Mercedes-Benz GLC review

The GLC is a dependable companion that'll fit neatly into yours and your family’s day-to-day lives. And you can’t really say any better than that for a family SUV, can you? Wrong! You ought to care more about the way your car drives, and what’s evident from the GLC is that Mercedes doesn’t really. The GLC does a very ordinary job: the brakes are mushy, the steering disconnected, the suspension doesn’t support the body weight well enough, so it pitches and rolls around.

But isn’t that good for comfort?

Yeah, if the road is smooth and the speed is steady. But if you’ve got kids on screens in the back it isn’t going to be long before the constant movement causes motion sickness.

Mercedes has clearly put its effort into the PHEV tech instead of the dynamics – and the results of that are rather better. Unlike a lot of similar cars with plug-in powertrains the electric motor is solid enough for measured everyday driving. Offering 60 miles of juice - more if you’re careful - and fast charging capability, it feels like just the thing for people who can’t make the full leap into EV ownership, and the GLC makes it a fairly painless transition.

Helpfully the electric motor is packaged in with the transmission to save space and cut down on cables running through the car, although the crazy nine-speed gearbox feels like it has a gear or three too many: kickdown sometimes takes a while as the ‘box figures out which gear it needs to get itself motivated.

Got it. Can you hustle the GLC?

UK-spec suspension consists of a four-link front and multi-link independent rear set-up, with some electronic tweakery for the damping. But the GLC is definitely more cruise than abuse. You can spin some speed out of the car, but the engine (2.0-litre petrol in this case), aided and abetted by the electric motor, never feels particularly willing. And the nine-speed ‘box is much happier when it can plot and plan; getting aggressive and on/off throttle seems to confuse it a bit: the paddles help, but it’s certainly not set up for scything. Body control simply isn’t good enough: this is a car best left to the plain business of ordinary driving. Which is all 99 per cent of owners want from it.

Is there other tech tucked away?

As an aside, European cars actually have a rear-wheel steer system to help the GLC feel a little bit smaller, but we haven’t tested it in the UK. When we tried it in Germany it did a grand job of masking the car’s size, making it usefully agile around town. Which always goes down well when you’re navigating one of our lovely dark urban multi storeys. 

What are the different powertrains like?

The GLC arrived in the UK with three mild hybrid assisted petrol and diesel units, all 2.0-litre engines. The 200 and 300 are 201bhp and 255bhp petrol cars, while the 220d uses a 194bhp diesel. The 48V mild hybrid tech offers imperceptible and smooth start-stop functionality and will turn the engine off when it can to save on fuel. There’s also a bit of help to smooth out acceleration there too, but don’t be under any impression it can drive on electric power. It can’t.

The 300e and 300de are the plug-in options, and they use the same engines as the mild hybrid cars with a 134bhp electric motor as back-up, with 31.2kWh battery stuffed under the car. This doesn’t just help economy, performance is notably brisker too: the petrol’s 0–62mph time drops from 7.8 seconds to 6.7 seconds and the diesel’s from eight seconds flat to 6.4 seconds. You only get a 49-litre fuel tank on the plug-ins though, while the standard cars get 62-litres for dinosaur juice.

You’re forgetting the fast one…

Patience, friend. There is of course the AMG GLC 63 S E Performance, which is fitted with a 2.0-litre engine from the AMG A45 and a punchy electric motor for a grand total of 671bhp and 752lb ft of torque. Top speed’s 171mph; 0-62mph takes 3.5 seconds; it costs well over six figures. Yep, a bona fide beast.

No doubt you’ll be wondering how - in the context of our indifference for the standard car - a quick version stacks up? Surprisingly well, all things considered. Deserves its own review really, so we wrote one.