Mercedes GLE hybrid reliability & safety rating

There’s plenty of safety kit as standard in the GLE plug-in, and strong scores in its Euro NCAP crash tests prove the large Mercedes SUV is a safe car in the event of a crash. Our only concern here is that owners of Mercedes responding to the Driver Power survey by and large say that their expectations weren’t met – so the brand may have some work to do in impressing customers in the UK.

Mercedes GLE hybrid SUV reliability & problems

The 2022 Driver Power customer satisfaction survey saw Mercedes finish a poor 23th overall out of 29 manufacturers. It was behind all its luxury rival competitors including BMW and Audi in the poll, although not by much – it appears that German luxury brands aren’t meeting the high expectations of customers. Reliability was disappointing for the brand, with 27% of respondents reporting a fault with their Mercedes in the first year of ownership – there’s no reason to think that the plug-in GLE will be any less reliable than the normal diesel models, as electric powertrains have few moving parts and are generally dependable, but reliability across the board seems to be lagging behind competitors.

Safety

The independent crash-testers at Euro NCAP awarded the GLE five stars in 2019, and the car scored highly in the adult and child protection sections of the crash test procedure. All models get parking sensors, autonomous emergency braking (AEB), blind-spot monitoring, ISOFIX child-seat points in the rear seats, lane-keeping assistance, traffic-sign recognition and driver attention alerts. A 360-degree camera is standard on AMG Line Premium models and above, while a move up to the higher-spec AMG Line Premium Plus adds the Driving Assistance Package, which brings extra active safety features, and autonomous cruise control.