Mercedes-Benz GLE Coupe Review 2024

The Mercedes GLE Coupe is a car you buy with your heart rather than your head. If your head were choosing a big luxury SUV, it’d choose one with seven seats, a big boxy cabin, a comfortable, quiet ride, decent fuel economy, and all at a relatively affordable price. Basically, your head would choose an Audi Q7. But not everyone wants sensible. Some want fun. Some want eye-catching. Some merely want to be different to everybody else, and they’re prepared to pay a premium to get it. If you’re one of those people, then the GLE Coupe could well fit the bill. Compared with its rivals, it offers bags of luxury kit, powerful engines and a clever infotainment system that tech-heads will love.

While most SUVs have a boxy, upright stature, the GLE Coupe adopts a design that’s driven more by style than it is practicality or versatility. 

Although those with a taste for pedantry might struggle to call it a genuine coupe, due to the fact it has more than two doors, there’s little doubt that the rakish appearance delivered by the car’s sloping roofline catches the eye. Yes, it’ll probably disgust as many people as it delights, but it sure won’t go unnoticed.

The GLE Coupe isn’t alone in occupying this part-SUV-part-coupe niche, either. The BMW X6 has offered a similar mash-up of conventions for a number of years, and although it’s a relatively new kid on the block, the Audi Q8 offers style-conscious buyers another choice.

Another reasonably new entrant is the Cayenne Coupe based on Porsche’s brilliant family SUV, while the Range Rover Sport has been joined by the slightly smaller Velar in Land Rover’s offensive on the class. That’s some pretty impressive company for the GLE to keep, so can it compete?

Well, practicality might not be the be-all-and-end-all here, but importantly, the GLE has generous space for five, provided those in the back aren’t much over six foot, in which case headroom becomes a wee bit tight.

The boot is the biggest in the class, though, and access to it is easier than in most rivals. You could also argue it has an edge on infotainment, with its two high-definition glass-fronted screens - that handle a wide range of functionality - injecting some real wow-factor. The GLE’s cabin is also classy enough to feel at home in such well-heeled company.

True, the big Merc might look a bit expensive, but there’s a reason. While the regular GLE - a conventional five-door SUV - offers a wide range of petrol and diesel engines, plus a number of different equipment grades to suit all tastes and budgets, the Coupe only comes in a couple of high-spec forms, with big powerful engines and loads of luxury kit.

You’ll want for nothing in terms of power and pampering, so it’s no wonder you’ll be required to pay for it.

Exactly how the car drives isn’t quite so clear-cut yet, though. The only car we’ve tried was fitted with a suspension that you can’t have in the UK, even as an optional extra, so a few questions remain unanswered. However, it’ll have to be pretty special when in such prestigious company.

Regardless, the GLE Coupe is a desirable car, and makes a decent case for itself against rivals, especially if you’re into your tech.

Legroom is pretty good in the back. There’s less than in the regular GLE SUV, admittedly, because the Coupe has a slightly shorter wheelbase, but there’s still loads of the stuff to play with. However, headroom isn’t quite so generous.

That sloping roof line means that anyone much over six foot will find their head brushing the ceiling, so tall passengers will find themselves scooching down in their seat to fit.

While a seven-seat option has been introduced on the GLE SUV, the Coupe version is still exclusively a five-seater.

Probably just as well when the roof line drops so rapidly. That does mean that the boot is a little shallower than in a conventional SUV, but it’s still really good on size. It’s bigger, in fact, than you get in the Audi Q8, BMW X6 and Porsche Cayenne Coupe, and easily enough to cope with a bulky buggy and a selection of bags. The flush load lip also means that the space is easy to get to.

The seats are leather (naturally) and the dashboard has a plush-feeling covering made from a (very convincing) man-made leather substitute.

Dark wood trims inject a sense of modern sophistication, while those infotainment screens mean there’s a high-tech feel, too. In terms of poshness, then, the GLE’s cabin feels right up there with its rivals.

However swish, though, the interior doesn’t feel quite as solid as rivals from Audi and BMW: pokes and prods of various bits and pieces result in a few more creaks and flexes than they do in the other German cars, so the Merc doesn’t feel quite as dense or substantial. That said, it really isn’t far behind, and you’ll certainly won’t feel like you’re slumming it.

The GLE uses Merc’s latest MBUX infotainment system, which centres around two glass-fronted 12.3-inch screens that are mounted side-by-side in front of the driver.

These take most of the car’s numerous functions, plus all the information that would usually be delivered on traditional instrument dials, and present them all in one integrated unit. 

You can control the system in a number of ways. Voice control is the easiest, and the GLE’s sophisticated system is designed to recognise natural speech rather than specific commands. Otherwise, you tap and swipe on the left-hand screen, or via a touchpad and shortcut buttons placed on the central partition between the front seats.

The graphics are sharp and the menus are logical, so it’s fairly easy to find your way around the system. However,  the touchpad controller is less precise, and thus more distracting, than the iDrive rotary dial you get in a BMW X6.

The functionality of your system includes DAB radio, Bluetooth, a whole bunch of connected services, a wireless phone charging plate, Apple Carplay/Android Auto, a Burmester surround sound system and augmented reality sat-nav.

This overlays instruction graphics over a camera image of the road ahead of you, pointing out precisely where you need to go. It looks really cool, and it’s also very handy.

Prices look very high compared with those of the regular GLE SUV, but that’s because the Coupe is only available with the most powerful engines and the poshest trim levels.

At the time of writing, prices for brand new GLE Coupes sat at around £73,000 for the 400d and £81,000 for the AMG 53. And again, yes, the Audi Q8 and BMW X6 can be had for less, but these rivals offer more modest engine options and/or trim levels that bring prices down.

It’s a little early to know for sure how the Merc’s resale values will stack up against those of its rivals, but with most of its models, the company usually puts in a very similar performance to Audi and BMW. It’s likely that values will fall at a similar rate, meaning used examples of equivalently high-end versions should be reasonably similar. 

If you’re planning to buy on finance, which most buyers will, then it’s always worth checking the manufacturer’s website for deals and promotions. That said, at the time of writing, the car was still too new to be offering finance incentives, so unfortunately, we can’t give you an idea of the figures you’ll be looking at.

Treat them gently (which you probably won’t), and the official WLTP figures reckon the 400d will give you around 33mpg, while the AMG 53 will be a way behind on 26mpg. No surprise, either, that insurance bills will be just as exorbitant.

The diesel sits in group 49 while the petrol pops into group 50, and when that’s the most expensive group there is, you know that premiums will be pricey. You’ll also pay the maximum rate possible on both VED tax and company car tax. Then again, if you can afford to buy a car as extravagant as the GLE Coupe, you can probably afford to run it, too.

In terms of reliability, premium German brands don’t tend to do as well in the various reliability surveys as many would expect, usually figuring towards the bottom end of the standings. That’s also true of Mercedes, although it should be noted that it usually outperforms bitter rivals Audi and BMW.

Bit of a grey area, this. All GLE Coupes come with air suspension as standard, while the AMG 53 gets an even more sophisticated system, but the test car we drove was fitted with an optional suspension system that’s not offered in the UK. Bit odd, but there you go...

It’s still very good at absorbing the effects of bumps and ruts, but there’s more control over the body’s up-and-down movements, so you’re not tossed about quite as much, resulting in a more settled ride.

There is loads of grip and traction from the standard four-wheel-drive system, so things always feel secure, but it doesn’t disguise its bulk as well as a Porsche Cayenne Coupe, and there’s more body roll. It doesn’t steer as sweetly, either, because things are rather light and vague.

The 400d uses a 3.0-litre six-cylinder diesel unit with 330PS, but it’s the generous 700NM of torque that makes the bigger difference, while the fact that it’s available from just 1,200rpm makes a bigger difference still.

Put any meaningful pressure on the accelerator, and it takes off like a scalded animal, belting towards the horizon at a seriously rapid rate. It picks up speed pretty viciously on the move, too, so this is one very brisk car all round.

The standard nine-speed gearbox isn’t quite so responsive - bury the throttle for a sudden burst of acceleration and there’s a brief pause before the engine’s full fury is unleashed - but other than that, changes are fast and slick.

The AMG 53, meanwhile, uses a 3.0-litre six-cylinder petrol engine, which delivers a very impressive 435PS. On paper, it’s even quicker than the diesel, and by a considerable margin of almost half a second. However, as we haven’t tried it yet, we can’t tell you what it feels like.

Standard safety kit includes seven airbags, clever multi-beam LED headlights, an active pop-up bonnet to better protect pedestrians and a self-parking system with a 360-degree camera.

You also get automatic emergency braking, blind spot monitoring, lane keeping assistance, traffic sign recognition with automatic amendment of your speed, and super-clever adaptive cruise control that brings in a whole bunch of other clever functionality, allowing the car to pretty much drive itself under certain circumstances.

The GLE Coupe hasn’t been crash tested by Euro NCAP, but the regular GLE SUV has, and achieved the full five-star rating. We can’t see any reason why the Coupe should perform any differently.

The good news is that most versions of the GLE Coupe are capable of pulling a braked trailer of up to 3500kg, which is about as much as any road car. Some versions aren’t quite so robust, dropping to about the 3000kg mark, but not many variants drop much lower than that.

While the regular GLE SUV gives you a range of trim grades to choose from to suit your budget, the Coupe comes in one all-singing-all-dancing trim that’s equivalent to its stablemate’s top-of-the-range version, meaning everything’s included in the (admittedly rather high) price.

On top of all the infotainment and safety gear already discussed, your roster of standard luxury kit includes four-zone climate control, heated and cooled front seats, power-folding door mirrors, automatic lights and wipers, four powered windows, keyless go, a panoramic roof and ambient lighting with no fewer than 64 colours.

The only optional extras on new cars were metallic paint, a towing package and a servicing package, so used examples will all be of a very similar spec.