Hi all,

Here is my opinion and thoughts on the 1 year mark of owning a 2020 GLS 450.

A little background, I have a wife and 3 year old twins, we like to do road trips and even during covid we get to drive around during the weekend, we have clocked over 12000 miles in the year we have owned it.

It drives really well, I love the heated seats and steering wheel and mostly the massaging seats. They work well for some long distance trips. Cornering is great fun even for a large vehicle, and definitely drives smaller than it looks, pop it in sport and the suspension drops and you can push pretty hard.

For around town, I use comfort settings and raise the suspension for that little extra softness, the augmented reality is great for when you are in unfamiliar places. I really like the large trunk space when the 3rd is down, great for carrying all the paraphernalia that we need for the kids.

Now for the not so good, when we first got the car we had an issue with the doors squeaking and making noises when going over any bumps, after spending multiple days on separate occasions at the dealer, it is now fixed. Then there is the wind noise, yes I hear it but my wife does not, it is not too frequent that I hear it, however it is there. I have not asked the dealer about getting this fixed, because that means more days in service. We also had an issue with the sensitivity of the windscreen wipers, where it is not sensitive enough. Also the navigation was not able to search for anything, as in typing an address will not show up anything. It would time out with and error message, even after it spent 2 days in service getting an update. I get it back and we'll that issue is still not fixed, so back it goes.

Then there are some other issues as well, like the collision assist feature keeps showing an error when driving, as well as the high beam assist throws an error, even after making sure the sensors are clean. My front passenger window has stopped working, so it needs to go in to get fixed. The break peddle squeaks everytime I press it, this is a recent noise, so it is not normal.

Overall I am not a happy about the quality of my $96k car, I feel like it has spent more times in the service bay than I have had it at home. I am wondering if this is normal and I am just got high expectations for it or I have a lemon of sorts.

 

These reliability and repair issues are some of the reasons that Consumer Reports marked the GLS as an unacceptable vehicle. Good old Made in America I would say about the squeaks and rattles.

 

Yeah but in MB’s defense - if we all bought what Consumer Reports suggests, we’d all be driving Corollas! Ha! I lost faith in that magazine when I two of their best-ever cars - Lexus LS400 and GS430. Both ended up being total pains in my a$$ over soft rubber bushings and mounts. Yet the best vehicle I’ve ever owned have been 3 VW GTI’s back to back to back since 2010. So I just don’t believe everything they say. But will admit, some of it is really good.

OP, being a year into the car here, I’m willing to bet you got one of the very first few batches off the line, which was likely sputtering anyway due to Covid. Not sure, but sounds like it. Ours is up to 15k on and August purchase and has been fine, no real problems. Who knows but sorry to hear the issues!

 

No that is definitely not normal. Sounds like a lemon unfortunately, although I'm not sure if it fits the legal definition.

There is anecdotal evidence that the first ones off the line had a lot of issues. Mine is a 2020 GLS 580 fully loaded but it has a code for "Half Model Year" so I'm guessing they fixed some things. I've had it for 8 months now and haven't had a single issue with it.

Regarding Consumer Reports I find them to be mostly useless. They pick the dumbest reasons for their ratings. I once read a review of the one of the highest-end blu-ray players and they gave it a negative review because they didn't like the button layout on the remote control.

 

Unfortunately those are the travails of early adopters of 100% newly designed vehicles, particularly one with an inordinate amount of new tech. Luckily, your problems have been primarily annoyances rather than truly dangerous problems or issues that leave you stranded. We are nearing 3000 miles (21 model) on ours and luckily seem to have one with zero issues. Fingers crossed. As to where the car is built, it has zero to do with it, unless, the factory is brand new which its not by a long shot. Mercedes Alabama factory is probably one of the best if not the best manufacturing facility for the brand. A good general rule is to avoid first year production cars for any brand but European premium brands in particular.

 

Really? Better than Factory 56 in Sindelfingen? Why do you say that?

 

Over the last several months of ownership since October, I have experienced many of the same issues, including:

- Rain sensing wipers not sensing rain
- Collision sensor / headlight warnings
- Driver's side window hasn't failed, but it sounds like there are marbles in the window when rolling down. It's only a matter of time.
- I also had a crazy loud fan that they had to replace.

I'm done with the dealership at this point. They fixed 1 and 4 above, but I'm just living with the irregularities. I love the car, but I don't think I'll be owning another MB any time soon.

 

Yeah, I am not sure if I would be buying another Merc, the car has been in for 4 days now and 10 in total, and they are still working on it. My dealer is going to push for some pre paid maintenance or extended warranty, but to be honest I might trade it in sooner rather than later.

 

Actually I think Consumer Reports' overarching complaint was that M-B cupholders were inferior to Hyundai. Watch their video review - it's like a 70's SNL. They just couldn't leave the cupholder thing.

 

Sorry to hear of troubles but I wouldn't give up on MB yet. The 2020 was redesigned and with any brand first model year, you are bound to have quirks & gremlins that they sort out later. It's actually quite common with new model year.

Here's my two-cents: I've had my GLS450 since Oct 2020, just reached 10k mi. and it's going in for service this week. We have a family of 4 (incl teen & tween), love the captains chairs and all the room in the back. I've also towed a few trailers and it's easy to drive. Now with the quirks, you'll see some in common:

- Rear passenger window switch failed. After about 3-mo my son's window wouldn't work properly so I took it in but didn't have any switches in stock, had to order. Oddly, the window shade goes up/down perfectly.
- Rain sensing wipers went lame. Seemed like they worked great in the beginning but now slow to notice moisture on the windshield
- Collision sensing too sensitive as noted
- Wind noise: I'm convinced this is in the mirror design, my wife does not hear it on the passenger side but it's whistling on mine off/on
- Distronic: Excellent feature but far too sensitive now. I'd say more jerky than previous versions of Distronic. Previoulsy, I owned a 2012 E63 with Distronic and it was phenomenal, it almost seemed like there was a built in 'degree of freedom' so it wasn't overly sensitive

Overall, I'm not surprised by these due to the pandemic builds and first MY....this is not the norm.

 

My January ‘21 GLS 580 with under 300 miles has it’s first problem. The passenger back window doesn’t stay closed all the way. I’m guessing it was that way from the start since it’s only down a smidge - I wouldn’t know if the app/car didn’t tell me.

 

Mine just spent a week in the service department because of the reasons I mentioned. So all got fixed and got the call to pick it up, halfway home had collision assist fail again, so they are going to replace the camera. As for the wind noise, that is a design fault and they have it on my service record that they are re designing the mirrors and a fix should be in by November. The other issues have been fixed, so far.

With the rain sensor going lame, go take it in and ask for them to update the software on all the components, they updated 14 of mine and now the rain sensor is working just fine, I had the same issue as you..

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That’s a, if not THE, most common issue on MBs. To fix it, follow the instructions in Google:

Resetting the side windows