Even the cheapest $63,000 GL350 comes with a raft of standard safety features, led by the new (for Mercedes) Collision Prevention Assist, which warns if youre about to rear-end the guy in front, and, if you step on the brakes, the car will control safe braking. Also new in the MB lineup, and standard, is crosswind stabilization. It corrects for gusts of wind sweeping off a bridge or mountain pass.
Self-driving Mercedes? For a couple seconds at a time it is
The most useful safety option is the Driver Assistance Package ($1,900-$2,
0 depending on model) which rolls in Distronic Plus (adaptive cruise control) with Active Lane Keeping Assist and Active Blind Spot Assist. On straight roads with good lane markings, it gives you a semi-self-driving Benz for as long as 30 seconds. Not that youre supposed to. Heres how it works: A forward-facing camera in the rear view mirror watches the lane markers and warns, then corrects, if you drift (lane keeping). Distronic maintains your speed and slows, even stops, you if the traffic ahead slows. If you drift close to the lane, the car nudges the brakes on the opposite side and the drag pivots the car back into lane, just as a paddle dragging in the water pivots you canoe toward the paddle side. (The photo above shows the instrument panel display indicating the car about to go off to the right.) If I kept hands off the wheel, the car would right itself two, three or four times in a row but eventually it would ride over the lane marking. Darwin lives.The €œactive€ part of the option names apply to the corrective actions: the car moving you away from the lane edge (unless your blinker is on) or moving you back into lane if Active Blind Spot Assist sees you drifting into an occupied lane. In either case, a light pull on the heavily boosted power steering overrides the car.
360-degree backing camera, automatic parallel parking
Every car offers parking sonar. The GL one-ups the direct competition with a parking assist package ($1,290) with front and rear sonar plus cameras front-rear-side (in the side mirrors, facing down) to give you a birds-eye view of the car (photo) plus Active Parking Assist, which parallel-parks the GL for you in a spot 60 inches longer than the GLs 202-inch length. The base GL comes with a rear camera; the parking package may save owners that much in collision deductibles and higher premiums. All the features work perfectly. With parking assist, you drive slowly past a line of cars until the sensors spot an opening 22 feet (6.7m) long. The car beeps, you stop, put the car in reverse, and tap the steering wheel button marked OK. The car steers and measures; you control the throttle and (important) the brakes. One pass gets you into the parking spot.
And more tech: sleepy driver alert, auto-banking in turns
The GL is one of several cars in the Mercedes-Benz fleet with Attention Assist, a set of algorithms that measures driver alertness, mostly through micro-movements of the wheel, and suggests you take a break if you fall below a threshold. Ive found that Attention Assist catches you when youre drowsy and also some times when you think youre not. Attention Assist is free.
The Active Curve System is not free. Thats $2,900. Its a sophisticated leveraging action of the cars suspension that reduces lean in turns, makes the driver feel more secure, and makes the passengers less annoyed by spirited driving. Where planes bank into turns so you feel no sideways motion, this reduces but never eliminates lean, in part because the lateral forces alert the driver to back off.
For the most part, if a safety feature is vital, its part of the base price of a Mercedes: Collision Prevention Assist but not Distronic adaptive cruise control, Attention Assist but not Active Curve System, which sounds as if Mercedes entered the womens fitness business. But there enough options that a top-of-the-line GL550 I drove came in at $108,000, and there were some options it didnt have. With the GL, you can upgrade from a Harman/Kardon surround system to Bang & Olufsen for $6,400, add rear seat entertainment for $1,950, boost the air suspension with adaptive damping for $800, see in the dark with Night Vision Assist Plus for $1,780, and get power-ventilated seats ($570) that suck in moisture from the seat surface where the other vented seats blow air out.
The center stack letdown: small LCD screen, too many buttons
The one area where the GL is uncompetitive is the center stack. The LCD is part of the Comand system that is standard on all GLs and uses a control wheel like BMWs iDrive. But the LCD is only 7 inches diagonal where its 10 inches on the smaller BMW X5 SUV. Because the LCD is small, Mercedes doesnt do split-screen for, say, navigation plus infotainment. The navigation system is vanilla. If youre in another screen (say audio setup), when a complex turn approaches, it doesnt temporarily shift back to map view. In navigation view, you do get a split screen showing the exit but not which lanes exit and which go through.
There are as many as 49 buttons on the center stack and at least eight more on the console (a lot). The Comand control wheel and the radio control wheel are satin metal-finish and a bit slippery. Bluetooth is standard but an iPod adapter is not. (A six-disc CD/DVD changer is. Talk about priorities.) Mercedes counters that almost every GL sold will have a premium package that includes a USB/iPod interface. Thats the bad of the center stack.
Heres the good. A 4.5-inch color LCD info display sits between the speedometer and tachometer and lets the driver glance down to see important information (phone, navigation, entertainment). Even better, the Mbrace2 telematics system is world-class and does over-the-air updates. Remember how Ford got stuck mailing out hundreds of thousands of USB keys to upgrade its Sync system? Via Mbrace2 and your phone, you can access apps such as Facebook, Twitter or Yelp, but so far not much in the way of music such as Pandora or MOG.
Should you buy?
What if youre one of the 100,000 US buyers of premium full-size SUVs looking for a new ride? The first GL (2006-2012) already was the sales leader with a quarter of the market, a bit more than the Cadillac Escalade. Almost everything about the 2013 Mercedes-Benz GL is better, including parts that have been, well, Americanized, such as the very light power steering. The GL is phenomenally quiet and the cockpit is handsome. In mostly highway driving with the GL350, the six-cylinder turbo diesel, I got about 23 mpg. Second row roominess is good, though lesser cars (the Ford Flex) are better. The third row is adequate for kids. Even though the GL is a bit longer than the standard Escalade, it looks like a smaller vehicle. These full-size SUVs have more cargo space behind the third row than almost-full-size SUVs such as the Mercedes-Benz ML and BMW X5.
If you buy, youll probably want the premium package that includes navigation; one of the parking sonar packages; Easy Entry ($400) that automatically folds down the second row seats to reach the third row; and the blind spot and lane keep systems (also Distronic if you do long highway trips). Older drivers or country roads drivers should get the lighting package that makes the xenon headlamps (standard) steerable as well. MBTex (vinyl) does a good job replicating the $1,620 base leather package. The GL350 diesel at $63,305 base price with shipping is actually $1,500 cheaper than the V8 gasoline GL450 (usually its the opposite), and I found its more than quick enough. Then youre in for under $75,000.
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