2017 Mercedes-Benz GLC300 Review – Long-Term Arrival

The best part about awarding a vehicle an Of the Year award is getting the opportunity to spend more quality time with it over a yearlong loan. After rightfully earning our 2017 SUV of the Year award, our new long-term 2017 Mercedes-Benz GLC300 4Matic has finally joined the Motor Trend fleet.

Our new GLC300 long-termer comes well equipped from the factory, with a sticker price of $50,405. The standard powertrain is a 2.0-liter turbocharged I-4 making 241 hp and 273 lb-ft of torque, paired with a Mercedes-developed nine-speed automatic. Comfort features such as Mercedes’ COMAND infotainment system, Bluetooth, dual-zone automatic climate control, power seats, split-folding fold-flat rear seats, and a power liftgate are all baked into the sticker price. On the safety front, standard features include a full suite of collision-prevention tech and a rearview camera, among other things.

Like most luxury cars, it’s quite easy to drop a ton of money at the dealer if you’re not careful with the options list. One of the things we liked so much about the GLC when we named it SUV of the Year was that you didn’t need to spend stupid money in order to get a “good one.” So to put our money where our collective mouths are, we were pretty stingy with options—skipping nice-to-have items for must-have hardware.

We started with Mercedes’ 4Matic all-wheel-drive system, which adds $2,000 rear-drive base price. We plan on making lots of road trips in the GLC, and given California’s record rainfall in the months following the OTY announcement, snow is a real possibility—and besides, what’s the point of getting an SUV if you don’t have all- or four-wheel drive? Next, we added the $3,600 Premium package 2, which adds blind-spot monitoring, navigation, satellite radio, ambient lighting, and a few more features to make said road trips more comfortable. Adding the Premium package forces the addition of the Burmester surround sound system for $850 and heated front seats for another $580. We rounded out our option list with Dakota Brown Metallic paint for $720, a heated steering wheel for $250, $850 LED headlights, and a $1,480 panoramic sunroof—a feature we expect our photographers to make good use of when the GLC300 inevitably gets drafted as a support vehicle for car-to-car photography.

Some of the stuff that we skipped includes bigger—and admittedly more attractive—19- and 20-inch wheels in favor of the standard 18-inch wheels with all-season tires and their better ride quality. Similarly, we also opted to skip the $1,900 air suspension in favor of the standard steel springs, and we chose to keep the MB-Tex leatherette upholstery instead of opting for full leather to save some cows and some dough. Mercedes’ leatherette is nice enough that we won’t miss the leather.

I spent the first month with our GLC300 breaking it in so that it could go through our full battery of instrumented testing. The break-in procedure lasts for the first 1,000 miles and is pretty simple: drive in Eco mode, don’t exceed 4,000 rpm, don’t manually downshift, and don’t push the throttle past the kickdown point. One-thousand miles later, our GLC was ready for testing.

With 241 hp on tap and a curb weight just over 4,000 pounds, the Mercedes GLC isn’t fast, but it’s plenty quick. The 0–60 acceleration run takes our GLC300 4Matic 6.9 seconds, and the quarter mile passes by in 15.2 seconds at 89.6 mph. In our 60–0 emergency brake tests, the Mercedes needs a respectable 126 feet to come to a stop—a figure road test editor Chris Walton suspects could be improved with stickier tires because our GLC300’s stock Pirelli Scorpion Verde all-seasons have a high treadwear rating of 500. Handling performance is similarly worthy but could also be improved with stickier rubber; our GLC averaged 0.80 g on the skidpad and lapped the figure eight in 27.3 seconds at 0.65 g average.

We’ve yet to Real MPG our long-term GLC300 4Matic, but the last similarly equipped we tested achieved 19.6/26.5/22.2 mpg city/highway/combined. The EPA rates our GLC at 21/28/24 mpg.

Since testing we’ve already begun to rack up the miles in our new GLC300. With three major road trips planned this summer, I’m personally looking forward to seeing how our 2017 SUV of the Year holds up after 20,000 miles and 12 months in our hands.