Gadgetory

well no longer quite the ugly duckling of the Mercedes line as I thought it was for a long time let's go see what's happening with the 2012 ml350 BlueTEC and check the tach the ml gets a major restyle as you can see it's cabin though is still about the most luxurious in its class the lack of a third row is going to some buyers there's no longer a hybrid or a v8 but the smart pick is this 3 liter turbo diesel inside the technology load is solid but a few things are missing in an insulting way that are a hallmark of high-end German cars now all MLS are going to have this color LCD but you're not going to get navigation for free that's an option we'll talk about in a minute good-sized screen good dot pitch that's not a really wide aspect ratio like BMW their archrival nor as big I don't think as a Lexus but it's a decent screen you see we have 3d building rendering here there's also live traffic because you've got serious and traffic services in the same option package that brings you this GPS navigation now on the audio side you got am/fm HD radio streaming Bluetooth SD card slot 10 gigabytes of hard drive space what you don't get standard though is a backup camera everybody who buys this thing would appreciate that another gripe I've got about the rear view camera if you have the radio turned off which isn't all that unlikely the backup camera doesn't work why doesn't that wake up the screen when I go into reverse and then when I go back to drive turn it back to black another operational gripe I have is seat heaters you got to turn these seat heaters on with a micro switch toggle turn the car off go in the grocery store come back out on some frigid day and your seat heater resets back to ice-cold they're basically tracking the logic of seat heater to let's say a rear defroster which resets every start cycle why wouldn't you tie that to the HVAC that doesn't go back to zero every time I turn the car off nobody would accept that so premium one package has a lot of stuff you're going to want from camera to better voice command to enhanced input options 3,600 bucks kind of chunky we also have premium 2 which rolls in premium one and more and goes to 53 70 additional that gives you this logic 7 Harman Kardon rig the keyless go technology and some fancy lights under the doorsills I could live without the diesel is the way to go on the current ml it's a three liter turbo diesel v6 giving you 240 scrawny horsepower but 455 big old foot-pounds of torque that gets this 5000 pound beast up to 60 and 7.3 seconds that's quite a trick but the mpg isn't stunning it's 2027 that probably means 20 over all it's a big vehicle heavy as I mentioned one choice only on the gearbox 7-speed automatic through a dainty column shifter and then something congruous sport paddles on the wheel by the way this vehicle also uses urea injection down in the exhaust chain to clean up the diesel particulates that means it has to be refilled occasionally with fluid called AdBlue I would add that myself because the dealer may charge you a lot more than you'd like to do it you can find it on the after market now the reason I like this turbo diesel so much is because it has the kind of power this vehicle needs every day which is grunt not a bunch of high rpm floaty peaking horsepower but the real stuff that gets an SUV around the way you want it to the ride is kind of Rolly Jhansi bouncy there is a more firm adaptive suspension option you can go for at that point I'm thinking you've piled on too many thousands and options because you got to put the tech in here and that's going to come first in my mind now some driver assistance tech we have in here for a hundred and fifty bucks combination of passive blind spot notification and lane departure notification if you drift across the lane the wheel vibrates if you have someone in your blind spot you get a little icon that turns red if you signal into them it starts to beep at you as well go up to about $3,000 and those become active technologies that will prevent you from drifting or Lane changing into someone it's a big Delta in cost I think I'd stay with the passive stuff okay a 2012 ml350 with a D so it's called the blue tech model it's gonna run you about fifty one three delivered and then you go 5,000 to 8,000 more in big chunky packages to get this guy done up seen that style it's definitely the class leader for luxury and comfortable ride you're looking for sporting you're looking elsewhere