you don't drive a Mercedes, you'll miss them. The GLS has a car wash mode. If you activate it, it raises the vehicle. It folds the mirrors in. Shuts off a lot of the sensors, like the parking and the rain sensors. Turns the wipers off. Sunroof closed. It does all this automatically, so you can just steer in there without having to worry about it. Kind of cool. The instrument panel has three different zones. So you can change stuff from the tach to all this other information. Maps. It can go in the center. Change that information. Then go to the speedometer. And then switch that out, too. There's so many different layouts. And if you don't like any of these, well, there's four different layouts to choose from. The head-up display also has three different zones that you can control by the left thumb pad. It's kind of dizzying, all the options you can see. There's also some full-screen modes, so you can see the driver assistance in full screen. But it doesn't show you other nearby cars, not like what you'll find in the S-Class. Check out that review to see how the latest Mercedes technology works. So this one is not quite as helpful as it looks. You also cannot get full-screen maps. There's a full semi-automated highway assist with automatic lane changing and every kind of safety feature you can imagine. They're optional. The Mercedes me app that works with your smartphone and the car. It offers so many different features. Card excommunication, for example. That will send you alerts from other Mercedes drivers, such as a pothole or an accident up ahead. You have all sorts of things like geofencing. You've got local online searches, apps for parking, remote engine start, diagnostics. Just look at this list. It goes on forever. If there's something that you can track and locate and basically adjust, you can do it in the GLS. There's also a natural voice recognition and assistant if you say, Hey Mercedes. How can I help? Comfort. That's the whole point of Mercedes-Benz. And if you choose this one, you get seat kinetics. That will move the seat rest a little bit at a time to kind of move your body, move the joints a little bit. It's not a massage. That is optional on the GLS. Mine doesn't have it. But I can also change the seat heating balance. This is one of my favorite features because sometimes you don't want the heat down below. You want it on your back. That lets you change it. Ambient lighting is now becoming an industry standard. But let's remember who started it. Mercedes-Benz. They did such a fantastic job with this stuff. And it still is. 64 colors. You get animations when you say adjust the climate control. And it's hard to show it now. But at night, this car glows. The seats heat and cool at the same time. No other car lets you do that. The casualty of the chip shortage? No wireless charging pad. Ordinarily, it's standard. Now Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are standard, but they're not wireless. And that's just a usual feature. Mercedes hasn't gone wireless yet. For such a large vehicle, the GLS 450 moves. If I may borrow a line from Jaguar, it moves with grace and a whole lot of pace. In the GLS 450, you get a turbo inline six with 362 horsepower and 369 pound-feet of torque. There's also an electric motor generator that's sandwiched between the engine and the nine-speed automatic transmission. Now at the lower speeds, you get up to 21 extra horsepower and another 184 pound-feet of torque for brief seconds. It's really there in bursts. So at low end, you just accelerate. Or even in the mid-range, you're feeling like this is a much bigger engine than it really is. There's a 48-volt hybrid system. So that basically takes a lot of the accessory draw off of the engine, such as the alternator, such as the air conditioning. It runs it on a completely separate circuit. And that's supposed to save fuel. I guess in some way it kind of does, but this is such a big vehicle. So you're not going to get greater mileage really than what it says on the EPA, which is 18 city, 24 highway, and 20 combined. 4MATIC all-wheel drive is standard. Once upon a time, there was rear-wheel drive GLSs, but people don't buy those things. You want an SUV, you want the 4MATIC traction that's automatically switching the torque front to rear at the desired ratio. You don't have to touch anything. Comfort mode, like every Mercedes, feels delayed. If you try to punch the throttle off a stop, you're going to feel a lot of hesitation. It does this because Mercedes figures you're in a relaxed mood. You don't really mean to go that fast. Do you? Yes, I do. Sport mode. Now it's kicking things up a notch, especially with that hybrid boost. That's really helpful. And there's paddle shifters here if you so choose. But let's be real, the GLS really does work best in comfort mode. Now when they become available again, I suggest you try the GLS 580, which has almost 500 horsepower from a twin-turbo V8, or the 603 horsepower GLS 63. It's there if you want it, but I would say you'll be plenty satisfied with the 450. The more I drive the GLS, the more impressed I am with its road holding. For such a big, heavy vehicle, it drives like it's several sizes smaller. Handling is pretty good on an SUV this large, and I expect that because these tires are massive. So big that it almost matches the rear wheel width on the new Corvette Z06. Not joking. As you'd expect with an air suspension, the ride quality is great. It just floats, but never really bobbles and weaves and all that stuff. It's the right kind of float. It's the comfortable float that keeps you confident. And if you ever get into a regular car without air suspension and then get into one with, and you'll really want to travel for miles in the one with the air suspension. It just makes a world of difference. Now in terms of servicing costs, no, because in 10, 15 years, when all the air escapes out of this car, well, the next owner, the next few owners will be paying a lot of money for that. As it stands now, the ride is good, except if you keep ordering up on those larger tires. These are 22s and you can go up to 23s. They're pretty low profile. And when you're using the max load tire pressure, that's if you have everyone aboard the GLS and have some roof cargo and stuff in the trunk, you want the tires to be at a higher pressure. They're over 40 PSI a piece. At that point, if you're over kind of a rocky road, some imperfections, you're going to feel them come through the chassis. So as good as this air suspension and the whole suspension, the dampers, everything as good as they are, they can't completely absorb every bump in the road. So you will feel it. Now, when you're just cruising, you can switch the driving mode into eco. Normally I'd say don't do that because it's a terribly boring, horribly slow experience, but not in the Mercedes GLS, because what it does is what it just did right now. It shuts the engine off when you're driving at normal speeds, not just slowing down. And I don't just mean putting it into neutral. The engine's off and it will fire on and off depending on what the throttle position is, depending on the angle that you're on for the road. It just turned back on right now. You can't even feel it. That is the benefit of having this mild hybrid. You don't even feel when the engine is on or off. It fires it on right away because that 48 volt battery is extremely powerful. Every GLS has an off-road driving mode, but you don't want to take this vehicle off-road unless you have the off-road package. And surprise, surprise, you can't order that right now during the chip shortage. But what it does when it comes back, it gives you a low range transfer case that's essential for multiplying the torque up steep grades. The standard GLS does not have that. It will also provide two extra ride heights for the air suspension. So the actual clearance is significantly a little higher than the standard one. So if you're going over any sort of rough terrain and you need something like that, you have to order that package because especially with these road tires, you're not going to get very far off road. All the controls feel really great up to speed. Absolutely perfect. Except the brakes. I do think they are actually a little undersized for this vehicle. I prefer the AMGs. The 2022 GLS 450 starts at $77,850. My GLS 450 had almost $20,000 in options. So it was $97,155 with destination. It's thousands more than a BMW X7 with similar equipment and about $15,000 more than a fully loaded Audi Q7. It's certainly cheaper than the Lexus LX600 and a way better car than the Infiniti QX80. The Cadillac Escalade is pricier, but it's also larger. I'm not convinced the Mercedes GLS is the best buy among all large luxury SUVs. Now let's recap the good parts. The performance, exceptional. So is the build quality. The technology is very impressive. But I'm just not convinced the interior or even the exterior delivers that full premium experience for $100,000. But maybe that's just me. What do you think? What SUV in this class would you buy? And what cars do you want to see us review next? Go to CarGurus.com, subscribe. We will see you next time.