Drove a 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLE350d Coupe

[cawimmer430]

Hey guys,

I'm currently in Leipzig in the former East Germany with the president of a pro-car organization from Munich. We're spending the night here as he has an important event here the next day and I'll be photographing the show and the important politicians who will be there. To make things simple, I asked if I could ride with him as it would make my job at the location easier due to parking issues. Since he was very busy, he requested that I drive from Munich to Leipzig (approximately 430 km (269 miles) of which 98% was Autobahn driving.

His car was a 1-year old 2021 Mercedes-Benz GLE350d Coupe with the AMG Line body kit. Specs are 3.0 inline-6 Turbodiesel with 272-horsepower., 0-62 mph in 6.6 seconds and a top speed of 226 km/h. This car also has MBUX and the latest gizmos. Looked like this with the same wheels but the color was gray.




Here's the embarrassing part. Keep reading. So I'm driving this car the entire way from Munich to Leipzig and I'm impressed with the smoothness, the silence, the responsiveness and the fuel economy of the engine/car. Since the client is a car guy, he didn't mind if I drove fast and therefore I did. The fastest I drove was 180 km/h - handling was ok. The car was stable at all times but you could feel that it was a large and heavy SUV so it wasn't that nimble. AWD also feels weird to me. So, despite the fast driving and stop-and-go traffic jams the average fuel economy was a respectable 8.1 L / 100 km (29 mpg).

So what's embarrasing about this? Well the refinement and smoothness of the motor were so amazing that I mistook the motor for a gasoline engine, BUT it was a Turbodiesel! I mean when you press the engine Start button it comes to life - no preheating that you can detect. And while cold, the engine was smooth, quiet and responsive. This was a frigging Diesel! So the entire way from Munich to Leipzig I'm like, "This is a fine, smooth and poweful inline-6 GASOLINE engine!" and it's actually a Diesel! 

Ok, that's embarrassing. But I guarantee you guys, if you were in my situation you would 99.9% have assumed it was a gasoline engine. But wait, didn't you have an RPM counter? Well yes, but since this is a digital screen the client had the fuel economy readout selected in the readout where you could display the RPM gauge, and since this is not my car, I didn't change anything as that would be impolite.

One more thing. This is one fat and heavy SUV. We left Munich on a full tank of Diesel and the range readout was about 860 km (538 miles). When we arrived in Leipzig the fuel tank was about 60% still full. This is a really impressive car in terms of engine performance and efficiency. The transmission is the 9G-Tronic automatic.

Ok, so with that out of the way, I gotta praise the car. I mean it's a comfortable long-distance cruiser for sure. The seats are comfortable and supportive. The transmission shifts are undetectable and even at 180 km/h the wind noises were pretty low and the engine could not be heard. My client was constantly receiving phone calls over the MBUX system and I could understand the speaker on the other end of the line because... well... it was so quiet inside this car. Design wise I like the regular GLE SUV but I am not a fan of these "SUV Coupes", but it did drive nicely.

Impressive car for sure and my god, that Diesel engine was so frigging refined it's insane. What a cruel joke it would be the replace these amazing modern internal combustion engines with a soulless electric motor whose batteries can't supply enough juice that you could even SPEED from Munich to Leipzig on one day and back on the next. For fast Autobahn cruising, Diesel is seriously the way to go. 

[cawimmer430]

Back in Munich! The efficiency of this engine is insane. The client wanted me to drive down so they could do "home office" in the front passenger seat. Hit 200 km/h on the way back to Munich quite often and travelled about 60% of the way at speeds of 150-160 km/h. Average fuel economy when we reached Munich was 8.0 L / 100 km and the tank was about 1/4 full and still had a range of about 207 km!

God damn I love Diesels!