Revised GLE is anticipated to arrive on South African soil before year-end. A confirmation announcement is still to be made.
Officially one of its oldest products, having debuted in 2018, Mercedes-Benz has given the GLE its most extensive facelift to date, the first since 2023.
Again offered in standard SUV and coupe-SUV guises, the raft of changes applies not only externally and inside but also underneath.
New outside
Aesthetically, the tweaks to the internally named W167 GLE include a new front fascia derived from its sedan sibling, the E-Class.
Central to this is a restyled grille, new headlights, optionally available with Digital Light LEDs, a new bumper with wider side air inlets, and a black outer panel for the grille.
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At the rear, Mercedes-Benz has redesigned the taillight clusters and graphics, while also adding a full-width, blacked-out centre logo panel.
New bumper and tailgate, up to 20-inch alloy wheels and two new colours, Dark Petrol and Patagonia Red Metallic, round off the exterior changes.
Unique to the coupe are subtler, restyled new taillight clusters without the central black panel, a different bootlid spoiler, and model-specific alloy wheels, up to 20 inches.
Welcome Superscreen
Inside, the GLE becomes the latest three-pointed-star product to receive the new Superscreen, consisting of three 12.3-inch displays.
An inclusion that required a new dashboard, all but the instrument cluster display gets the latest MBUX software and Benz’s new virtual assistant system.
Other new additions are new colours and materials, a first-time, optional, augmented reality Head-Up Display, an improved transparent body camera and a standard panoramic sunroof on all variants.
As before, a seven-seat option is available for the standard GLE, in which the outer seats fold electrically into the floor.
Finally, the optional Burmester sound system has been revised to include Dolby Atmos technology and now features 15 speakers, two of which are located in the roof control module.
Underneath
Underneath, adjustments to the chassis include a retuned Airmatic adaptive air suspension system, revised E-Active Body Control system and a tow package of up to 3 500 kg.
As before, though, the latter option is not applicable to the GLE Coupe.
Revised engines
Up front, all powertrains are again equipped with the EQ Boost 48-volt mild-hybrid system that adds an additional 17kW/205Nm for short spells.
Gone, though, are the previous four-cylinder options, leaving only six-and eight-cylinders.
On the petrol side, the GLE 450’s 3.0-litre straight-six turbo now produces 560 Nm of torque instead of 500Nm. Power is unchanged at 280 kW.
A new arrival is the GLE 580, which uses the AMG-developed flat-plane crank 4.0-litre bi-turbo V8. The result is 395kW/750Nm.
On the diesel side, the 350d replaces the 300d, while the 450d remains unchanged.
Now with six-cylinders instead of four, the 3.0-litre unit in the former develops 210kW/650Nm, while outputs for the latter are kept at 270kW/750Nm.
Finally, Mercedes-Benz has whittled the plug-in hybrid options down to a single derivative, the 450e, which combines the 3.0-litre straight-six with a 31.2-kWh battery pack.
No combined power figure was provided, with only a 106 km all-electric range being provided.
Compared to the regular GLE, the coupe’s powertrain options are limited to the two diesels, the plug-in hybrid and the 450.
As before, all engines are paired with the 9G Tronic gearbox and receive the 4Matic all-wheel-drive system.
No local arrival yet
Going on-sale later this year, the facelift GLE and GLE Coupe are still unconfirmed for South Africa as part of the three-pointed star’s mass product roll-out this year.
However, once production for global markets starts, expect an announcement then.
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