Review – Mercedes Benz M-Class (ML 320 CDI)

The moment it was fixed, I immediately decided that the first thing the Mercedes Benz ML 320 CDI will be subjected to is something called ‘girlfriend-approved’ test. You see, my lady – she detests whatever I love under the motoring umbrella. She likes cutesy hatchbacks like the Zen Estilo. Me? I hate it. From the bottom of my heart. To the core. Don’t, not even for a moment, think that I hate small cars. I love them. But the Zen Estilo? No thank you, I’m better off on a bunch of berries.

I like the Ritz, she hates it. So now you know where this is heading, don’t you? What makes it admirably interesting is that she has an irrational, unwarranted hatred towards anything on wheels that is capable of driving on surfaces sometimes littered with twigs on them. I’ve tried immensely hard, but she’d refuse to give any explanation for this hatred. All she says is “I just don’t like your big, so-called manly, ungainly and elephant-esque SUVs. Live with it”.

As a result, madam has already objected to the Mitsubishi Pajero on a previous occasion for the sheer abundance of cheap plastic inside the cabin and turned her nose up in disgust towards Tata Safari for its unrefined, noisy nature. This is digestible. I, on the other hand, loved both for the utter interesting stupidity they exude in their own sense. But the vehicle in question here’s a Mercedes-Benz. Anyone with a sane head would simply sink in with admiration; such is the influence of this brand. I don’t have a sane head then, by the looks of it.

I cribbed that it was only a five seater and the woman threw some pretty severe remarks. It’s all but expected because being a five-seater allowed for her half a dozen suitcases and a little backpack of mine to fit easily, with still (very) generous space remaining to throw in her make-up bag at the back. Girls, I tell you!

Anyway, having gotten done (it was only me doing the lifting, actually, but I am being kick-forced to write ‘we’) throwing the bags inside, we were ready to hit the road. Only that, to my horror, the lady started on what seemed like a hundred-point beauty check to me. It’s entirely our fault actually. Men, I mean. It was us who forced the manufacturers to put the vanity mirror on the passenger side as that would stop women from moving the inside rear-view mirror to suit their comfort. But that hasn’t really changed anything at all.

The result, still, is that we continue to have the confused, frown-induced, open-mouthed expression on our faces as our ladies go about their usual business of (further) beautification. I was even ready to go into the ‘strictly-no-saying-this’ zone of “You always look beautiful honey; why do you keep checking yourself every now and then?” But I kept shut, for the fear of yet another taunting statement that would tear my male ego apart.

Moving on, and ensuring the hair and whatever other beauty thing necessary to be checked was checked, it wasn’t long before we made it out of the town. We took a halt at McDonald’s in Manesar for breakfast and as I climbed out to feast on Maple syrup pancakes, I could not help noticing that this new Merc M-Class, though quite smart, still does not really have the presence of an Audi Q7. I say this with conviction because there was a Q7 parked a few paces away and it looked a lot more aggressive and intimidating than the Mercedes ML.

The Audi was black and looked monstrously attractive. Our white Mercedes-Benz ML 320 CDI, in comparison, looked elegantly restrained. It’s like comparing Mike Tyson and Courtney Walsh. Both are big guys, respected and both hugely appealing, in their own right. But you just cannot imagine Tyson to have that innocence and elegance of Walsh. Ever.

While feasting on our breakfast items, I kept talking to my female chum about how this comparison with Audi Q7 made me take on a critically-inclined assessment process towards the M-Class. I went blah-blah, and it all made sense to her. I am lying. It made no sense to her, but the point is – many things came alight after that. The seat upholstery seemed as if it’d been abused by a fat-assed American (Mercedes builds the M-Class in US of A) already. Vinyl upholstery, even if it has a fancy name like MB-Tex, can’t come close to being proper leather.

I am not, even remotely, indicating that cows should make it into the cabin. I am all in favour of safeguarding animals. My point is that Merc should try to fold its sleeve up and give us better fake-leather appointments inside. It must not be too hard to do, I’m certain. Look at Audi! And for chrissake, what’s with that manually operated inside rear-view mirror? This is tummy-achingly hilarious. If it was meant to be a joke, well done, Mercedes-Benz. Great sense of humour. Now give us the auto-dim thing slotted in please.

All these issues just kept popping up one after the other, all in a span of a few seconds. Dull looks aside; the cabin is a job well done and boasts of all the luxuries that would fit well in this segment. We were particularly impressed with the Bluetooth phone system and the brilliant audio unit. The seats aren’t stiff, but are not soft either. It falls in the ‘you’ll-get-used-to-it’ category and if we can be a bit too harsh, we’d like little more legroom at the back. But just as I was about to brood over a bit more, my ‘silent-observation’ frame of mind was blown up when the girl sitting next to me voiced her surprise out suddenly – “shouldn’t we get moving now?”

I drove out of the parking, gave the turn indicator to shift into the right-most lane and looked in the outside rear view mirror. “Now this is interesting, I can’t see a thing!” Ditto with the inside rear view mirror too. I can still overlook the inside RVM issue because there is a 19-inch spare wheel hung at the tail so you cannot really see anything less than a T-rex in it, but the rear view mirrors on the outside are simply appalling. There is just too much of blind-spot to deal with, and that can become scary at times.

So I stuck my head out of the window (I really did), gave a slight glance at the back and drove into the right lane after confirming that nothing was charging towards us to ruin a machine going at the smiling side of half a crore!

Thereon, it was a nice drive to the barren locales of Rajasthan. We settled into a good pace and, occasionally, I let the car drive itself, making the most of the cruise control provided. That brings me to another thing that may seem as an interesting item, but it is as irritating too.

Mercedes-Benz has put the gear lever on the steering column. Why? Is there some sort of a survey that says M-Class drivers like to make things intimate inside the cabin, because of which Mercedes thought of freeing up the space in the middle, for the couple to cuddle up? The paddle shiftis wrong too; but it’s been an inherent issue with almost all paddle shifters – the gearbox does what does what it wants, not what you want. This is pathetic.

This aside though, it works quite okay actually. It goes up. And down. You push the chrome button to engage the parking brake. And all this is quite slick too.

I don’t want to make an issue of this, but I will anyway. The feel of driving was missing owing to the dim-witted placement of the gear lever. In the middle, on the floor – that’s how mankind has accepted the classic layout to be and it gives a characteristic element to a vehicle, I think. The gear lever placement in the M-Class simply spoils it. As simple as that.

And it gets worse. Mercedes-Benz M-Class employs a 7-speed automatic gearbox (7G-Tronic). I usually think that a five-speed ‘box is acceptable; six-speed is the sweetest. Seven-speed? It should belong only to high performance cars. So in the M-Class, a 7-speed ‘box is one ratio too many. On paper, this seven-speed automatic comes with torque convertor on all seven gears that chiefly eliminate slip between the pump and turbine rotor. Such Einstein-ish stuff should result in seamless acceleration, one would guess. But it doesn’t feel so, somehow.

The gearbox has a tendency to get confused. When coming behind a slow moving truck, or whatever, and slowing down, the M-Class downshifts one gear lesser than you’d anticipate/want. That puts you in the middle of nowhere when you see a gap and move out to overtake. It’s only after you give it a bootful and the boost kicks in that the car responds. Fundamentally speaking, there is a lack of logical correspondence between the gearbox and throttle feed so in practice, acceleration feels inconsistent. But at least the shifts are smooth, if that’s a fair bargain!

The engine however is quite a gem, I must say. It ought to be, after being under development for about 40 months. At 208kg, it weighs 12 kilos less than Audi’s V6 diesel and features superfast piezo-electric injectors that provide a finely calculated fuel supply to the cylinders. This is a 72-degree, V6, four valves per cylinder layout that is operated by dual chain-driven camshafts. The common rail injection system that ML boasts of is the most modern version of this technology. There is also variable-nozzle turbocharger that operates at a maximum boost pressure of 29psi.

The result of all this mechanical witchcraft is a peak power of 234 silent, but potent, horses and a stunning 535Nm of torque. This gives Merc ML 320 CDI a 0-100 time of sub-ten seconds. Remarkable for a 2-plus tonne heavyweight.

However, SUVs are never about outright acceleration. That’s unless of course there’s a ‘Sport’ tag suffixed to their names. Much like Land Rover’s Range Rover Sport which isn’t as established as a regular Range Rover in the woods, but eats the latter for breakfast when it comes to dancing on the racetrack. Mercedes too do ‘Sport’ version of the M-Class – the ML 63 AMG. But this isn’t a review of the AMG. So let’s get on with business.

When you drive the ML 320, you get a distant sense of how it would’ve been for Armstrong hopping on the Moon. There are two settings for the suspension – Comfort and Sport. It was nice when we were cruising in Comfort mode. But if there was a smooth, flowing dip in the road, the ML would dive and settle again softly giving a feel of riding the waves. As for Sport mode, I suggest you have it on whenever going round a bend because Comfort setting simply isn’t cut out for such stuff, unless of course you want to experience a lump of dread go down your throat. There’s noticeable body-roll, however pushing the button into Sport sorts things out to a great extent. The steering too lacks communication skills while doing slow speeds but things start getting progressively good as speed picks up.

Guys at Mercedes-Benz fully understand that a vehicle such as the M-Class will not be, in most cases, driven by its owner. It will be driven by a hat-wearing, dressed-in-white chauffeur. And such blokes don’t quite understand the definition of ‘constant speed’. They either go hard on the gas, or stand on the brake pedal. And that’s why Merc has given a sloppy brake pedal in this car. It’s squidgy. It feels like you are pressing a sponge and suddenly that sponge becomes hard clay. Just when you shut your eyes in fear, the brakes come alive. It’s dramatic!

But as we go deeper into the rough terrains, things, surprisingly, get better. Going flat on sand like it’s a rally stage, you start understanding the reason behind Mercedes’ madness. The slow-speed numbness of the steering wheel suddenly starts making sense. You start appreciating the soggy feel of the brake pedal. It allows you to pin the throttle while you revel in left-foot braking. You even start understanding something called 4Matic. It is essentially an acronym for four-wheel-drive and automatic. The system maintains a 45:55 torque split favouring the rear axle. It employs locking central and rear differentials, which in theory gives additional traction in dire situations. But, a locking differential shouldn’t be confused with a differential lock. In simpler words, locking differential is basically a limited slip diff.

Then there’s more. You get DSR (Downhill Speed Regulation). And a button for off-roading, pushing which modifies the gearbox reaction, adjusts the throttle map and changes the ABS and traction-control for off-road use. That’s not all. You also get something called airmatic suspension. It raises the vehicle by 90mm to enable it to go over any rock or through a river (and lowers it by 15mm when doing high speeds). And we did manage to complete a long run on badly rock strewn roads. The ML was going quite fine and I was starting to like it, despite the ludicrousness of it.

In my ecstatic, boy-racer mind frame, I decided to try out a sandbank in the ML. Knowing that during the Fascination drive, the Mercedes M-Class did enjoy dune bashing a lot, I was quite upbeat about the prospect of what lay ahead. I expected undiluted fun. It was a steady progress and we were climbing at a slow pace. But a few meters into it and we could literally feel ourselves digging deeper into the sand. The lady sitting beside – wisely – decided to keep quiet as I tried whatever I could! But nothing seemed to be working. I’m an off-roading fanatic and have done some serious stuff, so I couldn’t take this happening to me. It was an ego issue now!

The tyres kept going deeper into the sand and no matter whatever we tried; the ML simply wouldn’t make it out of there. And then an ingenious idea cropped up in my mind – to use a shovel. So it was back doing arduous work again. As my lady sat pretty inside the cabin, enjoying the 18-degree comfort, I was sun-bathing – in desert land! I took the shovel and a couple of local teenagers offered generous help. We put wooden planks at the rear, some sand was shovelled out and I took to the wheel.

Yes, we made it out safely. No drama, no further getting stuck. So for the rest of the day and half, we just enjoyed Rajasthan. The cordial locals, the seasoned voices mesmerising us with folk songs, the sight of that beautiful orange Sun going down and the enticingly delicious food. It was a perfect setting to bask in the royal treatment.

The Mercedes-Benz ML 320 CDI then – I am not particularly pleased with this SUV. That’s because there are better options available in similar price bracket. Some are cheaper too! It is a proper SUV, no doubt, but it isn’t really a complete off-roader. But then again, how many would really go globe-trekking in the M-Class?

It hasn’t got the best interiors, it isn’t the most practical (5-seats only, remember?) and has got the most hopeless rear view mirrors I’ve come across in such a premium offering. You’d buy the M-Class if you’re a golfing grand-dad. Or a celebrity hairstylist. Or a Page 3 socialite who wants to be a bit different. Or a rich fashion casualty. For us blokes? We’d have the Mitsubishi Montero, thank you.

I’d driven the previous generation M-Class too, and I somehow feel that the new M-Class is just a hangover effort. It is hugely better than the last-gen model, but just not as good as it could be. The newest ML is bland gravy. Being the M-Class is like being Tanzanian army in a war against terrorists who carry the most modern weaponry. No matter how noble your intentions are, let’s accept the harsh fact, you just wouldn’t win the war.