The new Mercedes GLC is NOT what I expected…

This is the new Mercedes GLC electric and it's the most luxurious midsize SUV. However, it's not necessarily the best and I'm going to explain why. I'm M Watson. You're watching Carwang. This car is packed full of amazing kit such as this single hyperscreen. Look, it's 39 in. You can get it with this illuminated grill and it sort of pulses. It's made of these little pixels. Can you see? It's quite cool. All versions get a panoramic glass roof with a built-in sunscreen. Look at this. So, if I press this button and it goes opaque. Give it a moment to see it fitting in. That is really good. And if I press this button here, motif, it gives it this pattern. Look at this. But the best bit is this on the top two specs. If I press that button, then hit ambient light. Imagine it's dark, right? We've got a coat over there. Now, look. Can you see? See that? And then I can change the color of it to look. Look at that. It's got a different color. Go red all the way around to green. And now blue. The GLC feels absolutely solid. Listen to this door shot. Oh, this is weighty. And the back one sounds expensive, but it is expensive. The GLC starts from £60,000. This is the Range Stopper, though. It's £73,000 before options. But as standard, all cars get loads of safety kit. And I'll demonstrate one key life-saving feature. Now, look at that. It won't let me reverse over. Lewis, look at that. I want to reverse over him. He's actually leaving us. Louiswis is. And I want to kill him. Car saved your life. Why? Just stand behind it. Look, it's doing it. It won't let I'm I'm flooring the accelerator. Oh, yeah. I didn't know. I didn't know if it was going to stop it. I think it did. And then I insisted on killing him and it was He was going to go, "All right, let's kill the bugger." He shouldn't be leaving, should he? Midspec cars onwards have a brilliant surround view camera system, so you can look all the way around the vehicle. And you can even zoom out. Wow. But that's not all. See that feature there? See that? Do you know what that's for? I'll show you. This car has a clever parking feature. It can actually see parking spaces ahead of you. Hit that button. Go into park mode. It should see a space just there. See, it's seen it before I've even got to it. So, I can hit that space. And then I hit park. Now, normally with these systems, you have to drive past them for it to register it. But not here. It's going to be interesting to see if you can judge the curb though cuz it's a low curb and it's quite tight as well to maneuver here. I wouldn't want to have to do this myself. I'm crap at parking. Although I don't normally bother with these systems cuz they're too much of a faf. But this one is genius. I mean, forget the fact I'm parking across someone's driveway. This is for illustration purposes only. Can you do this car? Just thinking about it. This is a tough ask. Locks a bit of dry steering. I'm going to get out and inspect that. Do you know what? Considering those cars are quite wonky and there's not much space. Look. Look the other side. Look. That's mental. Told you it was impressive. It's a bit noisy. What's going on over there? Ah, skip it. Do you get the joke? HELLO. THAT'S NOT FUNNY. I'm not actually sure I can get out of here. Thankfully, I don't have to worry about it. I just hit drive out now. I have an audience. Look, look at those guys watching me. Hello. They're going to the car wondering if I crashed into it. Like, how did he get in there? Look. Has he damaged our car? Oh, what's gone on? No, I haven't cuz the car did it perfectly. No wonder people were looking. This is a striking car. It's got an aggressive edge to it. Look at the creases in the bonnet. Also down here, the lower part of the bumper with the air vents and the breathers. Now, the entry- level car has a planer lower front bumper. They all have this huge grill though, and this topsp spec has a darker grill surround. Otherwise, shiny silver. I like this new Mercedes daytime running lights with a three-pointed star. They are very cool. Alloyo wheels start at 20 in. These are 21s. Now, being the range stopper, again, you have black surrounds here and roof bars. Now, let's just move to the back. Look, once again, we have three-pointed star in the tail lights. Like it actually, if you stand way back, this car has some serious presence. You can see the widened wheel arches. Yeah, I like that. What I'm not so sure about though is this. Because electric cars, they don't have exhaust pipes. Manufacturers seem lost as to what to design down in this part of the car. So they just end up doing like strips and fake diffusers and they almost can't stop designing. But I'm clearly just like trying to find fault here cuz it is a decent looking car and it looks fast. But is it fast? So we've got two electric motors, four-wheel drive and 490 horsepower. Let's see how fast it goes from 0 to 60 bags of grip. And it's bloody quick as well. That is quick. 4.06 seconds. Supposed to be 4.3. So quicker than claimed. And it damn well fills it as well. I reckon he can do sub four. Oh, it's getting closer. Hopefully this car can stop as well as it goes. Let's find out. Brake test from 60 mph. Go. Oh, good. Wo. That is really impressive. Really impressive. That's not the only impressive thing, though. While this car is good at braking and accelerating, what's a real world range like? So, it's got a 94. I like the way that opens, by the way. And it has a 94 kWh battery pack, which is supposed to be good for 393 mi. We did a little 40minute test route, and it averaged 331 W hours per mile, which works out to 3 m per kilowatt hour, which isn't great. And when you multiply that up by the battery, gives you a real world range of 282 mi. Not ideal. And here's some other annoying things about this car. The climate control system makes a sound like running water. Listen. Now, I haven't got it on a high setting. Look, it's only fan speed one. What if it goes I'll put it up to two. It's the same noise. Let's just turn it off. Silence. At last, I've managed to stop the flow. We've only had this car for half a day and already it's hurt two people. James, who drove it here, whacked his shin off that bit, protruding. And Miguel, who's behind camera, he whacked his knee off this bit. It's very hard. Went smack and he wasn't happy at all. Having the sunroof controls through the screen is a bit of a pain because you have to go press and then press. Whereas really all you want to do is that that's your SOS. I think I've just called for help. The location for the boot release isn't where you expect it. I've not actually opened the boot on this car yet, so this is proof. You really think that it should be there? Where the bloody hell are you? Pink VW. Pink VW. Oh. Oh, hello. Actually, that's better. And that brings me on to the things that I do like about this car, which are cool. Also, just like a Volkswagen, the reversing camera is hidden underneath the badge, so it never gets dirty. You have these two handy switches down here. The first one opens the boot. The second one opens the front boot. Oo, that's unusual for Mercedes. They don't tend to have storage if it's an electric car underneath a bonnet. What we got here? It's quite big. Over 100 L of space. Can I get in it? Apparently, it's bigger than a Tesla model. Oh, it's all right. It's bigger than a Tesla Model Y. I could take a little bath in this actually. It's comfy. In fact, the whole car is comfy. The hand getting out. Have a go in it. Don't almost break it like I did. Try going the same way that I did. Oh, ripped your jeans. I've actually ripped them. No. Oh, yeah. I have. Let's have a look. No. Oh. Oh dear. Oh, I'm here. Yeah, that's quite comfy. It is, isn't it though? Can I expense a pair of jeans? No. Get out. Let's have a look at your jeans. Can I expense a pair of jeans? I don't know whether you can. Watch out. You can you can ask whether you can cuz it you did rip them because of me to be fair. Don't know what to do now. You can get the car with rear wheel steering as part of something called the refinement package. It's just £2,500 and also includes active air suspension. Make it go up. make it go down. That's two and a half grand well spent. Mercedes knows how to engineer an effective rear window wiper. So, many manufacturers have tiny ones which don't really clear much of the back windows. You can't see out of it when it's raining. Whereas this, look, look at the sweep on this. It's a huge sweep. A clean sweep, should I say? Yes. These pedals aren't for gears. It's electric. Instead, they control the regen and you can have regen off. to the car coast, normal regen, strong regen, or you can put it in an auto mode where you use the car's sensors to slow the car down if you're approaching a car in front or a roundabout or junction. But that doesn't necessarily mean this car is good to drive in town. Quite a lot of electric cars have grabby brakes, but not this Mercedes. So, when you're just driving in town and you want ultimate control, the brake pedal is on your side. It's actually quite easy to navigate this thing through gaps. Visibility is good forwards. The dormers could do with being a little bit larger. They just got them as this cool shape. Yeah, the back window isn't great. It's quite shallow. But forward visibility is nice because the dash is reasonably low. Even though you got this big screen, steering's light as well, but it's not overly light that when you're driving it quickly, you don't feel like you've got trust in the vehicle. I'm going to just push in front of her because I want to show you one of the great features, and that is the rear axle steering. So, I'm going to try and do a U-turn in this gap. There's quite a few cars here. They may get crossed. Let's see if they'll let me do my thing. Press the button, bring up the surround view cameras, and I should be able to get round in a wanna. Let's see if I can or am I actually going to hit this car? Thank you. Now, if I can make that round, I may really annoy everybody. Look, look at that turning circle of 11.2 m. It's not much more than an Aclass. Easy, easy. This is an easy car to drive. It's a lovely car to drive. I wouldn't mind one of these. All round pleasant experience. The interior of the GLC is dominated by this huge screen. And I'm not sure how I feel about it. In some ways, it's cool. In other ways, it's a huge screen. If you have lowspec cars, then they actually don't have a continuous screen. They have individual screens. And the bottom spec car doesn't have an interactive passenger screen. You might think this isn't interactive. It's safety. So, you need someone sat there for it to work. So, Miguel, jump in. Get to your bottom on the seat fully. And now I should be able to operate the screen. Come on. There we go. Look. Yeah. Reject. And then we can do things like watch videos and stuff, play Angry Birds, maybe. One thing I know I definitely don't like these air vents. They just look a bit plasticky and tacky. It's nice the way that they have the ambient lighting in them, but there's just something plastic in cheap. And that's the thing with Mercedes. In some ways, bits feel expensive like, oh, this soft touch on here and the steering wheel, but then bits feel cheap, such as plastic there, the feel of the stalks and this whole handle area, which is a real shame because then I really, really like what they've done with the window switches. Look at these window switches. They're a cool design and they feel nice as well. I like that a lot. Storage in this car is also very good. Huge storage area under here. Decent cup holders with little grippers. You got a huge storage area under there with USBC as well. Got your wireless charging pads there. And as you can see, they are called the glove box is a decent size. And the door bins, huge door bins. Overall, very good. Oh, one other cheap thing I forgot to mention. This is awful. I tell you what's not cheap though, the way this car feels to drive. This is a heavy car. a very heavy car. This particular one I got here, 2.7 tons, yet it still handles really well. Better than you'd expect it to given the weight. So, corner coming up, grips, goes round, stays flat. Impressive. And lots of performance when you put your foot down from the four-wheel drive system. Just turn that beeping off. So easy to do in a Mercedes. Love it. And in some ways, heavy is good. Gold is heavy. This feels a bit like gold. You appreciate the weight. It makes you feel like you're driving something expensive, and you are, cuz it's fully kitted out. We've got adaptive dampers, so when I put the car into sports mode, not only does it shorten the throttle response, it makes the suspension stiffer. But Mercedes being Mercedes have managed to make it comfy even though it's stiffer. In fact, in some ways, it's more comfortable than comfort mode because you don't get the car bobbing about so much. Yet, it still deals with bumps really, really well. In fact, it makes it feel even more expensive, just solid, secure, and safe. It's impressive this. I'm also impressed with the infotainment system. The graphics are lovely and it's responsive as well. It's quite easy to navigate. So, all your main car features are in there. I like the fact that you can just whiz through the different apps very easily. The only thing that does add in is the fact you have to control the climate control through the infotainment system. There's no physical buttons, which is annoying. As for the digital driver's display, it's pretty clear, easy to use, and has lots of different functions. I like that. I also like the room in the back seats. It's a bit of a nonsecur, but anyway, it's really comfy back here cuz there's lots of space. Look, head room's good. Knee room's good. Foot space is good. Have an armrest here with poppy outy cup holders. Look at this. Oh my, don't you look absolutely dashing today, Matthew. Also, you've got easy access fixed anchor points there. So, it's quite easy to fit a bulky baby seat. And you have decent practicality. So, you've got folders on the seat backs. You have big door bins. You have two USBC's there for charging. and rear windows that go all the way down, which will be handy if you carry three people in the back at once and you've all been out for a curry. So, let's try it with three adults in the back. So, this is where things get a little bit problematic because the body isn't quite as wide as you think. Not as wide as my body. And the people on the outer seats end up having their heads pushed closer to this roof rail liny bitty thing. It's terrible if you've put a lot of gel on like you Lewis. I know. It's all coming off. It's all coming off on the headlining. Oh dear. Now, we like to go long distance in this car. That is with me. Oh, sorry. I've just farted. Go on. But we need to test this car at higher speed. Overtaking this car is just a breeze. Look at 40 mph. Indicate 3 2 1 go. And that's 60. It's so rapid this car. And it's full of tech. Like blind spot warning. You see that then flashing up in the door panel there to point out that that car was just coming past. It's got your back. This has all the safety systems work really well. means you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy your drive. And you really can enjoy your drive in this car. It's quiet. It's comfy. It feels so sophisticated. It feels expensive. It's such a shame the way they have built such a fine driving car that it's then let down by a decision made by the accountants to fit such nasty cheap bits of plastic here in the cabin. That should be onyx or something like that. You know what I mean? The GLC has quite a big boot and hands-free tailgate opening. So, 570 L, which is bigger than a BMW iX3. Actually, I'm going to show you how many of these suitcases I can fit underneath the low cover. Now, if you think you need more boot space than this, you could always get the bigger GLE, but it's going to cost you more cash unless you go for a used one. And I found a used one on car. Look, less than 60 grand and it's nearly new. Thing is, though, there is a risk when you're buying a used car. And I recommend doing a car vertical history check to make sure the car you're looking at doesn't have a dodgy past. The one on car was clean. But here's an example of a GLE with a shady history. As you can see, it's been damaged. That's what happens with car vertical reports. The car has been listed at damage auction. Often they have pictures of the damage. So you want to buy that car or at least you want to negotiate a lower price, wouldn't you? So if you're buying a used car, head to car vertical and use the code car wow for 20% off. Right, where we at? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Oh dear. I think this has just been beaten by the BMW. Maybe not. If this shots, winner win a chicken dinner. I can apply a bit of force. That noise was a definite no. To be fair, the Mercedes, there is some extra space underneath the false boot floor. You have this handy through loading facility and you can fold down the seats either here or by flicking this button here. Boink. And then do the other side as well. Why is that not going down? Actually, I figured it out. It's not broken. You just need to have that connected to the seat. Then when you pull on the button, yay, it works. And you have a continuous load bay which is easy to load full of stuff. So, where does that leave us? So, then new Mercedes GLC. This is a car that should be on your short list. It's lovely to drive and it's got some high-tech features. However, it is a bit expensive and the real world range isn't as impressive as you might expect. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the video. If you did, give it a like. Let me know if you agree with my verdict in the comments below. Click on the video windows to watch some more videos and click on the CarWow logo to send your car through CarWow and have dealers all across the country bid on it. Thanks for watching. See you next time.