Mercedes GLB review: Luxury 7-seat Benz SUV without a huge price tag. Well it's more a 5+2...

CarExpert

You're looking at what we think is the best luxury 7-seat SUV under $100,000. The 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLB 250 comes with all the bells and whistles and has enough room inside to seat five in comfort with an additional two seats for occasional use. But, do big wheels make it uncomfortable to drive? Paul Maric does a detailed review and finds out!  Read the 2020 Mercedes-Benz GLB 250 review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/review/2020-mercedes-benz-glb250-review/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=review&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=single-car-review  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 01:01 Interior: 03:58 Infotainment: 05:41 Features: 08:10  Practicality: 09:39 On the Road: 13:45 Verdict: 17:52  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #mercedesbenz #review #glb #mercedes #glb250 #mercedesbenzglb250 @MercedesBenz @mercedesbenzau

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. Now, if you wanted a seven-seat Mercedes-Benz previously, you had to get a GLS,

00:05 or more recently, a GLE. But if, like me, you don't have mountains of cash in the backyard,

00:11 Mercedes-Benz has released this. It's called the GLB. It's a five-seater, but it has two extra

00:17 seats in the third row, which means it can moonlight as a seven-seater if it needs to.

00:22 And this one right here is the mid-specification GLB 250, and it's priced at just under $74,000.

00:28 Now, in terms of competitors, this really doesn't have a great deal of competition,

00:32 because it competes with the Audi Q3, the BMW X1. Both of those don't have seven seats. So,

00:36 if you look more broadly, there's the Volkswagen Tiguan Allspace and the Land Rover Discovery Sport

00:42 that kind of fit within the niche that this fits in. Today, we're going to do a detailed review,

00:46 but if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes on

00:50 the screen up there, or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below.

00:53 And if you haven't done so already, I'd love it if you could hit the subscribe button. Also,

00:56 press the bell icon that's going to tell you every single time we drive a blue car.

01:00 Let's talk exterior. Now, the GLB is available in eight different colours, and all but white

01:06 and black are an extra $1,500. But have a look at this colour. This is Galaxy Blue. It's unique

01:11 to the GLB. I think it will eventually be rolled out to the rest of the Mercedes-Benz range, but

01:16 I think it looks sensational here on the GLB. Have a look down the front here. This is a big

01:21 Mercedes-Benz emblem. Look at that. Spans my entire hand. Now, more importantly, this is

01:26 actually a radar and also has a camera system that works with it as well. But this is quite

01:31 unique because this system can see up to 500 metres ahead. So, for things like radar cruise

01:36 control and for the autonomous emergency braking, this system can see long into the distance. And

01:41 it's worth keeping in mind that in Australia, where we go up to 100 kilometres an hour, the

01:44 car really doesn't have to work that hard. If you're driving this in Germany, where you're

01:47 doing 200 kilometres an hour, having a radar and camera system that can see so far ahead is

01:52 important. I love this design. This grille here looks really cool with these chrome highlights,

01:56 and the GLB 35, which is the AMG version of this car, will actually get the vertical slatted grille,

02:02 so you'll be able to visually tell them apart. This car has the AMG styling pack on it as well,

02:06 which adds the 19-inch alloy wheels that I'll show you in a second, plus some black highlights.

02:10 That's $2,000 extra, and I think it really suits the car nicely. And you also get full LED

02:16 headlights in there with adaptive beam. You can also option a matrix LED headlight to fit into

02:22 that cluster. Some blanked out grilles down the front here, suggesting a more powerful version

02:27 is coming. 19-inch alloy wheels, these are the ones that come with the AMG package, so five-spoke.

02:32 They look really nice, and then you get your cross-drilled rotors in there as well. 50 profile.

02:37 I'll be keen to see whether this car rides nicely, because, I don't know, 19-inch alloy wheels, SUV,

02:42 it's a recipe for disaster, but let's see how it goes. Now, it is worth keeping in mind that an

02:46 18-inch wheel is a no-cost option. The benefit of that is it's easier to find snow chains for an 18

02:52 instead of a 19. Cladding on the wheel arches to show people that you go off-road, very important.

02:57 Okay, now let's move down the side of the car. Black mirrors here. You get these black roof

03:01 rails as part of the AMG package, plus some privacy glass. In terms of dimensions, it's

03:06 just over 4.6 metres long and 1.65 metres tall, and a little over 1.8 metres wide. So, what does

03:14 that mean in terms of size compared to the GLC? Well, it's slightly shorter than a GLC, taller

03:18 than a GLC, and sits on a slightly smaller wheelbase. A little bit confusing, right? Have a

03:23 look at this back section here. So, to accommodate those seven seats, it comes to the end and it's

03:27 like a waterfall, it just drops off. So, that's your seven-seat cavity in there, and you'll notice

03:31 with something like a GLC, it kind of tapers off a little bit to give it that stylish design,

03:36 whereas this is just very much a boxy design to make sure you can actually fit passengers in the

03:40 third row. Now, sorry about how dirty this is at the back, it's been raining a little bit. The back

03:44 looks really good. So, LED taillights are built into here, these come standard across the range.

03:48 Quite a decent-looking rear end, despite the fact it has that sort of carved-off end on it. It

03:53 actually looks nice, and let's see if these exhausts are real. No, they're entirely fake.

03:58 Let's talk interior. Now, this may look familiar to some of you if you watched our A45 S review.

04:04 If you haven't watched that, click up here to watch us review that. This is because the GLB

04:09 shares a platform with the A-Class, the B-Class and the GLA. So, they're all sitting on this one

04:13 platform, and in fact, the GLB is longer than the long-wheelbase version of the A-Class sedan

04:18 that's on sale in China. So, it is a big car that they've stretched out onto this platform,

04:24 and often these platforms are developed so you can stick a whole bunch of different models on them.

04:28 Now, that means you get MBUX, and you also get a really nice-looking interior with a lot of good

04:34 materials used throughout it. Check out these brushed aluminium parts along the dashboard,

04:39 and then along the centre tunnel there, you get some piano black highlights. Not a huge fan of

04:43 piano black, but it's there anyway. And I love these air vents. They just feel really cool to

04:48 turn around, and then you can swivel them to lock and unlock, and then you have LED ambient lighting

04:54 throughout the cabin, and these offset colours as well. The interior just really looks airy and

04:59 spacious with all of these light-coloured materials in it. But how good are they? We have

05:04 our hardness tester here. We often joke that motoring journalists are the only ones that care

05:08 about soft-touch surfaces, so we bought a tool to test the hardness of these surfaces. So,

05:14 let's test it out on the dashboard there. Hey, that's not too bad. That's in the 60s,

05:20 and then we'll test this centre console as well. See what that's reading. Wow, that's impressive

05:25 too. Now, by the way, this car is built in Mexico, like a lot of good beer. What about build quality?

05:30 Well, actually, it all feels pretty decent. There's nothing moving around. It's all sort of

05:35 fairly well put together, and it feels premium enough for its $75,000-ish price tag. Let's talk

05:42 infotainment. MBUX. It is Mercedes-Benz user experience. Today, I'm going to take you through

05:48 the infotainment system and also the screen in front of the driver. It's only a brief overview.

05:52 If you want a detailed MBUX review, plus all the features that it comes with, you can click up here

05:57 to have a watch of that. So, in the GLB, you get two 10.25-inch screens that are attached and sit

06:02 next to each other. You can control the infotainment system with your finger just by

06:06 swiping. You can use the touchpad down here that allows you to transition between the screens,

06:11 or alternatively, you can use the joystick pad on the steering wheel as well to go between each of

06:16 those screens. In terms of phone connectivity, you have Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. They're both

06:20 a wired system, though, so you can't use wireless on this car. I'll show you what that looks like.

06:25 Okay, so it's not a full-screen integration, which is a little bit disappointing. I would have liked

06:29 to see that taking up the entire screen. It just looks so much better. Now, in terms of radio,

06:34 you have AM/FM, DAB plus digital radio, plus the ability to stream Bluetooth and USB. There's

06:41 three USB ports, one up the front here and then two inside the glovebox. You have controls here

06:46 for the climate controls. Then, in the info section, you can see details on the engine,

06:50 how much power and torque it's producing, temperatures, and then consumption, and then

06:54 exactly what the car is doing and what the adaptive dampers are doing as well. And then,

06:58 on top of that, you also have an owner's manual built into the car, so you can access that at

07:03 any time. You also have remote connected services through the Mercedes me application, and you can

07:07 download that onto your phone, and that allows you to connect to the car remotely, check the status,

07:12 and even start it on some cars as well. Finally, let's have a look at the navigation. So, it's a

07:18 really high-resolution screen, and then if you do want to type in a destination, you can either use

07:22 this touchpad to write it in, you can type it in on the screen there, or you can use the steering

07:27 wheel controls to navigate through all the different letters there. Or finally, voice

07:30 recognition. This works really well for phone calls, navigation, even changing functions around

07:35 the car. Finally, you have the screen in front of the driver. There's a high level of customizability,

07:40 so use the right-hand side controls for that screen, so you can flick across here,

07:44 change the displays as you go, and then on top of that, you can also change what's in the center of

07:50 the screen, so you can have the telephone up there if you want, or if you want to change entirely the

07:55 way that it looks, you can come down here and pick something like the progressive display, and that

07:59 changes the entire layout of the screen. So, really impressed with MBUX, and the more I use it, the

08:06 easier it is to use. It's not quite as intuitive as iDrive, but Mercedes-Benz has done a really

08:11 good job with it. So, infotainment done and dusted, let's talk about the other features you get

08:14 standard with the GLB 250. Dual-zone climate control, love the switches too, they're nicely

08:19 knurled. You get electric seats with memory for the front row, heating on the front row as well,

08:25 so you're going to be nice and cozy up here. You get autonomous emergency braking that works at low

08:29 and high speed, detects pedestrians as well, blind spot monitoring, you get a lane-keeping

08:33 assistant, and then you can also add on top of that a semi-autonomous driving function,

08:38 which controls the steering inside the lane. Works okay, I probably wouldn't bother spending

08:42 money on it, it's around the sort of $2,000 mark. You get front and rear parking sensors and a

08:46 reverse view camera, but you can also option the Vision Package, which adds a 360-degree camera

08:52 and matrix LED headlights. You also get a panoramic sunroof as standard, that adds a

08:56 whole lot of light to this cabin, which makes it feel a lot bigger than it is. You get an auto

09:00 dimming rear vision mirror and side mirrors, and then on top of that you get the Off-Road

09:04 Engineering Package. What the hell's that? Well, it adds downhill speed control, and then if you go

09:10 to the off-road menu, you get a display here in front of the driver that shows you the inclination

09:16 angles and what the car is doing off-road, so very handy stuff if you do ever plan on going

09:20 into the bush or going for a drive with the kids off-road. And finally, the key, what does that

09:24 look like? Here it is, very nice and fancy looking. So you have lock, unlock, boot, you get this nice

09:31 metallic finish down the bottom and then blank on the back with the Mercedes-Benz symbol there.

09:36 It's a proximity sensing key, so you just keep it in your pocket, grab the door handle and then push

09:39 the push button start to get the car going. What about practicality? Let's start off with where

09:43 are you going to store your things. Phone doesn't really fit into the cup holders, especially not

09:49 my big phone, which is a little bit annoying, but you do get wireless phone charging. That slots in

09:53 down the front there, it's rubberized as well, so it's not going to move around anywhere. Bottle

09:57 fits into there and what you'll notice as well is you can lock these out and then bounce them

10:03 back into position using that button and then inside the door you have bottle storage with room

10:08 behind it as well for other things. Centre console, decent size and then glove box,

10:14 that's not too bad and there's a little tray up the top there as well for coins and stuff.

10:19 A little bit of netting and then a sunglass holder. Now what about comfort? The seats feel

10:25 really nice, they hug you in nice and tightly, but I have a secret to tell, this isn't leather,

10:30 it's Artico, which is fake leather. You have to pay extra for leather unfortunately and the

10:36 steering wheel, well it's an AMG designed wheel, so it fits nicely in the hand. You've got paddle

10:40 shifters on the back and then there's flat bottom as well. So back seat, but before I close the door

10:45 here, have a look at this. The door opens almost 90 degrees, so it's a bit like a Subaru Forester,

10:51 which means it's easier to load kids and people in because you're not kicking the door on your

10:56 way in or out, so that's good to see. Now in terms of the features you get back here,

11:00 matte pockets in the back of the seats. If you look down here you've got two USB outlets plus a

11:05 little storage bin and then a coin tray, rear air vents, centre armrest and then the cup holders

11:11 hide in here. Let's see how they fit our bottle. I love that little retraction mechanism, that is

11:16 over-engineered but very cool and then you can store your bottle inside the door as well. A

11:21 little bit of extra room there for rubbish and food scraps and whatever else kids have. The seats,

11:26 they have ISOFIX built into the two outboard seats, but they also recline. Each of the seats

11:31 has one of these little tabs on them, so it means you can bring it forwards or backwards to give

11:36 yourself a little bit of extra room. You can also slide forwards and backwards. Now in terms of how

11:41 much room I have as an adult here, I've actually got a decent amount of knee room, plenty of toe

11:45 room and headroom is pretty good even with this Sunroof. Keep in mind that my seat normally goes

11:50 quite far back, so the fact that they've managed to craft this much room out of a car that's based

11:54 on an A-Class is really damn impressive. Now before I show you how much room there is in the boot,

11:58 let me show you the third row. So you can see here, you don't have to be a maths genius to

12:02 figure out that I'm not going to fit in there, I've had too many beers. So you drop this down,

12:09 that reveals the third row. So you can see from here that that is a kids-only zone,

12:13 it is a pretty cramped space, but you do get ISOFIX points in the back there, and then because

12:19 this row slides, you can afford yourself a little bit of extra room for the kids to get in. Then

12:23 while they're in the back there, they have cup holders, they have their own USB ports and storage

12:27 on either side of the car, and the airbags go all the way back as well, so they're going to be fully

12:31 protected. So you can see here why they call this an occasional third row, it's technically not one

12:36 you want to be using all the time. So let's talk cargo numbers. Given this is a three-row car,

12:43 how much are you actually going to fit in here? PowerTarga, by the way. So in this space here,

12:47 you have a little over 100 litres, it's not a huge amount of room, and you can see that it

12:51 just fits a laptop bag, maybe a little bit of shopping, but this is a clever feature. Under

12:56 the floor here, you have space for the cargo blind, so when you do need to get the third row

13:01 up in a hurry, you don't need to have this sort of sitting on the footwell or people holding onto it.

13:06 Emergency triangle under there, and then extra storage if you need to slot anything in.

13:10 The seats then fold fairly easily like this. When they do fold, you get between 500 and 700 litres

13:17 of space, depending on how far back or forward the second row is, and then if you fold the second row

13:23 entirely, that expands to almost 1700 litres of space. Now before I do that, I'll show you what

13:28 it looks like with the bags inside. So they fit in fairly easily, and then off to the sides you

13:33 have a couple of tie-down hooks, but I'll show you what it looks like when the second row is folded

13:36 as well. So that folds like that, that folds like that, and then that folds like that to give you

13:45 stacks of space. So we've hit the road in the GLB, and let's start off with the engine. The 250 is

13:53 powered by a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine. It makes 165 kilowatts of power

14:00 and 350 newton-metres of torque. Mercedes-Benz has made it to an eight-speed dual-clutch automatic

14:06 transmission, so it's the first time they've used this gearbox in their cars that aren't

14:11 performance cars, so it's new to the car and actually works pretty well. Normally I'm not a

14:15 huge fan of dual-clutch gearboxes, but this one seems to work quite well. It doesn't sort of have

14:20 that harshness at low speed, it doesn't judder or do anything to give you less confidence in what

14:25 the car is doing. What about fuel economy? 7.7 litres per 100 kilometres, around 9.7 litres per

14:33 100 kilometres, so significantly higher, but the car has spent a fair bit of time idling, so I do

14:38 expect it to be a little higher, but it is pretty close to 10 litres per 100. Now what does that

14:42 engine feel like? So in comfort mode, it's actually pretty punchy, it gets along nicely, it comes with

14:47 a nice engine note as well, but if you use the dynamic selector here, we'll throw it over into

14:53 sport mode. It instantly puts the gearbox into a sport mode as well, it has adaptive dampers,

14:57 so everything becomes a whole lot firmer and it becomes really punchy. Get a bit of noise plumbed

15:03 into the cabin, it's actually quite dynamic, the steering becomes a lot heavier as well,

15:08 and then it's sending a whole lot more torque to the rear, which is what gives this a slightly

15:12 sportier feel. Sits nice and flat through the corners as well, and good communication through

15:17 the steering wheel, it's actually quite entertaining to drive. Now while you're in a

15:20 sporty mood, what does 0-100km/h look like?

15:24 Actually feels pretty good, it's not lightning fast, that's what the AMG models are for,

15:37 but it feels quick enough. 4MATIC, what does that mean? It's Mercedes-Benz torque for all-wheel

15:42 drive. Now it is interesting the way they developed the torque split, so right now we're

15:45 in comfort mode and it's 70/30 front/rear, so it's sending 70% of torque to the front axle,

15:50 30% to the rear. If you go into sport mode, it's inverse, so it only does 30 to the front,

15:55 70 to the rear, and then in off-road mode it acts like a centre differential lock, where it sends

16:01 50% of torque to the front and 50% of torque to the rear, so it's quite an advanced all-wheel

16:05 drive system to be able to switch all those things on the fly. Now if you do want to do

16:09 some towing in your GLB, it'll tow up to 2,000kg with a braked trailer, and there's 213mm of ground

16:17 clearance, not a huge amount, but if you are going to a campsite or a muddy track or something like

16:22 that, that should be enough to get you over most obstacles. Now let's talk about the ride.

16:26 I mentioned earlier that I was expecting this to be pretty average on 19-inch alloy wheels.

16:32 I am seriously dumbfounded by how good this rides. I was expecting it to be quite firm,

16:37 and I don't know, Mercedes-Benz, sometimes, unless you're a S-Class or an E-Class, the ride just

16:42 isn't really that good. This feels fantastic. It is soaking up bumps beautifully. We do a lot of

16:46 our filming out on country roads, and normally that unsettles a lot of city cars, whereas this

16:52 feels really nice. There's a lot of compliance there. The adaptive dampers really do a good job

16:57 of giving you a comfortable ride in comfort and then an edgier, sporty ride in sport mode.

17:02 It is also worth pointing out that with the steering, while the feel is nice in comfort

17:06 mode, it really doesn't have a great deal of resistance, makes it easy to park.

17:10 It has a variable ratio rack, so that means if you do want to dial it up, it's able to make the

17:14 steering a whole lot more direct without actually having to change any mechanical components in

17:19 there. So that's a really clever technology. Now, most importantly, if you're going to be

17:22 using this as a family car, what's the visibility like? Well, out the front, it's great. Out the

17:27 sides, it's good. The wing mirrors are big enough with the blind spot monitor built into them.

17:31 Visibility through the rear is good, but if you do have that third row in action,

17:35 it's going to be hard to see out the back off. In terms of road noise, again, course chip road

17:40 here. The ride is great, but so is the noise. There really isn't a great deal coming into

17:44 the cabin. Even on these 19-inch alloy wheels, there isn't a whole lot transmitted through.

17:49 So if you do a lot of road trips, this isn't going to send you deaf with drone inside the cabin.

17:54 So, Mercedes-Benz GLB. This is overall a really positive review because I've found it hard to

18:00 fault the car. It drives really well, it rides beautifully, and while you're not going to fit

18:04 adults in the third row, it is perfect as an occasional use row. If you've got to, I don't

18:09 know, take the kids out for ice cream, plus all their friends or whatever, you can still put

18:14 luggage in the back, plus kids if you need to. So this is a really good proposition. I'd also be

18:18 going for this one here, the 250. It comes with a lot of standard specification. It's really not

18:22 that expensive when you look at the competitors in this set and how much extra you need to spend

18:26 to get a fully-fledged seven-seater. So let me know in the comments below, what do you think of

18:31 the Mercedes-Benz GLB? Have you got one on order? What else did you cross-shop? Keen to get everyone's

18:35 feedback, and if you did enjoy this video, I'd love it if you could hit the like button,

18:39 follow it up with a subscribe, and also press the bell icon so you can find out every single

18:44 time we publish a new review. But until next time, take it easy!

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