2021 Mercedes GLS 450 // Is it BETTER than X7 or Escalade??

what's going on youtube so while the mercedes g-wagon is the most expensive suv in the mercedes lineup this right here this gls 450 is the flagship three row and owns the largest suv and the mercedes lineup this is the s-class of suvs as mercedes calls it and it's packing even more luxury and equipment for 2021 but with tons of rivals is this the luxury three-row crossover you should buy let's go ahead and find out [Music] so this gls was just fully redesigned last year so as you'd expect for 2021 the design is going to carry over pretty much the same way so up here on the front you've got that very familiar looking mercedes face we have our two silver bars that run through the grill and a very large mercedes emblem right there featured prominently of course down here at the bottom you also have a nice chrome accent as well now as we slide over to the headlights again you have a very advanced full led setup as standard equipment mercedes actually brags that this is the brightest led that's available or allowable in the u.s by law so you're definitely going to have plenty of brightness obviously all this is fully led like i said and you do have adaptive abilities as well now next up we have our wheels where we have a ton of different options as you would expect now new for 2021 we have a standard 20-inch contrast alloy instead of the previous silver 19-inch alloys but you do still have eight other options you can pick between going all the way up to a inch alloy if you choose that gls 580 now heading up here to our mirrors of course they're going to come with every single feature so you have power folding auto dimming blind spot monitoring and heating now walking at the side here you can obviously tell this is a very long vehicle and it's coming in at 205 inches in length but making our way around to the rear you're going to see that this is not once again the most flashy option in the segment obviously like an escalade or maybe a bmw x7 has a more classy or flashy design this is straying on the elegant side so as far as what you're going to get you have a chrome piece that intersects between the two tail lights and then as far as the taillights themselves as you would expect they are going to be fully led including the brake light and turn signal and reverse light and then if we drop down further below that we have this really nice chrome accent in between the two exposed exhaust outlets now even though this is a flagship level mercedes-benz you're not going to get the safety system standard so you will get ford emergency braking standard but you will have to add the driving assistance plus package to get all the other systems but they have added new features for 2021. so if you get that you're going to get active lane keeping assist active blind spot monitoring and their semi-autonomous adaptive cruise control system well guys that's going to sum up the classy exterior design of this mercedes-benz gls but i know there's a ton a ton of luxury on the inside so let's go ahead and check that out but before we do that it would really help us out if you hit that subscribe button down below so walking up to this gls 450 of course you will find a standard smart entry system with the latest mercedes key fob and you can remove start via the mercedes me application and then to get inside the vehicle just grab behind the handle when you do your mirrors will fold out [Music] all right and taking a look inside of this cabin of course as you expect for a very high-end mercedes suv you're gonna have a very high-end interior with a lot of nice materials on board now speaking of materials let's go ahead and talk about that you do have some new color and material options this year so you're going to start out with mb texas standard on this gls 450. we have the optional real leather on this example and that's going to come in black macchiato espresso or tartufo color options you can even further upgrade to nappa leather however if you want something even a little bit nicer now turning over here to your door trim you're going to see the same materials up here so we have the machiato leather with the double color contrast stitching all through here top part is going to be finished in a soft touch plastic and of course we have extensive use of wood on this model this is a blackened ash wood now you notice your seat controls up here they're going to be 14 wave power adjusting and standard equipment including your headrest and your power thigh extension you do also have three person memory seating as well now over here you're going to notice your heating and ventilated seats this is new for 2021 seat ventilation is now standard equipment so you don't have to pay extra for that as far as your windows of course they're going to be one touch auto for all four now taking a look over here at the seat itself like i already mentioned this is a real leather i do like the design of it you've got a lot of different stitching details and nice perforation inside now even though this is not a very tall vehicle on this specific example we do have the illuminated running boards so they do help a little bit now like with any mercedes you can customize the interior pretty much any way you want to but let's look at the materials for this particular model across our upper dashboard this is going to be a leatherette material with the color contrast stitching detail it goes all down through here then right through the middle you have a really large piece of that open pour wood trim that runs all through here that's going to continue down here as well which looks really nice and then you also have the leatherette continuing over top of the big signature handlebars with the aluminum trim and of course this is a mercedes-benz after all everything fits together absolutely seamlessly despite a kind of complex design now start it up put your foot on the brake and press the standard button so of course after you start the vehicle up you're going to be greeted with that signature dual 12.3 inch display that mercedes is known for over here on the gauge cluster side of course you have very vivid graphics it is fully customizable via this touch sensitive pad here on the steering wheel so you can just swipe to the different panels and change each of these to have their own unique types of information depending on whatever you are looking for there is also an optional head-on display but we don't have it on this specific example now coming back to the steering wheel we've got the signature mercedes design of course it is going to be leather wrapped you have the piano black accents throughout as far as the wheel itself it is going to be power adjusting we also have the optional heating and you have standard rain sensing wipers but anyways let's go ahead and check the interior storage because this is a family suv after all so we'll start out underneath our center console here opens up in that typical split way and as you can see it is a pretty nicely sized bin nice felt lining in it as well and you do have a usb port but we got to put it to the test so let's get out our thick stack of coupons i don't know if you really need that in a vehicle like this but you know if you don't you can pretend like this is just a big stack of cash or something like that as you can see fits perfectly fine now up in front of that you've got this big surface here and if you pull back this lid this is where you'll be greeted with another storage area so we've got our two cup holders as you can see we do have the optional heating and cooling for the cup holder so that's a really interesting and luxurious touch this part here doubles as a wireless phone charging pad you've got two usb type-c ports as well as a 12 volt out now of course in typical mercedes fashion there is no shifter down here that's because it's mounted up here on the steering wheel so for drive just push down on the shifter you do have paddle shifters on the back of the steering wheel and if we'll reverse press up when you do you're gonna come over here and be greeted with the standard 360 degree surround view camera system obviously as you can see you have active trajectory you have front and rear parking sensors and then off there on the side you can swipe between a large number of different views for your corners your side make sure you don't scrape your nice rims all that stuff you also have automatic parallel and perpendicular parking abilities as well and then for park just press the end of the stock now as we come down here to our center console you'll be greeted with the mbux controller you also have buttons that are surrounding it as well including for your drive modes you have different uh things regarding your camera systems and then over here on this side you have your controls for the audio system so with this model we have a standard 590 watt 13 speaker burmister surround sound system that is already a pretty nice sound system like i said a standard equipment but you can get a 1600 watt 26 speaker high-end 3d sound system for the small price of 5400 uh but that with that said most of we're going to come with this so let's go ahead and give this standard system a sample [Music] [Applause] [Music] so overall sound quality is definitely excellent nice and full sound plus as always definitely love the beautiful detailing in these burmester metal speaker grills now returning back over here to our climate controls for 2021 we now have a standard four zone automatic climate control setup you can also get a five zone automatic climate control setup if you want to be or have a lot of extra adjustability but as far as this one is concerned very simple to use you just have your metal toggles for your temperature adjustment which displays up there in the screen and then you have physical controls for all the adjustments including for the fan speeds and you can do the back as well now i do want to mention something that i didn't point out earlier and that's the fact that we do have heated arm rest as well as optional in the warmth and comfort package okay and now let's jump up here to our mb ux system so this of course is mercedes newest system on board and like i mentioned earlier this is a 12.3 inch touch display so you can touch it you can control it with this steering wheel pad as well as the pad down there on the center console we do have standard navigation system on board and this does also come with the augmented reality navigation where it displays uh instructions on to a live camera feed of the road and front view and then of course as you would expect we do have android auto and apple car play abilities as well now moving on from that we have an auto dimming mirror frameless design and your homework universal remotes built into the bottom of it and then up here at the very top this is our panoramic sunroof so this is available as an option for 1 000 on the gls 450 as you can see we do have a kind of opaque sunscreen which opens up very quietly i will add and this is a huge piece of glass alrighty guys so i'm in the gls's rear scene obviously when you get into this segment the large luxury three rows these rear seats get really really luxurious and spacious as well so let's talk about the space first we have 42 inches of rear leg room 40 inches of your headroom obviously that's a ton of space that is right on par with that of the bmw x7 as well as the cadillac escalade and behind your seating position i have an incredible amount of space i mean it is just like i'd say at least a foot if not more space and my feet can slide up underneath the seat it is worth knowing though that this seat is slid all the way back and talking about sliding it is going to be power adjusting and that's actually standard on all gls models so as you can see over here on the door trim just like the front i have my own rear seat controls i can adjust the back i can even do the head rest how bougie is that now also here on the door we do have heated rear seats that's going to be an option on the gls and with that also comes the heated armrest so that's quite nice in the back off to the b pillar here we have vents and we also have more vents here in the center up above that we have cup holders one cup holder i'm not really sure what type of cup is going to fit in this maybe a champagne glass who knows and then dropping down we do have our own climate controls we're going to have four zone automatic so each of the passengers back here can adjust their temperature then if we go down below that pop this out we have a two usb ports a household style outlet and then it is worth noting that you can get bench seating or you can have these captains chairs like what we have on this model now let's go ahead and get back into the third row of the gls now i do also want to point out one little thing so this is going to be a full power setup you just locate this little toggle right here but it is only on this passenger side it's not on that side so you're gonna have to come over here to enter the seat but you just kind of hold it like a window switch and it just folds out of the way as you can see i mean this is pretty fancy so that's pretty neat how to get back here it honestly takes longer than some of the other ways but it's cooler that way so anyway getting back into the third row this is a very nice space to spend time we have 35 inches of rear leg room and you know that's a lot of space as you can see i'll slide over here with the seat all the way back with it all the way back i don't have a lot of room but if you slid the seat forward i have plenty of space mercedes does say this can fit a six foot six foot four person so i think it's plenty spacious we do have optional rear seat heating available and we also have two charging usb ports on each side and it is worth noting though i'm not seeing any vents back here which is very interesting for a vehicle that cost as much as this now walking up to the gls's tailgate as you would expect you are going to have a hands-free power one standard across the lineup so just wave your foot under the bumper to open it up as you can see it's really fast and works really well now as far as the space itself is going to be concerned we're going to have 15 cubic feet of space behind the third row seats that expands all the way up to 49 cubic feet if you fold them down and then as a maximum you have 85 cubic feet that's pretty much on point with the bmw x7 however it is worth noting that's going to be quite a bit less than something like a cadillac escalade if that's what you're comparing this with so just keep that in mind now as far as how mercedes has finished it though you're going to have amenities galore so you do have a really nice carpeting along the floor if we lift it up we do have a spare tire off to the side we have a 12-volt power outlet we're gonna have a cargo cover as well and you're going to have the buttons to power fold both the third and second rows which can be done with one single press now over here your passenger seat of course you're going to have the power uh lumbar support as well as a three-person memory and the same adjustments as a driver and if we open up the glove box yes this is a fantastic glove box i love it first of all it's very nicely felt lined so our coupons are going to be comfortable sitting in this glove box and it just swallows them up so definitely be using your coupons and this 90 000 mercedes and then up top we have a mirror as well as an led light we can also detach it and i'm a fan that it is the two-part setup so that we can have it here as well as here and block both the sun from both directions [Music] nice yeah this thing really feels very stout when you first get on the accelerator it's pretty fast yeah red light's running the fun a little bit but yeah really nice so what we have on board this is the the base engine for this model the 450. um so this is a three liter inline six cylinder but it comes with mercedes eq boost system which is a mild hybrid system and all that together is going to work out to 362 horsepower 369 pound-feet of torque which are a good number so i believe that's more than what you get on the equivalent bmw x7 yeah it is it's more standard power for sure and um as you'll hear us talk about throughout this test drive this powertrain is one of our absolute favorites it is so incredibly smooth they might be the smoothest powertrain that you can get in any vehicle it's incredible um and you can of course get the gls 580 which has more power it's a four liter twin turbo v8 with 483 horsepower i'm sure it sounds incredible and is great but there is nothing wrong with this engine at all yeah this is plenty of power to even move this large three row around but one of the things that i'm just noticing taking off here is that obviously the main focus of a large luxury three row is to be luxurious and the gls does an exceptional job with this um it's been a while since we've been in a bmw x7 but this seems like it may be a little bit more comfortable than that it just really soaks up the bumps with an incredible incredible smoothness to it that combined with the power train the air suspension it all just works together to give you a extremely extremely comfortable um driving and riding experience yeah for sure the air suspension really is wonderful [Music] oh nice i like the sound of this engine too it has like a raspiness to it um you know i just i really like it now with the eq boost let's talk about that the kind of things that that throws in mainly it's like an advanced auto start stop system so as we kind of come to a stop here um well it's not happening right now because it doesn't happen every single time but most of the time without the climate control and stuff on it's going to turn the engine off before you come to a stop so that's going to of course you know be saving you fuel then you can also take off using the eq boost system and then the engine begins once you're kind of underway all that's just going to be smoothing things to make it to the point you basically can't feel it i mean you really have to be looking at the tachometer to tell when the engine is on and off and of course if you customize this gauge cluster to get rid of that tachometer i really think you're gonna have a hard time figuring out which uh thing you're in right now i mean it's that smooth it really is i we've said it in past reviews and i'll say it again we review hundreds of cars every year this is the smoothest auto start stop money can buy for sure and since that system is pretty aggressive that is going to be saving you and fuel cost in owning this vehicle so for the 450 model it's gonna be 20 24 21 combined um if you go for the 580 it's going to drop down to 18 miles a gallon combined but 21 is a pretty respectable figure especially for a vehicle as large as this is and powerful and speaking of smooth the 9-speed automatic transmission on board here super smooth as you would expect just seamlessly blends into the background you don't really notice it or anything like that that's all you really want in a luxury minded suv like this and 4matic all-wheel drive is going to be senior equipment on the gls all right let's go ahead and talk a bit about today's slam dunk and air ball so the slam dunk as you can imagine is the powertrain and i'm not going to talk anymore about that because we've already raved about that enough yeah um yeah so you want to talk yeah i'll do the air ball the air ball i'm going to say is the exterior is a bit bland um i'm not sure i mean i'm sure a lot of you guys may like the fact that it blends in a little bit more but i feel like especially when you get into these flagship large luxury three rows this does not look like an escalade this is a lot less flashy than an x7 you know it just could probably have a little bit more style injected in it let's talk about the price so if you go for the 450 you're going to start at 76 900 the 580 is a touch under 100 grand but you do have more standard equipment this one as equipped we did a i guess a pretty reasonably equipped one we have about twelve thousand options plus the destination charge of a thousand fifty brings this one to eighty eight thousand eight hundred and forty five bucks but overall i mean what can you say except for the fact that the gls really kills in this segment this is what you want when you shop for a vehicle like this a three-row luxury flagship suv it's about ultimate comfort smoothness refinement and this vehicle just delivers frankly i mean you really just can't point to anything that's like a major deficit or anything it just has all the bases covered this is definitely one of the most well-rounded well thought out three row luxury flagships well guys we really appreciate you watching this in-depth review of the 2021 mercedes-benz gls we really appreciate you watching this video and if you made it this far hopefully that means you enjoyed it or found it helpful so be sure to help us out by hitting that subscribe button down below it's completely free to you and also that notification bell as well it helps gives us more opportunities to do amazing cars like this anyway we'll catch you next time as we sample more of the latest automotive delicacies

Channel: Car Confections

Views: 91,767

Keywords: 2021 mercedes gls, 2021 mercedes benz gls, 2021 mercedes gls 450, mercedes, mercedes-benz, mercedes benz gls, mercedes gls review, 2021 mercedes gls 580, 2021 gls, gls 450, gls 580, mercedes gls 450 review, mercedes gls 580, 2021 gls mercedes, gls mercedes, car review, car confections, bmw x7, cadillac escalade, gmc yukon

Id: _p6tXC5laUo

Length: 25min 37sec (1537 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 28 2021