Mercedes-Benz GLE Review & Prices

The Mercedes GLE is the three-pointed star’s answer to the BMW X5, Audi Q7 and Volvo XC90. It’s luxurious, comes with a range of great engines and is comfortable to drive, but it’s pretty expensive and the interior feels a little dated compared to the latest and best models.

The GLE is by no means the biggest or poshest Mercedes SUV on sale - there are several models above it including the GLS, G-Class, all-electric EQS SUV and powerful AMG or super-posh Maybach versions of those. But with up to seven seats, the option of petrol, diesel or plug-in hybrid power, and a footprint that sticks with being reasonably large rather than intimidatingly enormous, the GLE is a great sweet spot for family buyers in need of something premium, comfy and versatile.

Despite the butch styling - which just gets more flashy if you go for a top trim or add the ‘Night’ package - the regular GLE is resolutely built for comfort rather than speed and refinement. It’s like a champion boxer who’s retired into a cushy life of property management - still looks powerful enough to scare off the odd nightmare tenant, but really prefers his squashy sofa and widescreen telly these days.

The current model was launched in 2019, and received an update in 2023. In terms of styling, it’s got all the familiar Mercedes cues - a big grille with huge three-pointed star in the middle, slim taillights, smooth curves and pronounced wheelarches and roof bars just so you know it’s an SUV. It also has the same sharply-raked rear quarter window that’s been a hallmark of Mercedes SUVs ever since the M-Class of the 1990s, and shows the car’s lineage.

Group test: Audi Q7 v BMW X5 v Mercedes GLE v Porsche Cayenne v VW Touareg

It’s not a bad-looking thing, but it lacks the outright ‘grr’ factor of other Mercedes models like the G-Class. It’s definitely a lot prettier than the BMW X5 with its turkey-teeth grille or the Audi Q7 with its droopy bottom, but the Scandi-cool XC90 could teach Merc a lesson or two about less-is-more minimalism.

Inside, you’ll find a dashboard that’s rather last-generation Mercedes - it doesn’t feature the big portrait-oriented touchscreen in the centre that you get on the brand’s latest models, opting instead for two 12.3-inch displays under a seamless sheet of glass. There’s even a touchpad in the centre with which to control them.

It’s a bit old hat these days, but the setup actually works very nicely and it’s backed up by a row of proper clicky climate control buttons. Shame the steering wheel gets a glut of horrible touch-sensitive buttons instead, as they’re a pain to use on the move.

Still, build quality feels quite good, if not as bank vault-solid as an Audi Q7. And it’s definitely roomy in the first two rows. The driver and front passenger feel almost as imperious as a Range Rover Sport driver, and those in the second row can stretch out. The third row, standard on non-hybrid variants, is rather cramped.

Speaking of hybrids, the GLE comes with a choice of two - there’s your standard petrol-powered offering but there’s also an unusual diesel PHEV which should combine the low CO2 and round-town running of an EV with the long-distance economy of an oil burner. It’s pricey to buy but unique among the GLE’s alternatives.

Regardless of which model you choose, the GLE is a superb long-distance cruiser, with impeccable motorway manners. It does feel rather enormous round town, though, and while it’s perfectly capable on a twisting road it doesn’t feel anywhere near as agile or as enjoyable as a BMW X5 or a Porsche Cayenne does. For that, you’ll want one of the AMG-tuned versions such as the ballistic GLE 63 S.

When it comes to the standard model, though, you can see the best Mercedes GLE deals on Carwow here. You can also check out used Mercedes GLE models for sale, or search for other new or used Mercedes models for sale. And remember that Carwow can even help you to sell your old car when the time comes.

GLE prices kick off at around £78,000, which will buy you either the 300d diesel or the 300de diesel plug-in hybrid. These boast identical performance, but the plug-in hybrid is a bit of a no-brainer especially for company car users. The more powerful 400e petrol plug-in hybrid costs just over £80,000, or the top-spec 450d diesel comes in at just over £82,000.

This is undeniably a bit pricey. The BMW X5 starts at less than £75,000, the Q7 just over £70,000 and the Volvo XC90 around £65,000. The GLE’s starting price is more in line with the Porsche Cayenne and Range Rover Sport, though it does get significantly more standard equipment than either of those cars.

Those prices are for the entry-level Urban Edition, which gets 21-inch alloy wheels, a powered tailgate, matrix LED headlights and air suspension, plus all the interior goodies you’d expect from a posh SUV.

Stepping up to AMG Line Premium nets you a different alloy wheel design, silver rather than black trim, a panoramic sunroof, head-up display and four-zone climate control, while AMG Line Premium Plus adds 22-inch wheels, a heated steering wheel, cooled front seats and temperature-controlled cupholders. Because of course you need temperature-controlled cupholders.

The Mercedes GLE is comfortable and easy to drive around town, but the BMW X5 is more fun in corners

In town

For such a huge car, the GLE isn’t too intimidating to drive around town. The turning circle is reasonably tight by large 4x4 standards, and every model has a nine-speed automatic gearbox for wafting along in traffic without troubling your left leg.

Better all-round visibility would help with manoeuvres and parking, but fortunately the 360-degree cameras are brilliant, so you can rely on them to get you out of a tight spot. Literally.

The standard-fit air suspension means that the Mercedes GLE is really comfortable, but the plug-in hybrid model is a bit heavier than the regular cars, which makes sharp bumps more noticeable. It’s no deal-breaker, though, and the light steering and smooth brakes only add to the easy town driving experience.

With the batteries regularly topped up, the hybrid is your best bet for driving around town. Keep it smooth and the petrol engine is rarely called upon as you waft silently around.

On the motorway

The hybrid engine is actually really good at resisting the urge to call on combustion, and you can even drive the Mercedes GLE on electric power at motorway speeds. You will quickly eat into the battery’s 60-mile official range by doing this, so generally you’re better off leaving the system to its own devices to choose whether petrol or electric is best for the situation.

All of the engines have enough power to get you up to speed with little fuss, and overtaking is easy, but the suspension does have a tendency to fidget a bit at higher speeds, and it’s not as quiet as the BMW X5 or Audi Q7 on the motorway.

It’s the 450d diesel that makes the best motorway companion. With effortless power you’ll be able to slide down any slip road, and even when you rev it it’s not too noisy. Once at a cruise it settles down to near-silence, and will even return over 40mpg on a gentle run - impressive for a car this size. Its huge fuel tank means plenty of range between fillups, too.

The GLE is a comfortable companion for long drives, and has excellent adaptive cruise control that keeps pace with traffic without being too intrusive.

On a twisty road

The Mercedes GLE has a clear focus on comfort, and as such it’s not the most agile beast in the bends. It’s particularly noticeable in the heavier hybrid, where you can feel the added weight and notice the body leaning. Take manual control of changing gears and it can be slow to respond, too. Even the regular GLE isn’t the sportiest – if you want an upmarket SUV that’s fun on a twisty road, consider the Porsche Cayenne.

That, or look at the AMG versions of the GLE. The AMG 63 S in particular might be incredibly expensive, starting at more than £140,000, but it has a whopping 612hp and suspension upgrades that make it a hoot on the right road.

Cabin space is cavernous whether you sit in the front or back, but the boot’s a bit smaller than you’ll find elsewhere

There’s loads of space for those in the front, and the driver gets lots of adjustment in the steering wheel and seat so even taller drivers should be able to get comfortable. It’s all electrically operated, but it takes an age for the electric motor to move the wheel in and out and up and down. You’d be done in less than half the time with manual adjustment, but that wouldn’t seem right in a luxury car, would it?

Aside from the fairly pokey glovebox – an air freshener takes up a lot of space – there’s loads of storage in the front of the cabin. The door bins are massive, although it’s a shame they aren’t lined to stop things rattling around, and you get lots of room for odds and ends under the driver’s armrest.

There are two big cupholders – heated and cooled on all models, by the way – between the front seats with room for a flask or a really big takeaway cup. If you have a narrower bottle or can, the holders will grip it at the push of a button to stop it from toppling over.

Space in the back seats

The GLE is a hugely spacious limo on stilts for those in the second-row of seats, but it’s more like a three-door city car for those in the third-row.

If you are in the second row there’s plenty of head and legroom, even in cars with a sunroof, which does a great job of making the back feel really light and airy. Storage is pretty good, with large door bins and nets on the seat-backs in front, while you also get a couple of USB-C slots and switches to control the temperature in the rear.

The transmission tunnel gets in the way a bit if there are three of you, but two tall adults will be more than happy on a long journey.

You’ll wipe the smile off their faces if they ride in the third row on the way home, though. Leg and headroom are meagre, but it’s the lack of room for your feet that really makes seats six and seven a no-go area for grown-ups. Even kids won’t relish being in the very back for long periods.

It’s better to think of the GLE as a five-seater with a couple of extra seats for emergencies. Both the Audi Q7 and Land Rover Discovery are better full-time seven-seaters.

It’s also worth noting that the plug-in hybrid is only available as a five-seater, while all other engines come with seven seats as standard.

If you need to fit a bulky child seat, you’ll be glad of the wide-opening doors. However, it’s annoying that you need to remove a cover to access the ISOFIX mounting points, because they can be easy to lose. There’s just about room for an adult to squeeze in the middle if you have two child seats fitted.

Boot space

The Mercedes GLE has a reasonably sized boot, though it’s smaller than most of its alternatives offer. In five-seat mode, you get 630 litres in petrol and diesel models and 490 litres in the plug-in hybrid, with the Lexus RX’s 461-litre boot the only smaller option.

A BMW X5 and Volvo XC90 are only a bit more spacious, at 650 litres and 680 litres respectively. The biggest boot award goes to the Porsche Cayenne, which has a whopping 772 litres, just ahead of the 740 litres found in the Audi Q7.

Plug-in hybrids generally have smaller boots because the system’s batteries are typically placed beneath the boot floor, so eat into space. The Volvo XC90 has the biggest hybrid boot here at 680 litres, followed by the Q7’s 650 litres and 627 litres in the Cayenne – all considerably bigger than the GLE hybrid’s boot.

Lower the middle row and the space is enormous, with a flat floor. You could almost move house. Certainly taking the eldest and all their possessions to uni at the start of term won’t be a problem, because the capacity of around 2,000 litres is bigger than anything else here.

Looks great, with fab infotainment - but build quality lags behind alternatives

The GLE’s dashboard does look fantastic, but it’s actually a generation old by Mercedes standards. It gets twin 12.3-inch displays, both landscape and set under one sheet of glass for a seamless widescreen effect. The latest Mercedes interiors have a portrait-oriented screen in the centre, or a full-width ‘Hyperscreen’. However, the GLE’s approach is actually a bit nicer in many ways.

For a start, Mercedes has kept some of the key controls on physical buttons - including a row of climate control switches that are so much easier to use than fiddling around in a touchscreen. There’s also a central touchpad, a bit like a laptop trackpad, which can be used to interact with the central screen - this keeps it free of fingerprints and is actually easier to use on the move than a touchscreen, though it’s rather fiddly when it comes to things like the sat-nav or when you’re deep in Apple CarPlay or Android Auto instead of Merc’s interface.

That being said, you may feel slightly less tempted to use your smartphone in the GLE than in some of its alternatives. Mercedes’ factory sat-nav is probably the best out there, with clear mapping and directions we’ve yet to be stumped by - and it even comes with a cool augmented reality feature that can project directions onto an image of the road - great for showing you which exit you need at a busy roundabout, for example.

Less good is the steering wheel, which features two big banks of touch-sensitive controls. These are difficult to use and impossible to differentiate via touch alone, so you have to look down to make sure you’re pressing the right thing.

You get a Burmester sound system on all models, which is a fantastic addition. And refinement is excellent, so you can really hear the details in your music.

If there’s one criticism it’s that build quality isn’t as rock-solid as it is on some alternatives. It’s not as overtly creaky as some Mercedes vehicles (A-Class and C-Class, we’re looking at you) but items such as the screen surrounds and the seat adjustment controls just feel a little suspect for a car this expensive. Some areas of the dash do creak when you touch them, as well, and there are a few scratchier plastics lower down in the cabin. A BMW X5 or Porsche Cayenne both feel posher.

The entry-level GLE is the 2.0-litre, four-cylinder 300d diesel. It returns a claimed 41.6mpg and has CO2 emissions of 179g/km. You can step up to the 450d diesel, which we’d definitely recommend if you’re keen on this fuel type.

It feels better-suited to the car, being a beefy 3.0-litre six-cylinder - it’s buttery smooth, virtually silent and still returns over 40mpg on a gentle motorway run. CO2 emissions of 196g/km are high, though, so first-year road tax will be hefty and it doesn’t make a good company car choice.

For that, you’ll want one of the two plug-in hybrid options. The 400e petrol plug-in hybrid emits 69g/km and has a 68-mile (claimed) electric range. That still places it a long way behind the BMW X5 50e, though - the Mercedes is in the 18% bracket, the BMW just 8%. The Audi Q7, Volvo XC90 and Range Rover Sport also fall into far lower bands than the Mercedes.

The GLE does have a unique trump card, though - the 350de diesel plug-in hybrid. This isn’t much cheaper as a company car - CO2 emissions are still 58g/km, putting it in the 16% bracket - but fuel economy with a depleted battery will be far higher than any of its petrol PHEV alternatives, which often suffer sub-30mpg figures when their electricity runs out. If you want a PHEV for city work or as a company car, but still regularly do lots of long journeys, this could be a fantastic option.

Back in 2019 the safety experts at Euro NCAP put the Mercedes GLE through their series of tests and it emerged with the maximum five-star rating. Merc’s SUV scored 91% for adult occupant protection, 90% for child occupant protection, 78% for pedestrian safety and 78% for its safety assistance features.

Standard kit includes a system to warn the driver if they are getting tired, a blind spot warning, and an active lane keeping feature to keep the car in the centre of the lane if it starts to drift out without indicating. There’s also a dashcam that can record in the event of a crash, and can also send images to your phone if something happens while you’re away from the car.

Top-spec Premium Plus models get the Driving Assistance Package Plus, which adds adaptive cruise control, a system to warn if you’re opening the door into traffic, and an evasive steering assistant.

The Mercedes GLE should be pretty painless to own - in fact, owners seem to love it. So much so that it was named overall best car to own in the 2025 Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, with the Mercedes brand as a whole taking second place. That’s an enviable position, and far higher than any of its premium alternatives.

Like other Mercedes cars, the GLE comes with a three-year new car warranty which should protect you against any unexpected bills for the first 36 months. While its unlimited mileage coverage makes it stand out from most other premium brands, all fall well behind the 10-year warranty offered by Lexus, provided the car is annually serviced at an approved dealer.