In this adventure video review we take the 2019 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen off-road and see if the Mercedes-Benz G-Class is offload worthy and as good as a Jeep Wrangler in the dirt.
One two three oh yeah that is the sound of money hey tommy normally what we’re doing these videos were in the colorado mountains but today where are we at we’re in the woods yeah we’re always in the woods yeah but but these are the northern woods we’re outside of seattle washington with the new mercedes g550 and what’s the question we want to answer today we’re
Gonna find out if off-road if this g wagon is the best wrangler you can buy now this of course is the mercedes go under vagan which is legendary for being extremely comfortable extremely posh but also extremely off-road worthy and this is a new one but we’re gonna find out if it’s still more than just hollywood boulevard rated yeah and extremely expensive how
Much is this bad boy cost that’s like yeah 134 thousand so we’re gonna see if it’s what three wranglers worth of mercedes yeah we are you know tommy there’s a lot of luxury in this new g-wagon but the thing that hasn’t changed which i’m so happy about is right here these three little buttons make this more than a poser yeah so this g-wagen is a permanent
Four-wheel drive suv body-on-frame suv which means that there’s no way to manually select four-wheel drive which means it normally has an open center diff so you can drive around without it you know giving you issues around corners but if you push number one here on our diff locks that’ll lock the center diff locking it into permanent four-wheel drive number
Two will lock the rear end and then number three will lock all three so you’ve got a lot of flexibility on how you want to kick this truck out when you’re offroad and then this little button right here is the secret piece theresa stoltz of course of this truck that of course is a proper low range because this has a transfer case let’s get this thing in
Off-road mode i think we don’t need actually more than the center diff at this point yeah so determine my center diff lock on i just push that button yellow means is trying to engage red means it has engaged of course it says differential lock engaged abs and esp and available so traction control is off this is a is gonna be fun one yeah and i’m happy that
They actually put real off-road tires on this truck giving it real off-road crud yeah that’s what the issue with a lot of the old ones were and the 63 is still like this but if you go out and buy a g wagon you got the three locking diffs and then you’ve got you know a paper slim fit of sidewall and a 22 inch wheel this one actually has a real 18 inch wheel
With a real off-road tire normally the mercedes g wagon comes with 19-inch wheels at a minimum and all season tires however for this test mercedes provided us with a set of 18s and actual off-road tires tom you know that i’m a huge fan of off-roading there love any vehicle that’s good off-road yeah the problem is that my checking account is as big as my lust
For this vehicle right and that bums me out but we have been looking for a used one and even use right they start importing them in 2002 yeah with the he goes in g500 right back in the day even those are still around 25k the good news about those is that while they’re expensive you don’t feel bad about necessarily damaging them right yeah i mean this is an
Expensive truck and you’d feel real bad if you wrap it into a tree all right now here’s a really great test of articulation okay i think this will see how this front independent suspension does compared to the solid axle right that’s the one thing that you’re kind of worried about yeah they went from a solid axle front end in the old one to an independent
Front end in the new one it’s still a locking front end like a zr2 that’s independent but i’m not as happy about it now our independent front suspension does hurt us doesn’t give us that flexibility when we’re on you know an articulated portion like this but in the back we do have a solid rear axle which means that this wheel is nice and articulated look
At that clearance it keeps both of the rear wheels on the ground and we’ve got coil springs back here as well which means it’s got a good ride with that long wheelbase sings awesome however in america there’s something cool underneath sure oh yeah check this out so we’ve got dynamic shocks of this g wagon and i keep even have like remote reservoirs there’s
Pretty advanced for the factory here and there you can see a good shot of the solid rear axle well this has seen some off-roading yeah this has been our own readiness on that kristine’s you igan yeah well let’s uh let’s bring it out all right thanks good approach angle oh look at that that’s where the steps can potentially hit well so close all right so if
You’re wondering what we’re doing out here in the woods at all with a one hundred and thirty four thousand dollar mercedes suv you got to understand this you wagon ain’t no ordinary suv first of all to body-on-frame construction so it’s nice and sturdy like a proper off-roader this right here that’s a metal bash plate in a hundred and forty thousand dollar
Mercedes with a genuine tow hook and that hides an independent front suspension but one of only a few vehicles available on the market with a locking front differential now here comes the really cool part and why i’m so excited to be out here today see these these are actually proper off-road tires that’s right a proper off-road tire these are the falcon wild
Peak so pretty much the exact same tire you can get on a new gladiator rubicon and they’re mounted on a normal sized wheel this isn’t like a 22 inch wheel this is an 18 inch wheel which is perfect for off-roading we’ve got the side-by-side coming through here because we are in off-road world here let me show yeah you’re wondering if we’re actually out
In the real world here that that is a real side-by-side going at the same trail this mercedes is about to go up in the back well solid rear axle with a rear locking differential so three locking discs total with the rear a center and a front a real low range a real solid axle a full-size spare tire slung out back i mean this thing is the real deal at least
On paper come in with this hill it might have a chance to play with some of my locking discs a little bit now i have the center locks but is a crisis little ledge it’s nice and stuck so what i’m gonna do is just lock the rear one push of the button yellow means is trying to lock and red means this locked and just pulls us right up didn’t even need the front
There of course but it’s a it’s really amazing how easy these disks are to actuate and how quickly it’ll get us on the way you know tommy i love the wrangler but it does have one big shortcoming in my mind and that is it’s only available in a four-cylinder turbo or a v6 now this of course is a proper job and v8 416 horsepower over 450 pound foot of torque
To turbos and of course way more power than you need but is it way more power than you want because if you want more you can also get the amg 63 version of this which actually has well even more horsepower but for out here this is plenty so i don’t think we’ll be using it but why don’t you show them something really cool about this engine and that is where
It dumps out if you need further proof that mercedes isn’t kidding around with their off-road tech well you got to find that exhaust placement it’s not in the back you know where you’d expect it to get squished on a rock or it’s not poking on out on the side where you expected to get smashed during a break over test it’s actually hidden well underneath the
Frame there which is super cool and you can see all the cladding underneath this no the one area that i am not so happy about from being totally honest are these side steps they hang down a little bit too low but other than that i mean god this thing is cool believe it or not after what more than 30 years this is only the second generation of the g wagen it
Started out as a military vehicle that mercedes built for the shah of iran and it’s become well iconic it’s the go-to wagon for many rappers most of these things spend more of their time on hollywood boulevard instead of here in the woods but tommy you know we’re here to show that this thing is much more than a poser that it has the off-road cred to take on
The stuff that a wrangler would take on and do it better 40 years dead nine forty years 1979 there you go 40 years of off-road military vehicle and only the second generation come you know how a jeep wrangler is trail rated on the rubicon trail yep same thing for the g wagen check this out looking down there they test this on a mountain called mount shekel
In austria and it’s supposed to be very very difficult i’m not sure if it’s as difficult as the rubicon but hey mercedes if you’re listening me and tommy were available to find out the interior this new one is really nice right i’m gonna fake carbon fibre but it works in here i love these vents they’re really cool and they’re pretty old-school yeah they’re
Pretty old-school and this one at least compared to the old one is much more comfortable right we’re not no longer kind of sitting straight up well the issue shoulder shoulder yeah what are the issues of the old one and it’s kind of what made it so good off-road but it was really narrow yeah so have you ever been in an older g wagon it’s like you’re sitting
2 inches from the person next to you you know this new one actually has a much more usable interior it’s got the newest mercedes displays so it certainly is better but it couldn’t i kind of miss uh some of the old old charm yeah and the question i’ve been struggling with on this whole test-drive is is it three times better than a wrangler because let’s face
It the new wrangler is really nice inside it has basically all the same stuff whereas much more aftermarket support for it and yet this thing costs three times as much i mean i think the answer is and this is gonna be really boring answered but if the market will pay three times the amount of a wrangler then it’s worth three times you’re kind of a wrangler
And look face it these guys are red hot right now they’re right there flying off the shelves even at one hundred and thirty four thousand dollars right and also for being honest if you’re if you’re in the market always honest huh yeah we’re always honest but if you’re in the market for a g-wagen especially like a g63 yeah you’re probably not at your dealer
Looking at a sport s wrangler you know it’s like if i think this is one of those cars or if you want a jew wagon being dobies not gonna convince you by going to an x7 you know audi’s not gonna tantalize you with the q8 you’re gonna get a g wagon because mercedes knows that because they make the gls which competes with the x 7 and the q8 this car is a unique
Niche vehicle that kind of is in this class of its own wide-angle rear camera we have a wide-angle rear camera we have a regular angular rear camera and we have what’s this one it’s not touchscreen oh touchscreen for hitch that’s for hitch so it will tow but we don’t have a front camera no no front camera over the panoramic do a panoramic no we have active
Parking assistant but no panoramic no front camera that’s kind of a bummer the turning radius isn’t great timing no it’s the one bad thing no it’s the turning radius isn’t good we already froze yeah but what do they have walking front discs yeah do you walk in front this huh yeah the answer is no you don’t have like your first kiss do that’s i couldn’t
Hear the answer you know tommy i do love this g-wagen it’s in a way the ultimate off-road vehicle i think it probably needs about a two inch lift maybe that might be difficult if expensive but i guess if you can afford 134k or g-wagen you probably afford whatever it takes now the only issue that i’m struggling with at the end of this video is which do i want
This one or the last generation g wagon squared which still are around $20,000 and i think yeah i think i’d go with this one how about you this or three wranglers well i don’t have much of a use for three wranglers you know financially it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me because it’s you know tremendously expensive you can get faster cars you can get more
Off-road worthy cars for the price you know are comfortable cars but this just does everything so well and it combines those three in such a cool package yeah if i had the money and you know i had more than that and i actually wanted to use it i would do this all day long you also get a bunch of those so trd pros there’s two you still have money left over
For a wrangler maybe not the rubicon but the sport alright let’s get out of the way let’s call it a thanks guys for watching remember come back tfl caricom from our news news and of course g-wagen off-road reviews who else does this us that’s it
Transcribed from video
Is The New Mercedes-Benz G-Class Worth 3 Jeep Wranglers? We Take It Off-Road To Find Out! By TFLoffroad
