So I was recently put in a basic '23 GLC loaner and can bring a counterpoint to your X3 loaner experience and offer my own thoughts on the GLC as well. Let me set the table:

• Was looking for a '22 GLC at this time last year but couldn't find one on the lot that had the "kick to open trunk" feature and many packages were "Lite" (de-contented).
• Considered waiting for the '23 redesign but heard it wasn't coming until April
• Purchased a '23 X3 xDrive30i and have had it for about a year.

Now that I've had a chance to check out the redesigned '23 GLC for a couple hours, here are my thoughts:

1) Large iPad-like interface is very distracting. Was using Spotify and nearly got into an accident trying to reach over to a "button" in the upper right corner. The center console is spacious for phones, cups, etc. The only suitable space to rest the phone appears to be deep within the space, which is hard to get stuff in/out.

2) Due to the width of the center console (nearly same width as the screen), driver space is tighter than even the '22 GLC loaner I've driven in the past. My X3 is the roomiest of the lot apparently. I flew business class on Virgin Atlantic once and they were lined up diagonally to maximize the number of business class seats (my co-worker called them "horse stalls"). While I wouldn't call the driver position a "horse stall", I can't imagine a taller, chubbier person being happy (I'm 5'10" and 200 lb).

3) Engine is not as responsive as my X3 but passed cars reasonably well at speed. I wouldn't discount the car because of the engine!

4) When entering the car, there's no thick handle to grab to close the door. Instead, you have to grab either the cheap, plastic door unlock lever or the top of the storage bin on the door to shut the door. Screams super cheap here!

5) Wireless CP appeared to work reasonably well. I didn't test wireless charging capability (if I even have it).

6) With hands on steering wheel, the lower portion of my left thumb hit the "Cancel" button by accident. I can see this being a pain if I use Cruise Control often.

7) Volume adjustment using the capacitive interface (right hand on steering wheel) works but lags in response. It makes finding the proper volume level more difficult than it needs to be!

8) Opened the trunk lid and was surprised by how high up it got! I had to stand on my tippy toes to push the "close" button! The X3 doesn't go up that high and I can easily fit underneath (maybe a plus for tall folks?). "Kick to open" was working on this car.

9) The texture and feel of the MB-TEX is identical to what I have on the GLS. What's different is the GLS seat has more bolstering and support and probably better suited for long trips compared to the GLC. If my X3 seat is a 6/10, the GLC is no better than 7/10.

There were times I sat in the GLC and wondered if I was in a Tesla! That's how cheap MB has gotten now and the exclamation point is not being able to close the driver door w/o possibly breaking an inside door part!
I'm glad I didn't wait for this GLC and makes me appreciate my X3 even more!

Edit: I found the handle to open the door. It’s a thicker, silver bar where the window buttons and side mirror adjustments are located.

 

We’re still with the GLC loaner as we wait for the passenger side seat cover from MB to arrive. Now that I’ve had some time with the new GLC, the first impression has worn off, in my opinion, BMW has it beat in every single category except for the seat bottom. I won’t be buying a GLC, nor any of these new MB’s in the future. I’m sorry, but the quality is just not there anymore to justify their costs. Not saying I won’t have another MB, but it’ll be used and from the 2014-2019 era.

The engine is buzzy and loud. The start/stop has a delay when wanting to drive again. The transmission lurches / slams into 2,3,4 sometimes. But most annoying is that it holds 1, 2 to force fast warm up. Nothing like rolling down my street at 4,000 rpm in a buzzy 4-banger to give you that old VW feeling, and then pop into 3rd. It squeaks and rattles in the cabin, the radio volume cuts up/down too much as you come to a stop and there doesn't seem to be a way to turn that feature off in the system or audio settings. It’s blinding at night with all of the screens and ambient lighting accents, and not easy to adjust downward. But overall, it just feels cheap. It feels “clipped” together, and not very refined. It’s not in the BMW X3 category. It’s in the VW Tiquan category, and I’d take the VW over the GLC to be honest.

my experience with the new GLC has reconfirmed my feeling and why I started this thread in the first place.

about the only other MB vehicle that would interest me would be the previous generation GLE.

we like our 2020 GLS, and will keep it for as long as it doesn’t start sucking $5k a year out of my wallet for repairs. But once it’s done, and when my 2014 E350 is done, I suspect our experience with Mercedes Benz will be done too. By that time, the types I would want will be too long in the tooth to consider.

Pretty obvious to me the investment thesis at MB is squarely in the “tech”, and the rest of the categories are bumped back a few notches now.

 

Great summary as always. And good comparisons with X3 and Tiguan, both better vehicles than the GLC. MBs have nice exterior cosmetics but are train wrecks otherwise.

 

This one has heads up display and distronic cruise. It has some gadgets. Got in it two days ago to take our daughter to school, and a whole mess of error messages popped up on the screen about all of that stuff when I started it in the garage. This wasn’t working, hit “ok” to clear, then another one, and another one, and another before it finally stopped and gave me my screen back. Seemed fine once we pulled out of the garage, but quite annoying to see at first. When I got out and looked at the 10 year old E sitting next to it, doesn't even have blind spot monitoring, I pointed at it and said “that. Is a mercedes benz. This, is not”.

if the GLC were like $40k-$45k decently optioned, then maybe. But $55k+? Nope. Honestly, it “feels” little different than any of the other mid-level small SUV’s. From Honda to VW to Mazda, all of which cost a heck of a lot less.. An iPad dash isn’t worth $20k to me. Especially when your phone can do all of the same tricks and more..

 

The cheapness is definitely starring in your face with the new models. Had a W223 and W206 loaner so far. The W223 was slightly better but still felt cheap. The W206 felt very cheap. As somebody above mentioned, that brick of hard plastic that's supposed to be the door handle is absolutely horrendous. I also couldn't initially figure out how I'm supposed to close the door until I realized that it's that brick and the fingers go behind it. Couldn't believe how cheap that felt next to the door handle in my C63 wrapped in Nappa leather. The W206 also had all kinds of software issues. I always use CarPlay in loaners and rentals so I have an instant personalized experience instead of fiddling with the car's Infotainment system, but CarPlay was unusable in this W206. It kept disconnecting almost every 5 minutes when I had to actually go somewhere, so I was constantly fiddling with it to the point where I was extremely distracted behind the wheel. Could not believe how bad it was. Supposedly there have been some OTA updates to fix at least some of these issues, but it was just plain obvious how these cars come half baked out of the factory now and the dealerships don't bother to update the loaners. Mercedes me is not activated on the loaners, so no OTA updates coming in. Very unpolished, so early buyers have to deal with all these software issues until they get fixed with an OTA update. I couldn't wait to hand this POS back to the dealer.

 

Sitting at a stop light, turning left with the left turn blinker on. Warning comes up on the dash "left passenger mirror turn indicator light malfunction". Car has 900 total miles on it... Lovely..

 

Took my GLS in for error messages (fixed). Now the rear washer fluid's not working. Going back in...

 

1,200 miles. Fried out sitting in the parking lot of Dunkin Donuts. MB coming to tow it back
to dealer. Pic’s video coming later. Total meltdown. Went in to pick up donuts, came out to start it, would not start and throwing every code it’s got.

chassis is right….

will be looking for a replacement on the GLS soon too..

 

Sorry to hear, please keep us posted. Hoping for as pain free a resolution as possible.

Can't make any of this stuff up.

MB is so bad.

 

what a turd…. Honestly, I can’t think of one time in my entire life where I’ve actually been stranded because of car trouble. From an 87’ GTI onward until this happened on this rainy Saturday morning while trying to get my son and his crew to their cross country event. Car has exactly 1,200 miles..

went into the store to pick up donuts for my wife and daughter while on my way home from dropping the boys off at the school bus for their event. Came back out and hit the start button and it all went sideways. Would not start and began running through all of the errors, from blind spot to transmission to turn signal, everything except the damn air bags going off.

I WOULD THINK LONG AND HARD ABOUT PUTTING YOUR OWN FAMILY IN ONE OF THESE CARS NOW.

Mercedes Benz has a serious problem here.

50 years old. Owned probably 20 cars in my life. From VW, Nissan, Subaru, GM, Lexus, etc… Never once left stranded by any of them, not one time. Until today on a brand new 2023 $60,000 Mercedes Benz GLC with 1,200 miles (500 of which are mine because they can’t seem to get a damn seat cover for split “ever lasting” MBTex”…

my 2014 passenger seat, also MBTex, has a split in it now too. A DAMN DECADE TO GET IT RIGHT and they still can’t do it. The last time I EVER saw a car seat fail, was in a 1984 Mazda 626 sedan… 1984…

My wallet is going elsewhere.

I needed this mess like a hole in the head today…

 

I hit the sos button, sent me to the road side service, told them where the car was, tossed the keys in the arm rest, and called an Uber, which happened to be a 2012 Prius with 500,000 miles on it….

called the dealership and left them a voicemail of what happened, told them to install the driver’s seat cover and give me my GLS back. Will go back once the passenger side cover shows up and will finish this mess up. THREE WEEKS and counting for two seat covers. THREE. WEEKS!! PATHETIC!!!!!

PS, I actually set the appointment to have this done on September 5th for a Sept 26 date… why? So I could have a loaner, and they could go ahead and get the parts in….lot of good that did..

I’ve criticized Chassis before for being so negative on MB. I officially apologize to him. I’m in his camp now.

 

Let us know how that Lexus TX is when you pick it up! Can’t beat Toyota!

 

The shame of it all is the GLC is a gateway car to the rest of the company (my first Benz was a C300). What a way to turn off potential lifelong customers and current ones (through crappy loaners).

 

I wouldn't go that far lol. Why replace a vehicle that you have had a good experience with because of issues with a different model of the same make? I would keep your GLS as long as it doesn't give you problems.

The length of time it takes the dealer to solve an issue and get parts and all is absurd though I agree. I have twice now with separate dealers had them just give me the car back because I got tired of waiting for them to deal with very minor issues. Its almost like MB assumes that there is no urgency at all in returning a customer's vehicle to them.

But, by and large I don't miss all the Lexus vehicles I have had, and one of them was in the shop for 2 weeks too with 400 miles on it. If your specific GLS were giving you all kinds of problems I would ditch it, but I feel no need to get rid of my trouble free S560 because there are issues with other MB Models



My wife was left stranded in her Prius with 45,000 miles on it, had to go rescue her and have it towed. Nothing is perfect, clearly there are significant problems with those new GLCs (my salesman told me that too) but that can happen to you in any car. You've just had a good run!

 

Yeah, but reliability issues on a gateway car is especially bad! The cheaper cars are the most popular due to price and word of mouth is fast (especially w/internet forums).

Having owned a '23 BMW and a '23 MB for a couple of months, I'd say the CR rankings of #1 and #26 respectively sound about right!

 

I have had a good run with the GLS, but I won’t lie that this 48v issue feels like a ticking time-bomb, and one that we absolutely cannot have go off. One, we’re long past warranty, two, I can’t have this thing strand my wife and kids like that.

I’m also curious to see how all of this in general impacts depreciation and value. Having a reputation for perhaps a bad seat cover or eats tires is one thing. But completely shutting off and going into meltdown mode whenever it feels like it with no solid explanation or apparent fix, is a completely different situation. Had I known about this risk, I can assure you I would not have even considered the GLS back in 2020. And can say with 100% certainty that I will not consider any Mercedes Benz product that has this system in it today. In fact I don’t think I would consider it in any manufacturer’s product, Toyota included.

 

It was just in the news that S Class sales have dropped. Specific reasons were not given, but we have at least one member here who got his bought back. Not good for Ola's strategy of focusing the company on the high margin top end models. Maybe it's the economic downturn, maybe it's the issues all these cars have, but it's definitely not a good trend. I agree that loaners should be somewhat of a business card. I've always used loaners to gauge the new models coming out. The new C300 loaner I had twice recently didn't leave me stranded, but the software was so buggy, so there's no way I'm buying a new MB any time soon. Not sure what they are thinking selling these half baked cars, but it's gonna hurt them long term.

 

I think it's a combination of both, with a heavier influence being the economy and current interest rate environment. But no doubt that as more of these types of stories creep out into the market about some death glitch in the MB 48v hyper tech setups, the less appealing they will become for the average buyer. Even those with the ability to spend $150,000 in cash on a car should give some pause to the idea of the amount of time and frustration their car may bring to them in general because of stuff like this. Nobody wants to buy a $150,000 S class, only to be stuck in a C class loaner for weeks on end.

We'll keep the GLS until my wife says she no longer feels like she can trust it. Once she says that, it's gone. Honestly, we're likely to just move on from the German brands in general, maybe give VW/Audi another look (always been good us), but won't be going over to BMW. And doubt Toyota again (or Lexus). I actually road in a Grand Cherokee L a few weeks ago and was quite impressed by it. Very comfortable, nice ride, excellent wood trim accents, etc. The long 3-row version. Coworker has one, her 4th Jeep in a row, replaced her 2011 Grand Cherokee with this new one recently. We're starting to feel like we've "done that" on the high end flashy cars now. Struggling to see the need to spend so much for them when we're not really seeing the return on the cost other than a bit of the ego stroke for having a "Mercedes Benz". Ego only lasts for so long, thankfully.

This whole debacle reminds me of Jaguar about 20 years ago when they had some fuel system issue. The car would just shut off as you were driving. I remember a story about someone in the FL Keys getting killed by it.

 

I could be wrong but I think the GLS has its roots in the Grand Cherokee L. Just do a side by side and it's eerily similar:
https://www.edmunds.com/car-comparis...veh2=401951869

 

I would not get a Jeep if reliability is anything you are concerned about lol. I’m on my 5th Chrysler vehicle now, and reliability and Chrysler don’t belong in the same sentence. My 2020 Pacifica was towed out of the garage at 15,000 miles, my 2017 one was off fhe road for 5 weeks in 36 months and my 2011 Jeep was in the shop for 27 warranty repairs before 40k miles.

I keep getting them because they are excellent cars for the money, and we lease them and they never have over 35000 miles when we ditch them, but I would never own one out of warranty. The Grand Cherokee is an excellent vehicle and very premium for the money, great platform. We seriously considered one before we got the new Pacifica, but reliability is not a reason why we would have chosen one. Gotta get the V8 because the V6 GCL is extremely slow, so gas mileage will be terrible too.

Wanting a reliable car and excluding Toyota and Lexus makes no sense. May as well just stick with the GLS, and hybrids have been around forever, it’s going to be very hard to find a modern car that doesn’t have a 48v system.

If reliability is what you are most concerned about, you have to heavily consider a Toyota or Lexus…just get a Grand Highlander or a Lexus TX, nowhere near the caliber of the GLS But the reliability will be there without question. I did it for a long time as you know but the product just bores me now and honestly I’d rather have something more exciting that needs a repair every now and then.

 

No, the WK2 grand Cherokee was based on the old ML platform that dated from before 2010, but the modern two vehicles have nothing in common at all.

 

VWAudi is worse now. They have huge issues. The only company there that keeps things afloat is Porsche at the moment. VAG has huge software and quality issues. Under Herbert Diess the VW products have visibly cheapened. He tried to be the Elon Musk of Germany, but as a result VW customer satisfaction suffered one of the biggest drops in history. Something like 75% drop in customer satisfaction and VW is now scrambling to fix their cars. They were the first to say that they gonna abandon the capacitive touch buttons and go back to physical buttons. I had a new Golf 8 on a trip to Europe earlier this year. Still drove like a Golf so that was great, but the interior and infotainment were a complete disaster. Many of the buttons are not even lit at night. No idea who had that brilliant idea at VW when they were designing this stuff. Can't find the climate controls at night and such. Stay away from VAG, except maybe Porsche would be my advise. I've been an Audi guy, but I switched to AMG because of their current lame products and general issues, but now it's starting here, too.

 

+1
The longest owned cars in the house were a 2002 Camry and 2011 Sienna. We only got out of the Sienna bc of dents and cosmetic reasons.
If my current brand-new GLS continues to give me issues (a grudge purchase for me since wife loves MB), I have absolutely no issue checking out the TX. Who knows, the TX maybe already be in the second model year and hybrids may no longer command an ADM by the time it's time to punt the GLS. Hopefully it will be a wash price-wise to trade into the top of the line 550h+!

 

The TX though is not a GLS. It’s transverse/FWD with cheap macpherson strut suspension. It’s just nowhere near on the same level. Honestly if you’re happy with that you wasted your money on the GLS…

I would get a TX for a family vehicle as a minivan replacement etc but I would never get one for me to drive as my primary vehicle. I want that premium platform and sophisticated suspension etc.

Honestly a good buy if you are concerned about reliability in the GLS is an X7 with the I6 (not the V8!)

 

Don't know if you heard but there's been quite a bit issues w/newer X7s concerning the brake booster and lack of physical buttons.

The way I see it, if the Germans can't get their act together, it may be time to go back to the Japanese.