Test drive Mercedes GLE Coupe
While driving a Mercedes-AMG 63S 4Matic Coupe, I am very much afraid of arrest and expect a police ambush. It seems to me that I am driving not only too fast, but also too loud. Before entering another German town, I switch from extreme Sport + settings to comfortable ones, so that the windows in houses do not break from thunderous gas changes ...
While driving a Mercedes-AMG 63S 4Matic Coupe, I am very much afraid of arrest and expect a police ambush. It seems to me that I am driving not only too fast, but also too loud. Before entering another German town, I switch from the extreme Sport + settings to the comfortable ones, so that the windows in the houses do not break from thunderous gas changes.
With the release of the GLE Coupe, Mercedes-Benz found itself in the role of catch-up: its main competitor BMW launched its five-door coupe 7 years ago. However, it is difficult to imagine that such a car could appear at Mercedes earlier. At the end of 2007, when BMW began production of the premium off-road coupe, Stuttgart was still counting on the success of the controversial R-Class, producing hybrids and far from sport.
The coupe-shaped GLE Coupe is built on the M-Class platform, which has also undergone a revision and changed its name to GLE. The designers managed to combine the faceted rear of the M-Class and the soft lines of the new front end, which is now almost the same for both cars. "Coupe" looks more compact and shorter than the usual GLE. According to the automaker's measurements, the new car is slightly narrower than the regular GLE in width and is expectedly shorter. However, the wheelbase turned out to be unchanged - 2915 mm, and the length of the Coupe has become even longer than the usual GLE (by 81 mm) - the increase falls on the overhangs. Due to the spectacular roofline, the ceiling at the rear is 3 cm lower, but there is as much legroom as in the GLE, and the Coupe has a longer rear seat cushion and is installed higher. The trunk of the “coupe” lost both in the minimum volume (650 liters versus 690 liters) and in the maximum (1720 liters versus 2010 liters).
The GLE Coupe looks like a familiar car. And not so much because of its resemblance to the BMW X6 (there is no getting away from it), but because of the details familiar from other Mercedes cars. The stern with a characteristic "duck" tail, a chrome bar over the elongated lanterns, a narrow C-pillar - everything is like the S-Class coupe. The interior, the location of the buttons and partings are generally familiar from the M-Class, but the display of the multimedia system is no longer integrated into the front panel, and the panel itself has a curvature in the center. The GLE Coupe multimedia system is able to use the newfangled Connect me services and supports high-speed LTE communication (but only via a smartphone) and offers a Wi-Fi hotspot. The rest of the car is defiantly conservative, as if it was not a digital era in the yard: devices with real arrows, buttons and knobs are real, and the only way to touch virtual reality is the touchpad that covered the Comand puck. But the puck is somehow more convenient to manage.
Its main competitor BMW X6, the five-door GLE Coupe is slightly inferior in size. In the space for rear passengers - parity, as shown by a quick comparison. In the GLE Coupe, despite the curved roof, the headroom is about the same as in the X6. That is, tall passengers will rest their heads against the soft upholstery. The L-shaped headrest in the center is able to drop below the head restraints at the edges and suggests that the seat in the middle is more for a child than for an adult. The central tunnel of the Mercedes is higher and wider than that of the BMW X6, but the three-seater GLE Coupe is not as conventional as that of the Bavarian: the Mercedes interior is slightly wider, plus the center seat is more comfortable and looks more like a seat than a bolster.
The developers of the GLE Coupe, whose task was to teach the car to drive like a sports car, sought to make the coupe body as torsionally rigid as possible, even to the detriment of weight, and they used light alloys very limitedly. Although the GLE Coupe is lighter than the all-aluminum Range Rover Sport, it is heavier than the X6 in equal modifications. To go faster, you need more power, more torque and more safety electronics.
The hoarse, without digital falsity, the sound of the engine of the most powerful version of the AMG 63S, as if from the era of piston aviation and racing Blitzen Benz. Letter S - plus 28 hp and 60 Nm compared to just 63 AMG, whose engine develops 557 hp. and 700 Nm, and minus 0,1 seconds in acceleration to 100 kilometers per hour. It turns out 4,2 seconds to “hundreds” - the same as the BMW X6 M and only one-tenth less than the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S.
The Mercedes-Benz GLE is not a new model, but a deep restyling of the M-Class. Compared to the coupe, the suspension settings are more comfortable, even with air struts. So active anti-roll bars are an absolute must for the GLE, as proven by riding the base GLE 250d four-cylinder diesel, for which the Active Curve System is not available. At the same time, progress in comparison with the M-Class is obvious: although the car does not follow a longer steering wheel as readily as the GLE Coupe, it steers predictably and has become more collected.
The four-cylinder powertrain under the hood of the 250d uses just 5,5 liters of diesel on the combined cycle, but is noisy and less smooth than the V6 diesel offered on the 350d versions. The GLE in similar versions is slightly lighter than the GLE Coupe and is inferior in acceleration due to worse aerodynamics and a longer final drive. And the gasoline GLE 400 is inferior to the “coupe” in terms of economy, because it is still equipped with a 7-speed “automatic”.
The organizers of the test hid the AMG version of the regular GLE, which, by the way, has the same dynamics as the AMG Coupe, but they brought the GLE 500 e hybrid. This car has an 85 kilowatt electric motor placed between a V6 petrol engine and an automatic transmission. It helps with acceleration, providing dynamics at the level of a conventional GLE 500 with a V8 turbo engine. At the same time, the SUV consumes just over 3 liters per 100 km on the combined cycle - less than the most economical diesel version of the GLE.
The battery can be fully charged not only from the mains, but also directly from the gasoline engine. You can also choose a different amperage, which will affect the time of "charging" the battery. And a special mode that allows you to save energy, the GLE mainly uses a gasoline engine. The batteries are supplied by Daimler's Deutsche ACCUmotive. The German automaker is trying to design and create hybrid components whenever possible, without even resorting to Tesla, whose shares it previously owned. According to Elena Aleksandrova, who is responsible for the creation of the Mercedes hybrid systems and components, the new battery does not lose its recoil even with a strong discharge. And its service life is approximately 10 years.
There was also an off-road test drive, because the GLE can still be equipped with an advanced transmission with a lower row and a special mode for heavy off-road. Cross-wheel rear lock is no longer available, but the electronics confidently slow down the slipping wheels and the GLE, shod in toothy tires, easily copes with the obstacles of the demonstration track. The track was mostly full of steep descents with different types of surface to demonstrate the work of the electronic assistant. I leveled the car using the surround view system, set the speed to 2 km / h - and the steep slippery slope, which looks impressive, turns out to be nothing.
The hoarse, without digital falsity, the sound of the engine of the most powerful version of the AMG 63S, as if from the era of piston aviation and racing Blitzen Benz. Letter S - plus 28 hp and 60 Nm compared to just 63 AMG, whose engine develops 557 hp. and 700 Nm, and minus 0,1 seconds in acceleration to 100 kilometers per hour. It turns out 4,2 seconds to “hundreds” - the same as the BMW X6 M and only one-tenth less than the Porsche Cayenne Turbo S.
In Germany, on narrow lanes, the car is boring and cramped. The AMG 50 S is absolutely not capable of keeping the speed below the established limit of 63 km / h, and it is not so easy to accurately calculate the speed using the speedometer with a digitization step of 30 km / h. For Europe, the "heated" GLE 450 AMG 4Matic Coupe with a less powerful turbo-six (367 hp, 520 Nm) is more suitable, but with the same as in the AMG version, instrumentation and modified suspension elements. This car, although slower, but at the same time quite reckless.
Happiness is when you manage to pass the S-shaped bunch without additional speed limits and oncoming trucks. The coupe is careful about cornering, especially in the Sport + mode. In it, the ground clearance is reduced by 25 mm, the shock absorbers are petrified, the active stabilizers are clamped, preventing roll, and the Torque Vectoring system brakes the inner rear wheel, turning the car. The newest 9-speed "automatic" with tangible points counts the gears. Wide tires (325 mm at the rear and 285 mm at the front) have a death grip on dry asphalt.
Electronics, however, is always on the lookout. In gentle turns, she can steer herself, guided by the markings. In a downpour, falling into a deep puddle, the rear axle of the "coupe" begins to float, but the stabilization system intervenes gently and confidently. In the meantime, the windshield wipers, put on the "automatic", go crazy. With true German perfectionism, they try to deal with the water pouring into the glass at a wild speed, slow down in despair and wave again.
A rain shower is perhaps the most extreme test of a car during a test. Finding a bumpy country road or broken asphalt in Germany is an impossible task. In Austria, the roads are a little worse, but they are far from Russian realities. Perhaps in Russia sports modes with 22-inch wheels will not be so comfortable. But it doesn't matter: in the “individual” mode, the character of the Coupe can be assembled at your own discretion: relax the steering wheel, put the suspension in “comfort”, leaving the sporty settings of the engine and transmission. Moreover, the AMG version allows the damping of the shock absorbers to be changed by pressing a separate button.
The usual AMG GLE Coupe 350d without the AMG prefix cannot do this and it has only one “sport” mode, and it also corresponds to the “comfortable” one in the AMG 63 S. Active Curve System stabilizers are installed on the GLE Coupe only in AMG versions, but the angular stiffness the suspension is quite high and the rolls are small.
Any version of the GLE Coupe rides more aggressively than the GLE. It is a steel beast built to compete with that of the BMW X6. The Mercedes coupe opposes the sharp lines and cold technicalism of BMW with smooth lines and calm luxury. X-Six dominates the diesel segment - there it is more diverse, faster and more economical. The creators of the GLE Coupe focused primarily on petrol versions, mostly with the AMG badge. The BMW X6 is only offered with rear air suspension, and a rear active differential cannot be ordered for the GLE Coupe.
Daimler responded to BMW's challenge in a straightforward manner, with brute force, blow for blow, creating its own analogue of the X6. Stuttgart decided not to use their entire technical arsenal. For example, in the design of the junior crossover GLC, sales of which will begin immediately after the GLE, they used much more light alloys, and also equipped it with the latest multi-chamber air struts, specially designed for Mercedes SUVs and crossovers, and capable of providing comfort on different types of surfaces. The GLE Coupe is built on the upgraded platform of the M-Class (W2011) that debuted in 166. This decision allowed Daimler to create a completely new SUV without serious costs and enter the niche of five-door coupe-crossovers, which has been dominated by one single car for seven years.
Photo: Mercedes-Benz
