Ah yes... yes yes yes yes

 

I had the exact same problem in my 2025 GLE450e. My Stanley tumbler kept falling over because the spring-loaded clips in the cup holder were too weak to hold the bottle upright.

Here's the solution that worked with my Stanley ice flow tumbler. I bought a 3" shielded pipe coupler from Home Depot for about $11 and used the neoprene/rubber part of it to line my cup holder. The coupler looks like an adjustable aluminum band with a black rubber collar inside of it. I only need the black rubber part, which can be easily removed from the aluminum band and inserted into the cupholder. There is a thin lip that runs around the middle of the black collar, and that helps to grip the tumbler. The fit is quite secure. My tumbler no longer topples over when I'm driving.

When I remove the bottle, the black collar blends in nicely with the cup holder and is relatively unnoticeable. If I want to put something else in the cup holder, I can easily pull out the black collar and stash it in the center console or the storage compartment in the driver's side door. It's a lot less intrusive than those tumbler cup holders that you see online, and it seems to fit perfectly.

SInce rubber is an insulator, the cooling/heating functions of the cup holder will not have any affect on your tumbler's drink temperature while the black collar is in place, but Stanley tumblers are well insulated and can keep drinks cool for about 12 hours. Naturally, the temperature functions will still work as they normally do when you remove the black collar from the cup holder.

Here is a link to the shielded coupler that I bought:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Fernco-P...B&gclsrc=aw.ds

I hope this trick will work for others just as well as it works for me. Until I found this solution, it was so annoying to put my tumbler into my cup holder.

 

that's the dumbest Redisign I've ever seen. Why did they change that?? the one I have in my 2020 are perfect. I hear.they removed the Sunglasses storage compartment too. That's gotta be one of those bridge year builds. 2019/2020. This is the first I've seen of that design in a 2020 GLE.

 

I agree. I'm not sure why they had to sacrifice stability to make the cup holder temperature-controlled. And yes, my 2025 GLE has no compartment for the sunglasses. I think that has something to do with the placement of the sensor for the MBUX gesture control feature. I miss my sunglasses compartment. That was very handy.

 

The non temperature-controlled ones are great, as others have said. There are four "fingers" and the whole thing can retract leaving an open space. You might be able to retrofit that style.

 

I also have the H/C cupholders and agree they are terrible. For me, I slide the piano black cover that goes over the cupholders closed until it hits the cup/bottle. That secures it all in there and prevents the tip over of water bottles and things from hitting the control buttons

 

I just put my drinks in the door pocket.

I bought the non-heated cup holders because of the Goofy heated arrangement.

But in any case, I avoid liquids anywhere my near my switch gear.

 

Does anyone know if you can "close" the gripper like you can on the the 4-finger one on the non-heated and cooled version?

 

How do you close the "gripper"? I tinkered a bit and don't see the how. I know how to close the 4 fingers on the non-H&C version, but not on this one.

 

Cup holders are the number one reason that consumer reports hates Mercedes. (Number two is the lack of gaudy interiors.)

German cars have avoided cup holders for decades. It was considered a safety hazard to drink and drive anything.

Once they succumbed to the demand, I think a German Cupholder Consortium was formed, using Rube Goldberg as their head engineer.

 

Slide the cover until it just touches the bottle or cup - works for me.