Sunday. Day 2 of our life with a Mercedes-Benz GLK 350 4matic.

Ambient temperature is about 80F. Baby Precious is parked in the driveway in the shade. Trusty digital tire guage at the ready. Left front Pirelli Scorpion tire: 40 psi. Not cool at all. 3 more: 40 psi. Bummer. Solution: Let 5 psi / tire escape and comingle with the lovely clean air of the Upper East Side of Texas. OK. Now we're good. 35 psi / tire. Yes. I looked at the fuel filler door sticker. Yes. I looked at the B piller door post sticker. One of those, as we all know, is useless unless you are transporting 3 NFL linemen. I leave it to each individual to figure out which one.
Question: The onboard tire pressure readings are equal to or within a pound of my digital tire guage setting. Do I need to perform the TPMS reset/calibrate thingie mentioned in the manual?

Moving right along...

This time Baby Precious was parked in the garage. Opening the hood for the first time I was struck dumb by the appearance of, wait, the complete absence of the appearance of an automobile engine. OK, the color scheme exactly matches our interior. That is cool. The garage is rather dark so I turned on all available lights. Opened the manual. Found an illustration that pointed me to the general quadrant of the oil dipstick. I located a pale green mushroom shaped plastic do-hickey behind the engine at about 11 o'clock from the 3 point Star in the grill. The shape was easily grasped. I leaned way over, first placing a soft towel over the right front fender, and began extracting what I presumed to be the oil dipstick. "What the heck?" 3 feet or so of stainless steel oil dipping wire rope. Bizarre.
Extract s.s. wire. Wipe. Insert and keep pushing.
Extract s.s. wire. Wipe. Insert and thread all the way in.
Extract s.s. wire. Take out into the sunlight. The red plastic thingie on the end of the s.s. wire is covered in a transparent oily film. I assume there is enough oil in my 3.5L engine to prevent siezures and malfunctions.
Repeat. Same conclusion. Good to go?
Send Noble Prize in Physics nomination papers to Stockholm for the Rube Goldberg Oil Level Checking Device of this and the previous century.

Discovery: Main light switch in "A" for Auto. Press rear fog light switch to turn it on. LED strips in front turn off. I knew that. The low beam headlights turn on!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our GLK 350 can see and be seen in low light situations prior to the Auto function taking over. Driving around today in varying conditions, the headlights turned on/off several times. Cool!

The cruise control is AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!! From 20 mph and up it holds the speed uphill and down. Love it!

Wayne
and loving the 2012 GLK 350 4matic.

 

I still don't understand why they did this

So are you happy about the Auto light situation?

 

I don't understand why they removed multi-purpose H-1 halogen bulb fog lights to put on the LED strip. Then they don't even fill the available space with LEDs. The LEDs could be placed higher leaving room for the fog lights. You should be able to have the Xenons AND front fog lights. LEDs too if you like.

No worries. The Xenon headlights/cornering lights are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO worth it! More importantly, Lisa likes the arrangement. That is all that matters.

The rain sensing wipers are as nice as the cruise control. Totally awesome.

ps: I think I have devised a method for viewing the invisible oil film on the red plastic oil dipper device.

Wayne

 

The secret to a happy life...

 

Lisa, "This is a really comfortable car Wayne."

Priceless!

Wayne

 

Interesting feature on cruise control. There are two detent positions on the CC stalk move the stick up to 1st detent and the speed goes up by one MPH move it to the 2nd detent and the speed goes up to the next 5 MPH ex. going 61 MPH move to 1st detent and speed moves to 62 MPH go to the 2nd detent and the speed moves to 65 MPH. very cool Works the same to slow down

 

Yep. I use that to good advantage going through small towns & villages. The sequence is generally 60 - 55 - 45 - 55 - 60. I can tap that down & up and never touch the accelerator or brakes. Our neighborhood has some steep hills & 25mph limit. The cruise control uses the brakes to hold 25mph, or whtever speed is set, going downhill. Very helpful and safe.

The Adaptive Brake Preset has to be experienced to be believed. Practice on a lonesome road with nobody behind you.

Wayne

 

Oh I remember how excited I was when I got my "11 GLK (well, not that much really, I just traded my "10 C350), that lasted about a month and then flipped it 6mos later for a "12 E350 Coupe... Enjoy the ride... you should share your new found excitement with member 420tee - he could use some of that GLK optimism!

 

Just because you got the wrong car doesn't make the GLK a bad choice for everyone.

I wanted a small SUV and the GLK fits the bill perfectly.

 

After unsucessful previous attempts to like/fold up in the C-Class and Pre-C-Class sedans, the GLK was the perfect answer: A C-Class sedan with proper seating and luggage space. Case in point: On our first road trip yesterday, it was nice to look down upon a C250 as it passed us.

Wayne

 

My GLK was excellent, no complaints and no problems of any kind (if you were talking to me), I'm just flipping cars to go up the line. If I needed it again, I would buy it again... without question... I was speaking of 420tee finding fault with everything in his GLK...

 

"Oh I remember how excited I was when I got my "11 GLK (well, not that much really, I just traded my "10 C350), that lasted about a month..."


Made it sound like you were disappointed with it after just one month.