Mercedes GLE vs BMW X5: Which Is The BEST Premium SUV? | 4K

Rory puts his personal BMW X5 against the latest version of the Mercedes GLE to discover which of the two is the best premium SUV. Which would you pick?

This is the bmw x5 more to the point it is my bmw x5 and i love it but ever since i bought it i’ve had this nagging question in the back of my head did i get it wrong should i have bought something else specifically should i have bought its arch rival the mercedes gle well today probably against my better judgment i’m going to put these two cars head to head

To find out whether or not i got it wrong i hope i didn’t this is auto trader uk where we drive the latest the greatest giving you the good the bad and the ugly so strap in subscribe and if you have been watching don’t stop don’t ever stop let’s start with the design obviously i prefer the look of the bmw x5 that’s why i bought the thing i actually used to

Own a gle the previous generation model and even though i think this new one is a nice evolution of that i love the flared wheel arches the big 22 inch wheels i just don’t like the face it looks miserable i approach this car and i feel like it doesn’t want to be around me on the other hand i think the x5 looks good from every single angle front back side the

Proportions are on point the one thing i don’t like is the color i bought this car on the internet and i wanted a black car so i took the option that said carbon black and when it arrived i was expecting black but actually if you look closely it’s dark blue very dark blue and it annoys me every single day i see this car but that’s obviously just my opinion let

Me know in the comments below which one you think looks better while i answer the next question which one is best for passengers well they’re both a similar size so in theory they both should have the same amount of space in the backseat except they don’t look at the amount of legroom i’ve got in the gle masses now compare that to the legroom i’ve got in the x5

The difference is completely night and day also in the gle you’ve got digital controls for your rear climate control in the x5 it’s completely analog not a deal breaker but i’ll tell you what is usb ports in the x5 there’s not a single usb port in the back which let me tell you is very annoying if you got kids it means you’ll have to send a cable from one of the

Two usb ports in the front all the way to the back a less than elegant solution to be fair bmw might actually have updated the back of the x5 since i bought my car in 2019 but you want to check that before you buy it although one area where the x5 is better than the gle is with the rear seat pockets look at this in this you just get mesh which means that if you

Like to keep your gadgets hidden away while you go and do some shopping pretty much anyone can see into the back of your car and realize you’ve got an ipad or a phone back there in the x5 it’s a proper pocket so all your gadgets are hidden away now which one’s got the best boot on the surface that would appear to be the x5 which has a 650 liter boot versus

The mercedes 630 liters i also like the fact the x5 has underfloor storage with a gas strut both the x5 and the gle are available with an optional third row of seating mine doesn’t have it as it wasn’t available at the time i bought the car but new x5s do have that option here’s how it works in the gle you push a button on the rear seat and it folds forward to

Let you crawl into the back there is enough headroom in the third row even for me at five foot eleven but leg room is for kids or vertically challenged people only all the seats can be folded down at the push of a button to create a flat load bay so both these cars are great for trips to your local you know where we’ll call this one a draw next question which one

Is the best to drive let’s start with the gle shall we it’s a really nice place to sit this car honestly i love the interior design one of my favorite highlights in here is this center console with these huge chunky grab handles with the integrated ambient lighting that looks sensational i also like the dashboard which has leather up top this wood effect down

Below and some fancy upmarket stitching i’m not so sure about these rectangular vents i much prefer the circular turbine vents you get on some of mercedes other cars but on the whole they’ve done a great job in here is it as good as the interior in the x5 i think that’s a matter of personal taste but on the whole yeah spot on like it we’ve got to talk about the

Screens as well these displays look absolutely phenomenal you’ve got two displays one for your infotainment system and one for all your driver data the one on the left hand side is where you’ll find your sat nav your media playback etc and that can be controlled by using your finger by swiping left or right or by using the mouse trackpad on the center console or

By using this special touch sensitive i don’t know what you call it really a nipple on the steering wheel so you swipe left and right and that will move the touchscreen over here to the position where you swipe as for the driver display well that’s controlled in pretty much the same way there’s a second nipple on the right hand side of the steering wheel which

Allows you to customize various settings on that display so you can have this looking exactly the way you want it mercedes once again at the top of their game when it comes to their infotainment systems the seats are nice as well this is the premium plus model so you get nappa leather and they’re phenomenally comfortable with loads of adjustment in the seats

And in the steering wheel so it doesn’t matter whether you’re four foot three or seven foot six you’re gonna find a nice driving position in this car in terms of the driving well super easy it’s a big car so you might find it slightly difficult to park in town or in car parks but out here on the open road there’s no problem whatsoever the controls are nice and

Soft the brakes are progressive the accelerator won’t surprise you it’s an easy car to get on with what’s less impressive is the suspension it’s actually quite wallowy it feels a bit like i’m in a boat on the ocean a lot of these roads out here aren’t completely flat so you find some bits dip and some bits rise and the gle seems to follow those movements in

The road so you end up feeling like you’re riding on top of jelly it’s not awful but it’s slightly disconcerting once you notice it you can’t unnotice it around corners it’s not so bad it stays flat but on a straight it’s kind of comically wallowy as for the steering well it’s quite slow to react it means that you have to put in some quite big movements into the

Wheel to get the car to turn again that’s not necessarily a bad thing but it does mean the gle doesn’t feel particularly agile which some people might want as for acceleration well this is the gle 400d so in theory it’s quite quick it’ll do naught to 62 in 5.7 seconds according to mercedes but in the real world it doesn’t feel that quick you put your foot down

It’s not that impressive really this is a fast car but it might be the slowest feeling fast car i’ve ever come across again that might not be a big deal for a lot of people but if you’re buying this version the 400d specifically because you think it’s as quick as a porsche in a straight line then i think it’s important for you to know that it doesn’t feel quick

The bmw x5 in contrast feels like a much more sporty car this is the xdrive 30d rather than the 40d which would have been a direct comparison to the gle 400d but even though it’s a lower spec car and it’s slower on paper bmw reckon it’ll do naughty 62 in 6.1 seconds this doesn’t feel slower than the gle it actually feels quicker the acceleration just feels much

More immediate almost as if it has more torque it doesn’t but it just feels that way the x5 also feels quicker around the corners the mercedes does have the active anti-roll 48 volt roll stabilization technology and this doesn’t so it does corner a lot more flat through the bends but even though there is a bit more body roll in the x5 it feels more natural

Around the corners and it feels crucially a lot more fun if you look under the bonnet of both these cars what you’ll notice is that the engine in the x5 sits so low down in the chassis compared to the mercedes and i wouldn’t be surprised if that gave it a much lower center of gravity that’s certainly what it feels like both cars weigh almost exactly the same

And even though my tyres are over two years old i would say that my x5 is at least as quick around the corners as that mercedes and it certainly feels quicker and that is crucial the steering is much more responsive it feels more nimble more agile and the ride is better as well it’s just as comfortable as the gle but crucially it doesn’t feel like a boat this

Is definitely the better drivers car now next question which one has the best tech this is a tricky one because they both have their strong points the infotainment display in the gle is at the top of its game it’s beautiful and it’s well integrated the x5 has a very similar thing so there’s a separate screen for your nav and your infotainment and a separate

Screen for your driving data but i just think it looks nicer in the gle one thing the x5 does have in its favor which i like is gesture control so you can actually move your finger in front of the display to turn the volume up or down or you can skip forward to the next track or the next radio station or skip back by using your thumbs or you can swipe to the

Left to get rid of any traffic alerts or any phone calls that you don’t want to take in the car the gle doesn’t have that but it does have its own unique features including an augmented reality navigation system which uses the camera at the front of the car to overlay a live feed of the images in front of you with virtual graphics to tell you exactly where you

Need to turn also speaking of graphics the resolution and the images in the mercedes look better than they do in the bmw it’s not far off but merck has really got that nailed that could all be irrelevant though because most people are going to end up using apple carplay or android auto and i think that’s where the x5 has the edge because with apple carplay it

Fills the entire screen look at that the whole thing is filled with apple goodness whereas in the gle you only get a portion of it and that could be a bit of a deal breaker for me right next question which one is the best value for money well this one’s pretty tricky both cars are priced from around 60 000 pounds they also have very similar running costs the gle

400d will return 33.6 miles per gallon around town while the equivalent x540d will get just shy of 35 miles per gallon not a big difference at all but over many years of ownership that 1.3 mile per gallon difference might add up to substantial savings next question which is the best for reliability obviously i can’t talk about the gle because i haven’t had this

For long enough but i can talk extensively about the bmw x5 in the two years and eight months i’ve had this car various things have gone wrong shall we say first off a sensor failed which caused the car to put itself into too low a ride height so it was riding around a bit like a low rider easily fixed they swapped out the sensor and the car was fine but then

About a year later something else failed the brakes and then something else the steering and let me tell you having your brakes and your steering fail in the middle of a journey doing 60 miles an hour with your kids in the back well let’s just say it concentrates the mind bmw to their credit took the car away once i’d changed my underwear and they swapped out

The ecu and then the car was fine i had a courtesy car and it was all good their treatment of me during that process was actually fine but reliability on my particular x5 i’m gonna give it a c plus a quick update for you though hot off the press since i recorded this review the gle went wrong a sensor failed which caused the car to lose power meaning i couldn’t

Accelerate any quicker than a bicycle again though mercedes sorted out the problem they sent out an engineer to replace the sensor on the same day and i was good to go which brings me to the final question which one of these two cars would i have well i definitely prefer the looks of the x5 i definitely prefer the ride and the handling but i do think the mercedes

Gle is probably the better family car because it has a much more spacious interior it has a much more stylish cabin in some ways and ultimately if you don’t care about driving or looks that’s probably the car to have the thing is though i do care about driving and i do care about ride quality and so should anyone who regularly carries passengers and the x5 is

By far the better machine in those two regards even though the gle is still decent if you’re gonna push me i’ll stick with the x5 peace oh no this i know this that’s fine you

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Mercedes GLE vs BMW X5: Which Is The BEST Premium SUV? | 4K By AutoTrader