Mercedes G-Class Review & Prices

The Mercedes G-Class is a premium SUV that’s capable of wafting you around in luxury and taking you almost anywhere off the beaten track. You’re more likely to see it on your local high street than out in the woods though – a lot like a pair of Hunter wellington boots.

If you’re looking at a G-Class, you’ll probably have your eye on the Land Rover Defender, Porsche Cayenne and BMW X7 as well – all of which are capable alternatives.

The looks of the G-Class are very retro and classic off-roader, with its boxy shape, round headlights and large windows, while you get silvery trim detailing too.

For the cabin, you get a similar mix of premium and utilitarian. There’s a lot of leather upholstery options and brushed aluminium that can be teamed with either gloss black or open-pore wood trim, while there are two large screens for your driver’s display and infotainment touchscreen.

You can fit five people in the cabin in comfort, with plenty of head and legroom for adults in the back – even your tallest mates will fit.

Watch: New G63 AMG vs Old G63 off-road race

While the 667-litre boot is very spacious, the Land Rover Defender 110 and Porsche Cayenne both have more space to work with. The three-door Defender 90 is much smaller though, while the seven-seat BMW X7 has less room with all the chairs in place.

You can choose between the 440d diesel and the AMG-tuned G 63, both of which come with a nine-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel drive.

If you want to use that all-wheel drive where it’ll show its worth, you get three differential locks to stop wheels spinning or slipping on loose surfaces. There are special driving modes suited to different situations too, such as Slippery and Sport+.

Even if it’s well-suited to driving off Tarmac, the G-Class is supremely comfortable when you’re driving in town. You get adaptive damping on the suspension, which makes the G soft and comfortable over bumps – even at slower speeds. But as the body is quite chunky, getting in and out of small streets and car parks can be tricky.

When you take the G-Class onto the motorway, you get a lot of safety assistance systems to take the strain out of long-distance driving. While the G-Class has a boxy shape that could mean a lot of wind noise, Mercedes has done an excellent job of insulating it from that.

Take it on a twisty road and the G-Class does start to lean even with the adaptive suspension, but if you choose the AMG G 63, you get uprated brakes and sportier suspension components to make it more capable. A Porsche Cayenne or a BMW X7 are better at hustling down a back-road, though.

Taking all of that into account, the Mercedes G-Class is an excellent selection in the premium SUV market with a high-end cabin and comfortable ride, although it is one of the more expensive options and isn’t quite as fun as alternatives.

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If you’re after a bargain, the luxury SUV market is probably the last place you should be looking. Even by these standards, the Mercedes G-Class is pretty expensive compared with its alternatives. Prices for the Defender 110 start at just over £60,000, and even though it’s fairly low on kit and quality materials at that price, it’s still a lovely place to sit, whether on- or off-road. The Cayenne starts to look like a great deal here, too, starting at a touch more than the Land Rover but feeling a bit more special inside. It lacks the other cars’ off-road prowess, though.

With G 63 AMG prices well on the way to £200,000 you could look at the Defender V8 for about £110,000 or the Cayenne Turbo S e-Hybrid for £130,000.

G-Class prices put it closer to the more luxurious Range Rover. The latest version has a gorgeous interior and silky smooth on-road driving manners, while also being supremely capable off the beaten track. It costs between £110,000 and £140,000.

The Mercedes G-Class is impressively quiet and very relaxing to drive, until you head into town where its huge size makes parking a real pain

In town

Every Mercedes G-Class comes with a nine-speed automatic gearbox as standard. It shifts smoothly and makes light work of heavy traffic, but can be a little eager to change up early in G 400d diesel models – even in the sportiest of driving modes. That being said, it works perfectly in the G 63.

Towering above traffic like a classy road-crane means you get an excellent view over other cars and most SUVs, too. The Mercedes G-Class’ large windows offer almost unparalleled visibility too, and you get a set of gigantic door mirrors to help spot other cars daring to sneak into your blind spot.

Unfortunately, none of this really makes up for the G-Class’ gigantic size – especially around town. Sure, the steering is nice and light and feels infinitely more precise than the old car’s archaic off-road-oriented setup, but squeezing this huge SUV down narrow streets and into tight parking spaces will get the pulse racing every time.

On the motorway

Thankfully, long motorway journeys will do the exact opposite because the Mercedes G-Class is very relaxing to cruise along in. You won’t hear too much wind or tyre noise – despite its huge size and bluff shape – and the suspension does a good job ironing out all but the most jarring potholes.

On a twisty road

Show it a twisty country road and the Mercedes G-Class will lean quite a bit more than the likes of the Range Rover or Porsche Cayenne. It never feels particularly cumbersome though, especially in AMG G 63 trim. These range-topping models come with sportier suspension and upgraded brakes designed to make them feel lighter and more agile than their sheer size would suggest. These modifications work, to an extent, but if it’s outright agility you’re after in your SUV, you’ll be much better off with a Porsche Cayenne.

The Mercedes G-Class’s huge body means it has absolutely masses of room inside, but its lofty ground clearance means elderly and less mobile passengers may struggle to climb in

The Mercedes G-Class feels like an SUV designed specifically for tall drivers. There’s absolutely acres of head and legroom in the front seats and you get plenty of seat adjustment to help you find your ideal driving position.

You get a fairly generous storage area under the Mercedes G-Class’ front armrest and both front door bins are wide enough to carry a half-litre bottle each. The glove box isn’t particularly roomy, however, and the rear door bins aren’t as big as those in the front.

Unfortunately, the Mercedes G-Class’ raised ride height means some passengers might find it a tad tricky to climb on board – especially if they’re older or have limited mobility. The rather old-fashioned door locks require you to pull very hard on the doors before they’ll click securely in place, too.

Space in the back seats

Things are equally spacious in the back seats. The panoramic glass roof doesn’t cut into the available headroom and the Mercedes’ large square windows mean it doesn’t feel at all claustrophobic like some other equally imposing SUVs.

The central seat’s a little harder and narrower than the outer two, but at least everyone has somewhere to put their feet thanks to the G-Class’ mostly flat rear floor. Its very wide cabin means there’s plenty of shoulder room if you need to carry three adults in the back at once, too.

You get two sets of Isofix anchor points to let you fit a couple of child seats; handy if you regularly carry much younger passengers. The Mercedes G-Class’ back doors open nice and wide and their square openings leave plenty of space to lift in a bulky child seat. It’s easy to twist the seat in position, too.

Boot space

At 667 litres of luggage space with the seats up, the G-Class boot is pretty big and should have more than enough space to carry a big shop or some bags for a weekend away. Despite this, it is smaller than the Defender 110’s 875 litres and Cayenne’s 765 litres, but it’s a good chunk more than the Bentley Bentayga’s 480 litres.

The Mercedes G-Class’ interior comes with plenty of uber-plush materials and bundles of futuristic features, but the optional carbon fibre trim looks a bit naff

The Mercedes G-Class’ interior comes with many features you’ll find in other Mercedes cars, but laid out in a simpler, square arrangement that mirrors the G-Class’ unapologetically boxy exterior.

There’s a huge streak of brushed metal that stretches the full width of the dashboard and links each of the four turbine-like air vents – something of a Mercedes signature these days. The metal toggle switches that operate the heating and ventilation controls have been borrowed from other Mercedes models, but the chunky leather-clad grab handle just above the glovebox is a G-Class exclusive.

What looks like leather on the dashboard, doors and seats is actually a man-made alternative called ‘Artico’ upholstery. Thankfully, it feels very plush and is more than convincing enough to trick your passengers into thinking they’re perched on some genuine cowhide.

Pick an AMG G 63 model, though, and you get upgraded Nappa leather alongside a sportier flat-bottomed steering wheel and the option of some rather chintzy carbon fibre trim on the centre console.

The G-Class comes as standard with a widescreen infotainment system consisting of two huge 12.3-inch displays stretching halfway across the dashboard. The central display deals with the car’s various on-board settings and lets you program the satellite navigation. The second unit replaces conventional analogue dials with customisable graphics on a super high-resolution screen.

You can also use your smartphone’s navigation apps through the Mercedes G-Class’ built-in screens if you prefer. This feature works with both Apple and Android phones, but neither the Apple CarPlay or Android Auto apps quite fill the Mercedes’ huge central display. As a result, you’re left with a rather ugly blank space on the left-hand side.

You can get the Mercedes G-Class with either a six-cylinder 3.0-litre diesel engine in G 400d guise or a twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8 petrol engine in AMG-tuned G 63 models.

The former produces 330hp which is enough to sprint this leviathan of an SUV from 0-60mph in just 6.2 seconds. It’s impressively smooth and quiet for a diesel engine, too – it emits little more than a distant rumble when you accelerate hard and it ticks along with barely a whisper at 70mph. Official figures peg the fuel economy at 25.7mpg.

The twin-turbo V8 petrol is a whole different kettle of fish. It barks like the Hounds of Hades when you press the start button and pumps a sustained satisfying gurgle through the four side-exit exhausts at idle. It produces a whopping 585hp and will blast the G 63 from 0-60mph in a pretty astonishing 4.3 seconds. That’s faster than plenty of sports cars and all but the very hottest of hot-hatches.

The downside to this frantic turn of speed is its thirstiness. Mercedes claims it’ll return 17.7mpg, but you’ll have to drive with the patience of a professional chauffeur to manage anything close to that figure. But who cares when the performance and the noise is as glorious as this?

All G-Class models get a suite of airbags for the driver, front passenger, front side, rear side and windows bags. There’s also extensive driver assistance kit including adaptive cruise control, lane keep assist, preventive occupant protection in the event of a crash and a drowsy driver alert. Extra security comes from an anti-theft alarm, tow-away protection, park damage protection and 360-degree snapshots in the event of an incident.

When the G-Class was safety tested by Euro NCAP, it was given the full five stars, scoring particularly highly for adult occupant protection at 90%. Elsewhere it scored 83% for child occupant protection, 78% for vulnerable road users and 72% for safety assist.

As quite a rare vehicle, the G-Class rarely makes it onto ownership surveys to get a clear view of its reliability. However, this is a durable 4x4 built to survive in tough conditions, so well-looked-after examples should go on and on. Mercedes itself has a patchy record with reliability though, which is worth bearing in mind if running costs are a concern. It does come with a three-year, unlimited mileage warranty for peace of mind, though.