7-seater hot hatch? Mercedes-AMG GLB35
Discussion
Introductory waffle
I've flirtied with the idea of buying one of these cars for around 18 months, and finally bought one to replace my 435d Gran Coupe.
Finding one was a challenge. Google them and they are clearly popular in the US and other markets, but we didn't fancy them at all in the UK. The GLB35 was given a mild facelift for 2024, before being quietly removed from all Mercedes websites & configurators later that year. If howmanyleft.co.uk is accurate, under 300 Premium Plus models were registered in the UK, plus a handful of Premium & facelift cars bringing the total up to around 350.
This makes buying one a challenge - generally only 5 or 6 are for sale at any one time so I had to be flexible on spec. I didn't want a White or Grey car but would have considered any of the other colours. I liked the idea of a Black car with Red interior, but only ever saw one low-mileage example for sale at a price more than I wanted to pay.
I finally found a Galaxy Blue example that sounded like it could be an option. A 2021 car with 45,000 miles put it at the lower end of GLB35 prices, but still much fresher than my 11 year old, 122,000 mile BMW. There were compromises to be made, it was on mixed tyres (neither of which would be my preferred Michelin Pilot Sport 4s) and it was 200 miles from home so I'd have to buy unseen, but given it was a Mercedes Benz Approved Used car and it looked very tidy in the video walkaround, I left a deposit and arranged collection for the following weekend.
Since collection I've had a couple of issues which are currently in the hands of Mercedes UK Customer Care, but I want to keep that away from this thread and focus on the positives of the car, or which there are many. But in case I haven't gone on enough yet (five paragraphs is a bit much for an intro in hindsight...), here's a recap of collection day which I tried to turn into a bit of an adventure.
Collection Day
I'd sold my 435d privately earlier in the week, so I'd be getting the train to Essex to pick up the GLB35. I'm a keen parkrunner, so when I bought the car I already eyed up potential events I could tick off on the way to collect it. Before that, I'd have to get to the station and seeing as I'd need my running shoes, I jogged the mile to York station as an early warm up. How early? The train was at 0555!
I jumped on the tube to North Grenwich, a bit on the tight side for the 9 AM start, but made it pretty comfortably in the end. The novelty of running round the perimiter of the o2 with Canary Wharf just about visible across the Thames through the mist made for a nice run, and I manged a decent result.
I was only a couple of tube stops away from Stratford where I could jump on a train to Marks Tey to go collect the car. The dealer was a couple of miles from the station so I did my third run of the day, 11km done in total and ready for a sit down and a coffee...
After sorting the paperwork and paying the most expensive transaction I've ever put through in one go, I was heading back up north in my new car and first Mercedes.
I ended up with a unicorn - the spec is Galaxy Blue with Grey Pearl/Black contrast interior. Most GLB35s have the plain black interior, although in reality the contrast Grey Pearl is very subtle. It does lift the interior a little more than black especially with the light from the pan roof.
The car also has the Driver Assistance Package, the only option available on the GLB35. It gets you things like adaptive cruise, lane keep assist and blind spot assist. Nice to have, not something I'd have specced from new.
First thoughts
We are a family of four which extends to six on a weekend when my daughters come to stay, and we were previously travelling in two cars for days out. We needed a 7-seater with a bit of luxury, and ideally with a bit of performance for when I commute to work on my own. It's a very niche market (hence the low sales, evidently), but the car might as well have been designed just for us.
That said the early miles weren't entirely plain sailing. Despite its advancing years the 435d was a cracking car with an unparalleled spec list (I'll miss my heated steering wheel and heads up display) - a tough act to follow. The main adjustment has been the driving position - I've never had an SUV of any kind, and like many on here I suspect, the first thing I do when I get into any car is lower the seat as far as it'll go. I love the low-slung straight-leg BMW driving position, so it'll take some getting used to sitting up high, although I do enjoy not being dazzled by oncoming headlights quite so much.
Other comparisons to the 435d? They are more similar than you'd expect. They are within a centimetre of each other in both length and width, and the 435d is actually heavier (around 50kg epending on where you get your figures). When you consider it has a third row of seats and a 300bhp 4MATIC powertrain, in todays' money 1700kg is practically featherweight. It's certainly a well-packaged car - you can slide the second row back and forth to balance the legroom & storage as required. The third row is more than acceptable for the kids.
A mate of mine summed it up well - it's an unusual set of ingredients for a car. It's not mega spacious or comfortable like you might want from an SUV, an it's not scalpel-sharp like a sports car, but it strikes a great balance ticks a lot of boxes. It flies under the radar to most people, yet like a Renault Avantime or VW Phaeton W12 some clued up petrolheads might enjoy seeing one on the road, which adds to the feelgood factor.
It has a lot of character from behind the wheel too. The gear ratios are short and the shifts snappy, so popping up and down the ratios knowing you're piloting a small minibus can't help but put a smile on your face. It has a surprising amount of feel through the steering and goes round corners way better than it has any right to for something over 5ft tall. I even like the way the rorty (mostly fake) soundtrack eggs you on. I say mostly, because if you open the drivers window an inch or two you get some quite hilarious induction noise and turbo whoosing.
Ownership
OK so I'm only just over a week in, but it's doing exactly what I hoped it would so far. Sun has barely been out but the colour looked great at work the one time it made an appearance. Galaxy Blue is on the purple end of the blue scale, somewhat appropriate given my last car. With hindsight, I'm glad I went for mine over a black car. There are hundreds of black Mercs on the road, but Galaxy Blue didn't make it onto many models as far as I know.
First wash at the weekend, always enjoy this and pleased to find no unexpected damage. It's been looked after (as you'd expect for a £50k-plus car when new). Also got my plate on it.
The wheels are probably my favourite of any car I've owned - I love the satin black that AMG use on their wheels and (touch wood), it seems to age a lot better than gloss black which in my experience scratches like crazy.
First family road trip to the coast at the weekend - swallowed all of us plus pushchair no problem.
Plans
I'm OK with chrome badges, but I can't understand why manufacturers go to the trouble of a 'night pack' to black out all the trim & window beltline only to leave things like the handles & rear bumper lip protector. I'd like to wrap the latter in gloss black, and then try find the closest match I can for Galaxy Blue for the handles. I did similar on my Megane Trophy a few years ago with good results.
I'm not thrilled with the Burmeister sound system, it lacks bass compared to the BMW Harmon Kardon system. Might be a setup issue, I'm going to ask my audiophile mate to have a mess around with it as a starting point.
Steering wheel - I'm funny about shiny leather steering wheels and the perforated section on Mercedes AMG wheels always wear quickly. I'm toying with a half alcantara, half leather retrim (again I did similar on my Megane), but not sure if it's a bit OTT for a family SUV. Mercedes do sell the car with this exact arrangement in non UK markets though!
Finally, I'd like to switch to Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres as I'm sure the example I test drove last year had a slight bit more polish to the handling. Annoyingly it's on pretty fresh rubber so can't decide if I can be bothered with the hassle of selling them as part-worn to offset the cost of new Michelins, or just wait until they're worn.
I've flirtied with the idea of buying one of these cars for around 18 months, and finally bought one to replace my 435d Gran Coupe.
Finding one was a challenge. Google them and they are clearly popular in the US and other markets, but we didn't fancy them at all in the UK. The GLB35 was given a mild facelift for 2024, before being quietly removed from all Mercedes websites & configurators later that year. If howmanyleft.co.uk is accurate, under 300 Premium Plus models were registered in the UK, plus a handful of Premium & facelift cars bringing the total up to around 350.
This makes buying one a challenge - generally only 5 or 6 are for sale at any one time so I had to be flexible on spec. I didn't want a White or Grey car but would have considered any of the other colours. I liked the idea of a Black car with Red interior, but only ever saw one low-mileage example for sale at a price more than I wanted to pay.
I finally found a Galaxy Blue example that sounded like it could be an option. A 2021 car with 45,000 miles put it at the lower end of GLB35 prices, but still much fresher than my 11 year old, 122,000 mile BMW. There were compromises to be made, it was on mixed tyres (neither of which would be my preferred Michelin Pilot Sport 4s) and it was 200 miles from home so I'd have to buy unseen, but given it was a Mercedes Benz Approved Used car and it looked very tidy in the video walkaround, I left a deposit and arranged collection for the following weekend.
Since collection I've had a couple of issues which are currently in the hands of Mercedes UK Customer Care, but I want to keep that away from this thread and focus on the positives of the car, or which there are many. But in case I haven't gone on enough yet (five paragraphs is a bit much for an intro in hindsight...), here's a recap of collection day which I tried to turn into a bit of an adventure.
Collection Day
I'd sold my 435d privately earlier in the week, so I'd be getting the train to Essex to pick up the GLB35. I'm a keen parkrunner, so when I bought the car I already eyed up potential events I could tick off on the way to collect it. Before that, I'd have to get to the station and seeing as I'd need my running shoes, I jogged the mile to York station as an early warm up. How early? The train was at 0555!
I jumped on the tube to North Grenwich, a bit on the tight side for the 9 AM start, but made it pretty comfortably in the end. The novelty of running round the perimiter of the o2 with Canary Wharf just about visible across the Thames through the mist made for a nice run, and I manged a decent result.
I was only a couple of tube stops away from Stratford where I could jump on a train to Marks Tey to go collect the car. The dealer was a couple of miles from the station so I did my third run of the day, 11km done in total and ready for a sit down and a coffee...
After sorting the paperwork and paying the most expensive transaction I've ever put through in one go, I was heading back up north in my new car and first Mercedes.
I ended up with a unicorn - the spec is Galaxy Blue with Grey Pearl/Black contrast interior. Most GLB35s have the plain black interior, although in reality the contrast Grey Pearl is very subtle. It does lift the interior a little more than black especially with the light from the pan roof.
The car also has the Driver Assistance Package, the only option available on the GLB35. It gets you things like adaptive cruise, lane keep assist and blind spot assist. Nice to have, not something I'd have specced from new.
First thoughts
We are a family of four which extends to six on a weekend when my daughters come to stay, and we were previously travelling in two cars for days out. We needed a 7-seater with a bit of luxury, and ideally with a bit of performance for when I commute to work on my own. It's a very niche market (hence the low sales, evidently), but the car might as well have been designed just for us.
That said the early miles weren't entirely plain sailing. Despite its advancing years the 435d was a cracking car with an unparalleled spec list (I'll miss my heated steering wheel and heads up display) - a tough act to follow. The main adjustment has been the driving position - I've never had an SUV of any kind, and like many on here I suspect, the first thing I do when I get into any car is lower the seat as far as it'll go. I love the low-slung straight-leg BMW driving position, so it'll take some getting used to sitting up high, although I do enjoy not being dazzled by oncoming headlights quite so much.
Other comparisons to the 435d? They are more similar than you'd expect. They are within a centimetre of each other in both length and width, and the 435d is actually heavier (around 50kg epending on where you get your figures). When you consider it has a third row of seats and a 300bhp 4MATIC powertrain, in todays' money 1700kg is practically featherweight. It's certainly a well-packaged car - you can slide the second row back and forth to balance the legroom & storage as required. The third row is more than acceptable for the kids.
A mate of mine summed it up well - it's an unusual set of ingredients for a car. It's not mega spacious or comfortable like you might want from an SUV, an it's not scalpel-sharp like a sports car, but it strikes a great balance ticks a lot of boxes. It flies under the radar to most people, yet like a Renault Avantime or VW Phaeton W12 some clued up petrolheads might enjoy seeing one on the road, which adds to the feelgood factor.
It has a lot of character from behind the wheel too. The gear ratios are short and the shifts snappy, so popping up and down the ratios knowing you're piloting a small minibus can't help but put a smile on your face. It has a surprising amount of feel through the steering and goes round corners way better than it has any right to for something over 5ft tall. I even like the way the rorty (mostly fake) soundtrack eggs you on. I say mostly, because if you open the drivers window an inch or two you get some quite hilarious induction noise and turbo whoosing.
Ownership
OK so I'm only just over a week in, but it's doing exactly what I hoped it would so far. Sun has barely been out but the colour looked great at work the one time it made an appearance. Galaxy Blue is on the purple end of the blue scale, somewhat appropriate given my last car. With hindsight, I'm glad I went for mine over a black car. There are hundreds of black Mercs on the road, but Galaxy Blue didn't make it onto many models as far as I know.
First wash at the weekend, always enjoy this and pleased to find no unexpected damage. It's been looked after (as you'd expect for a £50k-plus car when new). Also got my plate on it.
The wheels are probably my favourite of any car I've owned - I love the satin black that AMG use on their wheels and (touch wood), it seems to age a lot better than gloss black which in my experience scratches like crazy.
First family road trip to the coast at the weekend - swallowed all of us plus pushchair no problem.
Plans
I'm OK with chrome badges, but I can't understand why manufacturers go to the trouble of a 'night pack' to black out all the trim & window beltline only to leave things like the handles & rear bumper lip protector. I'd like to wrap the latter in gloss black, and then try find the closest match I can for Galaxy Blue for the handles. I did similar on my Megane Trophy a few years ago with good results.
I'm not thrilled with the Burmeister sound system, it lacks bass compared to the BMW Harmon Kardon system. Might be a setup issue, I'm going to ask my audiophile mate to have a mess around with it as a starting point.
Steering wheel - I'm funny about shiny leather steering wheels and the perforated section on Mercedes AMG wheels always wear quickly. I'm toying with a half alcantara, half leather retrim (again I did similar on my Megane), but not sure if it's a bit OTT for a family SUV. Mercedes do sell the car with this exact arrangement in non UK markets though!
Finally, I'd like to switch to Michelin Pilot Sport 4 tyres as I'm sure the example I test drove last year had a slight bit more polish to the handling. Annoyingly it's on pretty fresh rubber so can't decide if I can be bothered with the hassle of selling them as part-worn to offset the cost of new Michelins, or just wait until they're worn.
Edited by resolve10 on Monday 16th March 23:53
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