http://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/...t-drive-review

 

Pointless review IMO with very few details of the overall changes and improvements. There is a lot more to the GLS than the 9-speed tranny. Typical C&D review I guess, if its not a race car, the reviews are so-so.

 

I think refresh reviews are a little ho-hum in general because refreshes do not inspire auto journalist much --- and they reviewed the heck out of the original release of the X166 back in 2012 and 2013. It's like your boss asking you to redo something with a few optimizations a few years later. No fun in that. So it becomes a task rather than an exciting, exploratory, fresh story. And of course as consumers and auto enthusiast, our expectations are high, and we want to know everything there is about any refresh and want it to be more involved and engaging.

BTW, I read a refresh article last week and it mentioned the incredibly silent ride, extra care into sound deafening materials, the quietest ride of any SUV on the market! Quieter than a Range Rover? How quiet is a Range Rover btw?

I'm very curious about this and JoeMa also mentioned in an earlier post about the new GLE being very quiet, more so than the ML it replaced, and more so than the X116 GL.

So this peaked enough interest and I did some db research and was surprised about what I found. The quietest ride out there ~60 mph is about 59 db and I think it was the Audi A8. All the Mercedes upmarket vehicles were dead-set at ~63 db. Even my '13 RRS which I felt was the quietest ride around, with its side acoustic windows, is 68 db! And would imagine the FFRR being around 63 db.

And although the GL was't listed on the research sheets I found, the S-Class, ML, etc., etc., were all falling into the 63 db range.

My point is that I used to get really hung up on this stuff and in all honesty, even if the refresh GL is the quietest ride around, it's probably only quieter by a few dbs. My research has taught me to re-frame myself from the db obsession with vehicles in this price range. And if I want the quietest ride around, I'll likely need to get a Rolls Royce or Bentley. Because the mass-market, up-market manufacturers seem to be very happy with that magic 63 db range across their products with a few outliers such as Audi.

 

Good point and thanks for the research, very interesting. I owned a 2010 Lexus LS460 and it was very quiet. I've test drove the new S-class a few times and it is also very quiet. Like you, I love quiet vehicles and think this is something many buyers don't think about when test-driving a new vehicle.

 

I'll try and do some more research, maybe I can find something on the LS460. Great car btw.

This is from 2008 but really helps with context. Quite a few surprises in here!

http://sniperslaststand.blogspot.com...etest-car.html

 

You are thinking of the LX570 which I also owned (2011) but I traded that on the GL. I really did not like the LX570, it was to high and the ride is very truck-like. Our GL literally blows it away in every possible way.

Our 2010 Lexus LS460 is their largest sedan.

 

Haha, yeah I caught myself there and edited that post. I was very close to getting a '16 Land Cruiser but after exploring the '15 we decided it was too truck-like as well. But they are amazing off-road if you ever needed to do so.

 

Silent dB of 58 vs 63 is very very hard for even professional musician and audio engineer to tell the difference since there is no reference like loud music. Usually a move of +/- 3dB with actual music or noise is noticeable by regular folk's ear. so 5dB of very very little noise difference is almost impossible to tell without electronics. Therefore the battle of using dB as the reference is inaccurate as sound comes in all levels of Hertz and if the deadening is more useful for lower end sounds (bass) or higher end sound (treble) is probably more useful of a test when figuring out cabin noises. But, I don't think the industry, at least in journalism of the industry, is focused on those metrics yet.

 

Actually - the study and impact of "psycho-acoustics" has been a engineering category heartily pursued by Daimler since mid-90's - and yes, the landscape of that category is a bit broader than "just db" - select excerpt attached

Another example - based on db - hood up or hood down - current BlueTech engines are quieter in db than direct injection gas engines - db analysis shows disel cabins quiter - "yet" pscho-acoustics analysis across test subjects shows subjects hear/prefer gas engines as quieter... another door closing, or hood closing sounds.. actually a big engineering component for design

 

Excerpt attached