The vast majority of MB suv for sale here in Manitoba Canada 90% are diesel. I've never owned one, but have heard they can be hard on fuel and have poor heat for short trip driving, which I do a lot of. How much truth to this? Judging from how many 350D I see compared to gas versions, I'm thinking that is why! I do recall Blackmon the 90's thatbat stoplights the heat would drop right off

I know lot of Canadians MB models do have electric cabin heater coupled with high-power alternator.
Just find 1 of those. Other option is adding webasto-type heating.
Chinese copies of Webasto sell for $100

Thanks I was not aware of nor do I see any factory offerings for an electric heater powered by the engine. The webasto heating I think you are referring to is a block heater type. Only used for heating engine while the vehicle is parked and not running.

Webasto come with whole variety of designs.
When the coolant heaters main purpose is engine heating, they can circulate coolant into cabin heater as well.
But just for cabin heating - the air heaters can be bought for about $100. I have 1 ready for my Sprinter installation.
Adding it to sedan require some skills and more safety issues, that's probably why MB is not offering them in America.
Even I live in hot climate, the electric heater was like $200 option on Ford, so I order it. Made the truck very comfy on cold mornings in Alaska.
The way I see electric heaters working is dual benefit.
1 electric heater pumps warm air into the cabin on instant
2 additional load on engine brings it to warm faster.

Thanks but I think you are not understanding of my question.
What is heat like when driving. Diesels from the past did not have good heat

Diesels are efficient and don't waste as much heat as a gasser. This is why you see many diesel trucks (both light duty and semi) with grill covers on the winter. No reason you can't do the same with a car.

Understood but I would still like to know if they do or do not produce good heat. Most of my driving is very short trip

Short answer, yes. We have a BT and there's absolutely no problem keeping the cabin warm regardless of the outdoor temps. Engine comes up to temps quickly enough.
Now obviously, if you're parked outside in -20* temps and need to drive 5 minutes to work, no car will heat up quickly enough for you. But a diesel would be the worst choice, and not just because of a possibly longer warm-up time.

Thanks.
Temps to -40 actually.
We have a house that was built 8 years before the Titanic sailed. No plans for a garage. We live in a very small 'city' of 12 000, so almost all of my driving is very short trip. Yes its 5 minutes to work.
There actually isnt much online regarding running diesels in our climate. It also doesn't seem like I will find what I want option wise in a diesel, but since there are so many for.sale I didnt want to rule them out. 90% of the gle's for sale here (in Canada) are diesel, and I assumed long warm up times for efficiency and stop and go driving in -40 weather resulting in poor heat at stoplights are a couple of reasons why there are so many of them for sale here, and I would much rather here the truth from someone that isnt wanting to sell me something!

My assumption is that if you are not making regular longer trips of say 50 kilometers or more then a diesel would not be the best choice, as you said, for more than one reason.

I bundle up well after remote starting my gas vehicle wait about 5 minutes then drive to work. When its -40 and the windchill is close to -50 or more I'll warm it up longer, but never to the end of the remote start cycle, so about 10 minutes. When it is that cold I also take the "Scenic route" to and from work in order to get everything well up to temp. With that short of a drive the temp never comes up to norm.

I drive a Murano Platinum right now. It's ok but the Gle or gls ,which might be bigger than I like, have more of the options I miss having, like heated cooled massaging seats etc, more engine options, more options period!
I do miss my 400+ horsepower awd luxury sedan and would prefer to go that route, but I'm pushing 60 and my wife's health isnt getting any better so I'm now looking at probably staying with a crossover. Easier egress and ingress for her and utilitarian capabilities I need.
I'm sure liking what I see in the gle amg 43 so far and haven't ruled out a Gle 63, although it looks like my wallet says no. Lol. The gle seems like about the right size etc.

Thanks all!

If I was in your shoes, I'd probably not get the diesel. But if I did get it, it would always be parked indoors, block heater plugged in. I think you guys can plug it in when you park outside in town? So that and making sure I have some kind of device that tells me when dpf regeneration cycle starts.
hth

Sounds like a scenario where you'd want a Smartkey Starter system.

I own the 2014 ML 350 Bluetec. I would not buy a diesel if I drove 20km or less each way to/from work. Very very hard on the engine, oil, etc.....you are asking for problems down the road: DPF clogging, NOX sensors needing early replacement. The diesels need to be "driven", ie long distances on highway to allow the regen cycle to clean/clear-out the DPF, burn-off soot build-up on the NOX sensors. Oil temperature needs at least 20-30km or longer to burn out any moisture condensation. Anything less than that will not get the oil hot enough to evaporate or burn out the moisture in the oil and therefore creating sludge. So do yourself a favour and do not buy a diesel.

That's the kind of stuff I was needing to hear.
All makes sense to me.
I actually have a bit of a condensation problem in my gas burner which makes me take the Scenic route home from work often. My extended service synthetic doesn't last very long, and I see the foamy sludge starting to build up in my oil cap. From whatbyoubjusr explainedvit would be the death of a diesel.

I discovered last week at -31 that my block heater had stopped working, so until I get that fixed I'm using my remote start cold weather function. It starts the car every 2 hours and it runs for 3 minutes. Glad I have this option as a temp solution to make sure I make it to work. I doubt very much we will see anything close to -30 any more this winter...

Thanks for educating me on what a diesel is like. I have never considered buying one so I never had the need to research them and besides, I'm pretty sure I would miss my 4 second 0-60 romps anyhow. Lol

Mercedes makes build-in block heaters on diesels for last 50 years, so that should make it easy for starters.
When DPF and DEF equiped systems do need to burn the soot every 1000 or 1500 km, new stuff comes on the market every day.
Last year ScanGauge come with X-gauges for our engines, so monitoring sot level and seeing regeneration status, I can plan on taking longer trip when regeneration is pending. That did not happen very often, but last time took me 10 miles city driving for full DPF regeneration.
Still if short trips is all you do - get electric car. Any combustion engine need about 15 km to come to operating temperatures and not getting it warm will lead to problems.