2024 Mercedes-Benz GLC300 long-term review

2024 Mercedes-Benz GLC300 long term review

"You have a 4000 kilometre limit on it,” said the Mercedes-Benz PR.

Quick bit of mental calculation. I live 40km from the office, so how many kilometres would the commute alone eat up over three months? 4800. Oh dear. That might present a bit of an issue.

JUMP AHEAD

• Welcome
• Part 2: Never mind the width...

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Welcome

• Model: Mercedes-Benz GLC300
• Price as tested: $103,370 + on-road costs
• This month: 355km @ 8.2L/100km

At this point, I will openly admit to being rather struck with new car fever.

Sales people the world over must recognise the particular symptoms. The prospect claps eyes on the car and suddenly they lose all basic rationality. They just have to have it and will concoct all manner of warped justifications in order to do so. The white GLC300, hunkered low over its multi-spoked 20-inch alloys, had me looking for a dotted line to sign on. Limits, schlimits.

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The GLC300 is the vanguard for the rest of the all-new range, with 43 and 63 S AMG models incoming.

Despite the badge, there’s no longer a large capacity six beneath the bonnet of this one. Instead it’s a humble 2.0-litre four pot, albeit one that can hawk up a very respectable 190kW and 400Nm.

It wasn’t so long ago that 190kW was what you got with the big 3.0-litre V6 in the GLC350d, which was the flagship diesel variant and, it has to be noted, wasn’t markedly more efficient.

You’d hardly know it was the ‘cheap’ one when you drop inside.

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Okay, so lets’s keep things in perspective – $103,370 isn’t the sort of change for which you go fishing down the back of the sofa, but with far more proletarian SUV badges nudging six figures these days, it’s not an exorbitant ask.

The impression of initial quality is good. The biggest concern I had was that the new GLC might have regressed somewhat in terms of fit and finish; that it might feel like the MFA2 chassis cars like the GLA and GLB.

Instead, both materials quality and body integrity feel a good deal more senior, as it should for a vehicle that rides on the C-Class’s MRA2 underpinnings, making it a bigger car than the old GLC.

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It rides reasonably well for a car on 45-series tyres, even if it is a little stiffer than the Subaru Outback that I had been running.

Perhaps that comparison is odious. Virtually everything would feel stiffer in ride than the Subie, and the Merc counters with cornering agility that’s closer to a BRZ than an Outback.

I can’t claim to have mastered the GLC’s infotainment system having only covered a few hundred kilometres in it thus far, but the 11.9-inch portrait touchscreen features both wireless Android Auto and Apple CarPlay connections coupled with the obligatory wireless charging pad.

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What’s more, the native navigation and media player functions are also very good.

In fact, it’s about the only car I’ve driven lately where I don’t have too much of a preference whether the phone mirroring is switched on or not.

Drawbacks? Few so far. The black vinyl seats feature heating elements up front, but can become wickedly hot if the car’s parked towards the sun.

A set of seat coolers wouldn’t have gone amiss. Somewhat surprisingly, despite offering a stack of drive modes, the GLC 300 rides on a passive damper, so there’s no option of switching into a more pliant suspension setting. Yet it’s fair to say that it’s created a favourable first impression. Next month we’ll stretch its legs a bit.

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Never mind the width

• Price as tested: $103,370
• This month: 985km @ 7.8L/100km
• Overall: 1340km @ 7.9L/100km

Feel the quality. Has the new GLC reverted to traditional Merc values?

I'm starting to get used to the GLC speaking to me as I exit the car. I mean, it’s all very polite, but after a while “Just a moment – you’ve forgotten your phone” begins to get a bit wearing.

The problem, as I see it, is that the phone resides in one of two places, both of which are hidden from the driver. It’s either in the centre box where the USB-C slots are or it’s buried in the bowels of the dash where the wireless charger resides. Maybe that’s deliberate.

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My Google Pixel juuust about fits into the wireless charger, but as soon as rubberised phone case meets rubberised charging pad, the pair grip like velcro and all you’re left with is the charger’s liner bunching up like an old sneaker insole.

Other issues? Surprisingly few. The GLC has a very odd characteristic whereby in heavy rain, the driver’s side wiper can’t clear the water off the screen and pulls a sheet of water back on the return stroke, making a semi-opaque addition to the already chunky A-pillar.

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The virtual assistant also seems keen to join the conversation at odd intervals, even if you don’t mention the M-word.

Other than that, the GLC 300 is endearing itself to everyone who’s travelled in it. The ride is extremely well judged. It’s sporty enough to have a bit of fun with on a challenging road without becoming tiresome on an everyday basis. If it was pasta, you’d call it al dente.

The ride height is similarly clever, having enough clearance to never worry about grounding the nose on sharp driveways or gutters, but retaining a sleekish profile. In fact, the overall height of 1640mm is 40mm lower than the Subaru Outback wagon I had run previously.

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Refinement is extremely good for a four-cylinder engine driving such a chunky vehicle. The huge B-pillars are a pain at oblique junctions but other than that, visibility is good, helped by a decent suite of cameras.

These can stay on for a little too long when you’re pulling away and I’ve taken to turning off autoplay in my podcast app because of this, as my passenger’s not really keen on hearing 20 seconds of Chris Harris blathering on about the glasshouse to bodywork proportioning of a BMW E39 wagon before I can hit pause. I latterly figured out that pressing the middle of the volume button on the steering wheel pauses audio too.

I must confess to not being any great fan of the Mercedes column-mounted gear shifter. Not only does it represent a safety issue (unfamiliar users can easily knock the car into Neutral when trying to indicate back in from the outside lane if they flick up on the wrong stalk) but it also means that lights, front wipers, rear wipers, wash functions and indicators are all shoehorned onto the left-hand wand, which compromises utility.

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But familiarity erases many of these issues, and I can now navigate the GLC’s functions a little more fluently than at this point last month.

The big-ticket items that Mercedes needed to get right, such as styling, ride quality, engine response, and safety are well addressed. And I still get a kick out of opening the door on a wet night and seeing a massive three-pointed star projected onto the road surface, the bitumen glinting like jewels.

It’s exactly this level of otherness that Mercedes-Benz traditionally did so well; that feeling that here was a car built differently to others. That feeling had been lost at some points in the company’s recent history, but it feels as if Stuttgart now realises the corrosive effect that cost-cutting had on its brand equity and has resolved to rediscover it. Hopefully we’ll be able to probe a little further and discover whether that’s more than superficial sleight of hand.

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