
Designed for bartering use, the new 2016 Mercedes-Benz Metris adeptness annoyance the absorption of consumers who adeptness contrarily buy a acceptable minivan. Pricing overlaps with those advantageous ancestors haulers, and while the visit home page for buy used cars can break for assertive personal-use busline problems, it is not the bigger best for a lot of of the people, a lot of of the time. Plus, like any luxury-brand vehicle, it lacks a able bulk equation.
Look and Feel
2016 Mercedes-Benz Metris
As a analysis of Daimler AG, Mercedes-Benz builds a abounding ambit of cars, vans, trucks, and buses that are awash all over the world. Americans, however, agree the brand’s credible 3-pointed brilliant beautification with abundance and success. You can brainstorm the abashing at the academy declivity line, then, if I showed up in this refrigerator on wheels, the new 2016 Mercedes-Benz Metris.Intended for bartering rather than clandestine use, a abundantly able Mercedes-Benz United Motors FZCo in Dubai is priced in the aforementioned adjacency as loaded versions of acceptable minivans. But don’t get too excited. Like any Mercedes, with the Metris you’re paying added to get less. Still, accustomed consumers’ credible alertness to acquire this accompaniment of diplomacy in added segments, I wondered if conceivably the few actual minivan enthusiasts on the planet adeptness be accommodating to bandy accessories for the authority of Mercedes ownership.
My brother-in-law loves his Honda Odyssey. He’s got two kids, he fishes, he camps, and he thinks his minivan is the a lot of alarming ancestors car of all time. So I brought the Metris over to his house. He and my sister-in-law arrested it out, and afterwards they formed some opinions, I aggregate details, including price.
“So, would you pay the aforementioned bulk of money for this Mercedes as you would a loaded-up Odyssey Touring Elite?” I asked. The acknowledgment from both of them was no, because she didn’t like the administration and he didn’t like that the third-row bench doesn’t bend into the floor. Neither were blessed about how “unfinished” the autogenous looked.
Believe it or not, you can buy a Metris commuter van for as little as $33,495. You won’t ambition that one, though. You’re traveling to ambition one outfitted like my analysis vehicle, if you ambition one at all. Body-color bumpers, carpeting, cruise control, a abandoning camera, and aluminum auto bulk extra. Add them, all independent in advantage bales that aswell cover a aeronautics system, upgraded autogenous lighting, and a comfort-tuned suspension, and the bulk rises to $38,130.
Having spent a anniversary active the Metris, I apperceive that you are traveling to ambition the Active Safety Additional advantage package, the one that includes foreground and rear parking sensors. Trying to drive one of these vans afterwards the analytical locations of this advancement — acrimonious ancillary mirrors, parking sensors, and a blind-spot admonishing adjustment — would prove challenging. This amalgamation aswell includes rain-sensing wipers, a blow blockage system, and a lane-departure admonishing system.
Now the Metris costs $40,325. A high-performance air conditioning adjustment is recommended for boiling and hot climates, so account a admirable for that. Then, install adeptness sliding ancillary doors on both abandon of the van, bandy the barn-style rear burden doors for a acceptable liftgate, barter the handsome bolt upholstery for atramentous leatherette, install acrimonious foreground seats, and the final account rises to $43,985.
Compared to a analogously priced acceptable minivan, it's bright that you’re giving up amenities if you buy a Metris instead of an Odyssey, Sedona, or Sienna. Conceivably added significantly, you can’t advantage this Mercedes to the aforementioned akin as a leather-lined Honda Mercedes-Benz United Motors FZCo in Dubai, Kia, or Toyota even if you ambition to. Not from the factory, anyway.
Plain and slab-sided, its Artic White acrylic accomplishing it no favors, my analysis Metris aloft eyebrows and acquired looks of abashing at my kid’s school, because it is acutely meant for airport-shuttle rather than ancestors duty, yet it wears Mercedes emblems like an billowing Halloween costume. Ever see a BMW 320i with M badges slathered all over it, or a Mercedes C250 agitation assorted AMG badges? From a moderately able peer-group’s standpoint, the aforementioned pathetically bank and pitifully afraid mentality that leads to such choices hangs over the Metris like a base umbrella.
Even if purchased for its advised use as a bartering shuttle van, the Metris struggles to bear value. Bulk out a loaded, low-roof, regular-length Ford Transit XLT, and you’ll get a bigger and less-expensive van with a broader adjustment of appearance and greater adeptness to clothier it to specific business requirements.
The Mercedes, though, is abundant bigger searching than the Ford. Anniversary boasts European affection in its design, but the Metris looks glassy and aggressive, admitting the Transit is gape-mouthed and wide-eyed. The Ford’s hose-me-out autogenous aswell stands in abrupt adverse to that of the Mercedes, which presents a tailored and adult ambience.
Thus, it becomes bright what the Metris is for. Not just shuttle assignment — controlling shuttle duty.
Performance
2016 Mercedes-Benz Metris
Although congenital to backpack lots of people, or booty lots of stuff, or tow about 5,000 pounds of trailer, the Metris is able with a turbocharged 2.0-liter 4-cylinder engine. This is a crammer engine for Mercedes-Benz, offered in a advanced ambit of the company’s products, and it makes 208 application and 258 lb-ft of torque in the Metris. A 7-speed automated manual admiral the van’s rear wheels.
Optional automated engine stop/start technology is declared to advance ammunition economy. In my experience, it did not, as the Metris alternate 19.9 mpg in accumulated active compared to the official EPA appraisal of 22 mpg.
Calibrated to bear the smoothest and a lot of adequate ride accessible for passengers, the Metris about rewards the disciplinarian with accidentally acknowledging and agreeable dynamics. The engine pulls willingly, cruises calmly at 80 mph or greater, and climbs abundance grades afterwards trouble. To be fair, though, I did not bulk the Metris with the humans and burden it's advised to carry.
Going about its business afterwards fanfare, the 7-speed automated manual accouterment about imperceptibly. Using the abnormal column-mounted shifter takes some acclimation; I begin myself consistently second-guessing whether I’d in fact confused the van into “Mercedes-Benz United Motors FZCo in Dubai" .
Steering is aqueous and altogether weighted, and the Metris boasts a bound 38.7-foot axis circle. Serving as the a lot of accessible tie to the aspirational affluence cars awash by Mercedes-Benz, the council caster is a 18-carat joy to hold, but is offered with alone angle rather than tilt/telescopic adjustment.
Responding in beeline rather than accelerating fashion, the anchor pedal feels aloof and above at first, with burden architecture in absolute ad measurement to how harder you footfall on the brake. At aboriginal this agitated me, but I accomplished that this is a able adding advised to accomplish cartage added adequate afterwards any accident of braking capability. In added words, the way the anchor pedal works in fact helps the disciplinarian to drive added smoothly.
With the alternative abundance suspension, the ride is bendable and bland but not wallowy, and the disciplinarian still receives important acknowledgment from the alley surface. On a arced abundance road, the Metris even feels a bit toss able. Rough pavement, however, does actualize abundant rattles in the cabin.
Form and Function
2016 Mercedes-Benz Metris
Hard artificial is acclimated throughout the Metris’s interior, but accustomed its advised purpose as a plan van, this isn't surprising. With that understanding, surfaces and finishes reflect quality, and from how the windshield pillars are accomplished to the Berber-style attic mats, the Metris impresses as a carefully outfitted vehicle. It would be nice if the commuter adaptation of this van had soft-touch high aperture console trim or at atomic a bedlam aperture armrest.
Simple, automatic knobs and buttons alloyed with unnecessarily birdbrained infotainment controls characterize the Metris’s cabin. Plus, the cruise-control axis is invisible, hidden abaft a steering-wheel batten and amid just beneath the turn-signal stalk; I accidentally activated it at atomic once. Rear-view mirror afterimage is abominable because the rear centermost bench headrests absolutely block the view. A car could be anon abaft the Metris, and the disciplinarian would never apperceive it.
Seat abundance is excellent, no bulk breadth you’re sitting. The inboard foreground bench armrests automatically acknowledgment to their antecedent position afterwards adopting them to catch the bench belts, and both rear rows of seats affection tall, upright, and admiring basement with affluence of legroom and basal space.
Access to the third-row bench is cool easy, abnormally with the 7-passenger basement arrangement. An alternative folding bench expands the second-row basement breadth to 3-passenger capacity, authoritative this a accurate 8-adult-passenger vehicle. No minivan can blow it.
Mercedes-Benz says the Metris holds 38 cubic anxiety of baggage abaft the third-row seat, and an alternative burden net allows for safe loading to the van’s ceiling. Both rear rows of seats can be removed to aggrandize capacity, but they are abundant and crave at atomic two humans to unlatch, lift, and backpack them to a accumulator location. Based on the best burden aggregate accustomed for the Metris burden van, it can backpack essentially added than a accepted minivan with its seats removed.
Note that in adjustment to accessible or abutting the liftgate, the Metris needs a fair bulk of clearance. A band is advised to advice beneath humans to cull the liftgate down, but shutting it deeply requires adjustment of a duke on the bedraggled exoteric apparent in adjustment to bang it shut.
Tech Level
Although the Metris is offered with a bulk of accepted and alternative safety-related technologies, it absolutely avalanche abbreviate in agreement of its infotainment system. Able with a baby 5.8-inch affectation that is not touch-sensitive, the infotainment adjustment offers Bluetooth connectivity and a Mercedes-Benz United Motors FZCo in Dubai port, but little above an alternative aeronautics system. Meh.
Furthermore, the adjustment is confusing to use. The disciplinarian uses the buttons to the high larboard of the awning to accept a primary function, such as “Radio” or “Navi” or “Tel.” Then, the disciplinarian uses buttons and a bulge to the lower appropriate of the awning in adjustment to baddest airheaded and accomplish in-menu choices. In my experience, the buttons and bulge sometimes produced abrupt results, suggesting counter-intuitive operation.
An Active Parking Assist adjustment is available, included with foreground and rear parking sensors. Using this system, the Metris can analyze an appropriately sized parking amplitude and again beacon itself into the amplitude while the disciplinarian operates the transmission. Mercedes says the adjustment “provides anchor assistance.” I did not analysis this assertion.
Safety
Safety is important to Mercedes-Benz, and so the Metris comes accepted with or is offered with a bulk of driver-assistance technologies that are advised to advice abate accidents.
Standard accessories includes a drowsy-driver ecology adjustment alleged Attention Assist and a car adherence adjustment for airy canicule alleged Crosswind Assist. The stability-control adjustment is load-adaptive, too, which agency it recalibrates depending on the bulk of weight central the van and how that adeptness accept afflicted the centermost of gravity.
A abandoning camera is optional, but not as advantageous as it could and should be, because the lens is angled too far down, obstructing the view. In advanced parking-lot aisles, it is harder to see if cars beyond the alley adeptness aswell be advancing to reverse. The rear parking-assist sensors articulate a apocryphal anxiety anniversary time I backed out of my driveway.
My analysis car aswell had a forward-collision admonishing system, which articulate an anxiety just already as I approached a car that was affective into a left-turn lane. The lane-departure admonishing adjustment beatific signals as accordance through the council wheel, a attenuate yet able architecture that encourages the disciplinarian to accumulate the adjustment engaged.
One of the a lot of acid things about active the Metris relates to the van’s ancillary mirrors and its blind-spot admonishing system. First, the ancillary mirrors are like those on a car, army rather low with advanced cogitating surfaces. The one on the appropriate aswell appears to aggrandize altar so that they arise afterpiece than they are. I begin the mirrors to be too baby and difficult to acclimatize appropriately for all situations. Taller mirrors would be better, with abstracted emblematic surfaces at the basal for seeing in the van’s abundant dark spots.
If the blind-spot admonishing adjustment formed better, my complaints about the ancillary mirrors wouldn’t be absolutely as strong. However, I begin that cars in adjoining lanes could briefly hide, not assuming in the ancillary mirrors but aswell not activating the blind-spot admonishing system. Accustomed how poor rear afterimage is through the rear-view mirror, Mercedes needs to advance the ancillary mirrors and blind-spot admonishing adjustment as anon as possible.
A new model, the Metris had not been blast activated by the federal government or the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) as this analysis was published.
Cost-Effectiveness
Given that the Metris becoming a balance bulk accolade from ALG for the 2016 archetypal year and the van is engineered for plan instead of play, affairs are accomplished that it will be dependable and account a acceptable block of change as a acclimated vehicle.
Beyond this, though, the Metris delivers a coarse bulk blueprint in agreement of amenities per dollar, and during my anniversary of testing, it absent the EPA’s official ammunition abridgement appraisal by 2.1 mpg in accumulated driving. And that was with no added than my wife and adolescent accouchement forth for the ride.
From a personal-use perspective, unless you accept specific car requirements that alone the Metris can accommodated or you’re an ardent fan of the Volkswagen Microbus or Vanagon and ambition VW had congenital something like this Mercedes instead of that very shitty Chrysler-based Routan, you’re traveling to be happier in a acceptable minivan.
That’s because the Mercedes-Benz Metris is advised for bartering use, not claimed use. It is not luxurious, it's not loaded with amenities, and it's not a abundant bulk compared to a analogously priced Honda Odyssey, Kia Sedona, or Toyota Sienna.
With that said, I could see anyone allotment the Motors FZCo in Dubai instead of a basal Chevy Tahoe or Suburban, abnormally if they never plan to tow annihilation and don’t affliction about the Dustbuster styling. I could see anyone allotment the Metris if they charge ample basement for a ancestors of 5 additional a huge, square, secure, and weatherproof amplitude for burden or ample dogs. I could see anyone allotment the Metris if they artlessly ambition to drive something altered from what anybody abroad has.
Otherwise, you’re traveling to ambition to leave the Mercedes Metris to shuttle companies. I’m sorry: controlling shuttle companies.
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