Hi everybody!

I am newish to the forum. Signed up last week and posted in the GL section. I had been a lurker a couple of years ago when I was looking to buy a C43 sedan, but ended up going to Audi for my daily driver. Well 10 days ago the wife's '15 GLK350 went back to Mercedes at lease turn in. We had just had our first born a month ago, and decided we needed a bigger family SUV than the GLK can do. Otherwise our experience with the car had been wonderful, and it handled like a dream up here in the frozen Northland with dedicated snow tires. Anyways, there was a '15 GL63 available at our dealer. We made plans to go check it out yesterday, but as it turned out it had a deposit holding it and a pending sale. We were a little disappointed but ended up taking a '17 GLE63S for a spin. Car had 13.5K miles on it. The interior looked and felt brand new. Exterior nearly spotless, save for one tiny scuff. Wasn't planning on spending that much money but made the mistake of getting behind the wheel of this thing! A couple of hours later we were driving off the lot with it. The truth hasn't yet hit, even though I drove us 2.5 hours home but needless to say I am so excited about joining the AMG club!

Car is murdered out black on black. This color scheme had never been my thing but for some reason I think it works well on this car. The interior is accented with white stitching, and while normally I prefer bright interior, the black leather and ambient LED lighting gives the cabin a very cozy feel. The interior feels extremely rich with the Nappa leather everywhere and suede headliner. The engine is out of this world. I have not gone flat out, nor will I with the baby in the back but can tell with a quarter throttle tip in that there's tons of horses under the surface waiting to be unleashed. Sports exhaust sounds the business, and surprisingly quiet at highway cruising speeds. To me the most shocking was how comfortable the ride was. This is an AMG tuned truck sitting on 21" low profile wheels, yet in comfort mode soaked up our crappy Minnesota roads nicely. We had just tested an X5M and riding in the back by the baby in that thing felt like I was in a blender and that car was also in the comfort mode.

The car interface felt very familiar but still different from the '15 GLK. We are going back next week for a full walkthrough of the car, as last night was getting late and I had to get to work for my night shift. A couple of options are missing and would have been nice, like the panoramic sunroof, and why oh why if you live in Minnesota would you not spend the $250 and option the heated steering wheel? But it is what it is, when you buy a used car, unless you are super lucky or willing to wait for a long time, you will end up missing an option or two. One option package, the premium 3 has all the safety features and is equipped in this car. I had never used adaptive cruise or active "nannies" and thought they'd be useless but actually the adaptive cruise was quite intuitive on the freeway.

As for any criticism, hmmm not much. I suppose the front seats could be a bit more comfortable. The lower cushion bolsters were a bit annoying but I'm sure I'll learn to live with them. I was very nervous spending that kind of money on a used car. Last used car I'd bought was a '95 Oldsmobile Cutless Sierra with a 180K miles on it, and have only had new cars since. The condition of the car though and mileage helped ease my mind a little bit. Hope I made the right call.

Thanks for reading my ponderous post and happy to join the community!

Dunga