I actually test drove a nearly new 2024 but since every report says that after the upgrade in 2024 the 2025 model is essentially unchanged.
I only drove this a few miles since it was a loaner from my favorite Mercedes Dealer, Bud Smail in Greenberg PA, near Pittsburgh.
This is a giant dealership and they service my 2014 Mercedes GLK 250 4matic Bluetec.
To decode that, the GLK is a small-medium size SUV, about the same car as the new GLB for size and function.

4matic means all-wheel drive but mine has a switch that makes it a lot more like a 4-wheel drive which is useful since I have a steep slippery drive to my carport. I see something similar on this GLB but can’t be sure without spending a day or two with the owner’s manual.
So far my GLK is a lot like the newer GLB but without the touch screen and some nice features, I will get into below.
The main difference for me is that my old GLK is also bluetec which is Mercedes speak for diesel and I get 40 mpg when driving carefully.
But now that we have the ground work covered, what about the 2024/25 GLB 250?
First, it rides a little rough for a luxury car but that’s because it is an SUV with real off-road cred for the 4matic version like this. For that, it feels just like my old GLK. I live in the woods and one way to town is over a mile long dirt road, good but also driven by large trucks to a quarry next door. Yea, this is real country, not suburbia.
Steering is excellent as is visibility, about what you would expect from a smaller SUV. The steering wheel is bulky enough to feel as if you really have something to work with and should be fine for long trips.
There are a whole load of buttons on the wheel, a lot more than on my GLK and I doubt most people would be able to use all these controls by thumb without looking.
Combined mileage is listed as 27 mpg. I didn’t have it long enough to do more than watch the incredible graphics that show up in Eco mode giving live performance data.
My GLK has two drive modes, comfort, sometimes referred to as economy, and sport.
I have carefully tested and I find no mileage difference on mine but sport is definitely a more exciting ride if a 200 hp diesel (with incredible torque) in a 4200 pound car is your idea of performance.
Like my old GLK the new GLB has plenty of power for an SUV so no complaints and I have owned a Sunbeam Tiger (Carol Shelby design) and a 455 Trans Am, not to mention a Maserati BiTurbo (the less said about those the better.) So I know when a car is under powered for its job.

Does anybody buy an SUV for performance?
But if you want one, there is always the same body with more power in the AMG GLB35 with 302 hp @ 5,800 rpm for only about $20k more.
The GLB I drove has 221 hp @ 5,500 rpm and is described as a MILD gas/electric hybrid, whatever that means. Curb weight is about 3,700 lbs depending on the accessories so they have trimmed about 500 lbs. off this class SUV since my old GLK. The electric part means it also has a 48-volt mild-hybrid system that adds 13 horsepower during acceleration.
That said, this uses premium gasoline to get that power from a 2 L inline 4 cylinder 16 valve engine.
Size is a bit difficult to explain with so many sizes these days but this is not the smallest or cheapest Mercedes SUV. It has more room than BMW X1 and Audi Q3 based on the numbers, I personally never measured either one that’s from online mention.
Cleverly Mercedes has gone with alphabetical designations for its SUVs the smallest being the GLA, the larger GLB, and the even larger, wait for it, GLC!
Cargo capacity is listed as 22 cu. ft. and this four-door has standard 5 person seating with optional third-row children’s seats which really sets it apart.
GLB Safety How Safe is it?
Crash wise it has excellent crash test ratings and what the hell, it is a new Mercedes, even my old GLK has airbags everyplace.
Mercedes also has a feature that your car calls for help if you are in a major accident.
On the other hand, my old GLK was built in Stuttgart Germany. This GLB is assembled in Mexico using a Romanian transmission.
It has essentially zero U.S. or Canadian parts with 15% German parts.
The GLB has an 8 speed manual automatic transmission. That means there are shifting paddles to change gears in manual mode but no clutch of course.
It can get pretty peppy if you push it in manual or even if you just put your foot down in sport mode.
And, speaking of sport mode, there is also comfort mode, a custom mode (even in my old GLK the car actually learned my driving style), and the Eco mode. I think it also an off-road mode I haven’t explored yet.
The Eco mode gets the best mileage of course and it does this by coasting down hills, and shutting the engine off at various times which it seems to guess at. The battery boost must be what makes it possible to shut the engine down or to coast.
I must say that I didn’t know it was doing this either from the way it drove or the engine sound (there isn’t any at most times).
It drove with no hesitation or problem but after going a few miles I was comfortable enough to look at the LCD dash and saw that the tach kept dropping to zero pretty often and not just at a complete stop and not always then.

But a lot of the time in Eco mode the engine simply isn’t running. You can switch this off simply by using a different driving mode but it really isn’t noticeable so if you would drive in Comfort mode I see no reason not to drive in Eco instead and it’s better for the planet and your wallet.
GLB Off Road
I didn’t drive this nice clean car through the back woods but close enough on my steep grassy hilly driveway in the rain.
On top of that once I get up the steep part I have to back up further up hill to my back, actually for us the front, door in a small carport with the car beeping and flashing warnings all the time.
These were distracting, especially when many of them were just triggered by extra high grass or a few weeds.
However, in the rain, the only way I could back up easily was by using the automatic rear view camera which comes on when you go into Reverse.
This is such an essential tool that I installed one myself in my older GLK.
But one thing I wish the GLB came with was a HUD speed display. I also installed one on my old GLK but no sweat, a dealer option if available would probably run $500 and an excellent one only runs about $30 from Walmart, Amazon, or $25 from TEMU. You just plug them into the computer test port every car has now.
This 4matic drive had no trouble getting up the driveway although it did slip a bit causing me to pull forward when I was trying to back up, again in the rain.
It had hit a muddy spot and was headed into a large bump because I couldn’t see very well (in addition to the rain making the mirrors useless, I RainX my own, I am blind in one eye.)
I never felt out of control, the car just told me I couldn’t back up any further just there.
So I pulled forward with no wheel spin and tried again. In all it took four tries in rain and near darkness backing up a slippery, steep grass driveway around the corner of my house into a carport which was about 2 ft wider than the car.
Ignoring the red lines on the monitor and nearly continuous warning sounds, I smoothly backed into the space even without folding the mirrors in.
By the way, the mirrors are folded back in all the photos. It is one of the safety features I activated with the remote when closing all the windows remotely when it started to rain.
NOTE for everyone, if you didn’t know, most cars will lower all the windows to let the car cool just by holding down the unlock button on your remote. Try it.
On the GLK that works, on the GLB you need to press a second time and hold it down then.
Same for raising all the windows with the engine off, on the GLB you hold the lock button down and the windows all go up and it seems the mirrors all fold back. No idea why but when you get in again they fold back out.
Also, if the hood fit looks awful, in all but one photo it was up because I wanted a look at the engine. There isn’t much to see, although more than in my older MBs which had large covers.
GLB Appearance
In rural PA (actually Groundhog Central, Punxsutawney) this turns heads, but so does every Mercedes and there are three or four others around town.
As for general appearance, the car has a beautiful shape and mine was a very, very black color which looks a bit faded in the photos due to the fact that it was raining at the time and also that the car had been over dusty roads before.

The front end is stylish and, short of having a massive pickup truck pull up behind you, I think anyone would feel a bit intimidated by the dignified but bold and rather aggressive look the front of this Mercedes presents.
Random Points about me and the SLB
Who am I to write a car review?
I’ve been driving for 65+ years even before I had a license and that included race tracks. I’ve mostly driven sports cars of all kinds, especially after I opened a Jaguar shop in Cambridge MA.
My fastest car was a Maserati.
My most powerful car was my Tiger. You can look that up but picture a British sports car the size of an MGB. Then you move the battery to the trunk, move the header on the radiator to a separate bottle with the filler cap, put some extra braces on the frame and in the engine compartment, then slip in a Ford 289 V8 with Ford transmission and Jaguar rear end. You saw one in Dr. No. Bond was driving it through a construction site.
The Sunbeam Alpine which looked the same had a 60 hp 4 cyl engine.
The Tiger steered like a pig but could out race any Porsche in Boston at the time. Trust me, they all tried. They never seemed to notice the dual exhausts on what they thought was a weak British sports car.
So I know cars. Even had 4 240Zs, 1 260Z, and a 300ZX.
My Conclusions on the SLB
I love these Mercedes SUVs. They all handle great, feel solid on the road, have terrific safety features and, for someone my age, they aren’t too complicated as were some of the other higher end loaners I have had.

I’m as high tech as you can get but there is a place for it at least when you are getting old it isn’t when you are driving with only one eye.
New cars have too many features or at least many of them have too much you must use touch screens for. What idiot who never drove a car in his life thought putting touch screens in a moving vehicle was a good idea?
For two people and a large dog these less than smallest SUVs are as big as we ever need. Mine has the tow package, this GLB didn’t but it must be an option.
Without the dog the rear seats fold flat giving you a respectable storage area of 62 cu. ft. without the back seats or optional third-row child seats. Considerably improving the standard 22 cu. ft. with back seats.
Ground clearance is 7.9 inches which doesn’t make it a Jeep, although one Jeep only has 8.4 inches, but the GLB has considerable props as an off road vehicle as long as we are talking mild back roads or less rocky off roads.
The tires are large and reasonably aggressive – they are also run flat.
Even without folding the back seats down you can easily fit an electric wheelchair in the back.
It comes with a respectable sound system that includes two lighted USB ports in the center console, Sirius satellite, and Bluetooth for my Kindle.
My loaner had the $1,000 Burmaster sound upgrade. Very impressive
It also has a sunroof which I haven’t had the weather to open. In fact, it has a black cloth cover and I only noticed the second day that it had a sunroof.
The mirrors I now see are heated although I didn’t know that today in the rain. If I had known and turned them on they would have cleared up, although I don’t know if they are manual or only automatic in the winter.
The seats are heated and you should be careful of the high setting, it can get really hot if you aren’t wearing heavy winter clothes.
I didn’t ride far enough to judge how comfortable the seats are but they feel a lot like my old GLK seats and I have driven a distance in them – they are more comfortable than any chair in my house.
Final Word on the GLB
This new GLB has dozens of special features and some options I hadn’t noticed and tried, after all, this is just a loaner.
It comes with 24 hour roadside assistance but every Mercedes has that, even old ones, which you might not know.
Let me tell you something about Mercedes I had never known until I got a couple about ten years ago. Back in the days when I lived on my boat in Boston harbor and owned a shop I had several Mercedes including two 190 SL convertibles – they weren’t antiques then.
Mercedes will always send assistance for any Mercedes in distress. There is an 800 number on the visor and an emergency call button on most newer cars.
They also send loaner cars if you need one. I do because there is no taxi service here in the woods and I sold off my once 12-car antique and classic car collection.
The only difference with needing a loaner is that they ask you and I sometimes have to wait an extra week or two until a loaner is available. That has never been a problem because my car was driveable, it just needed service.
My dealer is about 60 miles away, perhaps less, but further than I can drive at my age so when I need service even of a less than-emergency nature they send a driver with a nearly new loaner never the cheapest model either so far, and once a higher-end model so fancy I had trouble driving it.
He then drives my car to the dealership.
He or another driver will drive my serviced car back and return in the loaner.
That is the treatment you get with a luxury car brand and why you will probably pay more, although these days it doesn’t seem that much. The GLB with lots of premium upgrades listed at $51,325.
Base price for the same car without fancy sound and other upgrades I would never need, is $45,000 according to Edmunds. https://www.edmunds.com/
Since some of the Ford F150s you see cost upwards of $70,000 I feel $50k for this kind of luxury and treatment is a bargain if you aren’t in a pickup for work as a construction worker or farm hand.
Certainly my local Chevy dealer and the Chrysler dealer with the giant cross on his shop 12 miles away owned by a guy I went to school with don’t even offer pickup, let alone an old clunker loaner car.