2017 Mercedes-Benz G300 CDI Review | 4X4 Australia 

What’s hoon?

flight2k5 slang for driving like a maniac

qcn_ cummins So lucky a Land Cruiser starts at $85 base model yours is the same price fully spec out. Prado starts at $60g. I love to buy a Ford Raptor or a Ram power wagon for $65g any day of the week they want $120g up by the time there converted right steer. But the grass is always greener looking for the other side. But only Ram knows why you can't get a Power Wagon with a Cummins as it would be unstoppable long as it fits down the trail.

A Nissan Frontier PRO-4X, with a manual transmission, would be a good choice for Americans I would think. .....?

yeah but we pay 50,000 for a 25 year old land rover defender

John Grytbakk yeah it's a decent truck. i have the last year 2015 xterra pro-4x Nissan made and is a capable off roader. these days only the wrangler is available option for 4 wheeling.

Who cares about manual transmissions

well you can technically, just a bit tuning on the fuel and oil filter

Cost more? An extra 30k+ of aftermarket stuff? I think not. 10k would get you front and rear bars, roof rack, mud tyres, lift kit etc... still under what the g wagon costs and you would end up with something even more capable with those upgrades.

Ben C exactly

@@benc021 true

At least the Canadian army got them.

basically the same, but the civil version, meaning the military chassis can be modified individually for wach military, like for example make it bulletproof, put on weapon mountings etc. while the civil version has the base spec military chassis without the military bits or bulletproofing.

In comparison to a base-model 200 series which literally costs about the same?

You can get a LC200 Sahara for that price mate, but I'm talking about a 70 Series which is obviously a bit more relevant than a 200 when talking about G300...and they're atleast 50k cheaper

Fair point and you're paying for the badge in part too, but the 76 has leaf springs and almost half the payload of the G300 Pro. The 76 is a great truck with a great engine, but out of the box the G300 is probably the toughest-built thing you can buy at the moment. They have an incredibly low depreciation too. 20-30 year old G-Wagens are still selling for 25-40k. No doubt as they become more common in Australia the price will drop a bit too

Hopefully their price drops...I've heard tho that a few of the local fire authorities have had some troubles with them. Would be a good platform for a camper, but personally I think a chassis extension and a GVM upgrade on a 70 series would still be better than this thing. www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/faulty-fire-tankers-ignite-road-rage-as-they-are-returned-to-service/news-story/5d8e8982451cf10c6b866c035c64af34

Evenstephenss Fair enough, but I'd take the article with a grain of salt, Mercedes suspected contaminated fuel and all were pulled to be safe, not because they all had problems though I'd understand it can be quite concerning especially for their use but I've heard more catastrophic issues with Rangers than I have with these and the Ranger is the top selling ute. Mercedes supposedly did a lot of work to ensure the fuel system was capable of handling bad fuels, so I'd be interested to see how it goes. The one known issue the OM642 engine has in some instances is oil sludging. I believe the turbo is a hot-V design and among other things the earlier versions had smaller sumps so the oil was breaking down. Mercedes increased the oil capacity to 9L which is absolutely massive through a new, alloy sump. Running a good fully synthetic high-temp oil would help as well. Otherwise I don't know of many other issues of the top of my head with them other than EGR as with any direct injection. I wouldn't buy one to tour anyway, it's too rough for that and there are plenty others that would do it more comfortably (Pajero, 200, Prado, Y62 etc.) but for a hardcore adventurer or weekend getaway truck it'd be pretty epic. For commercial use they have a clear weight advantage which is what makes them so attractive, no government body would really be interested in buying a whole fleet to then have a custom chassis conversion done on all of them and the time that goes with it and potential future warranty issues and resale haha, we'll see how reliability goes though.

lol

You cant build a kingdom with someone who craves attention from the village meaning.

The G350d professional is is a infinitely worse car in every aspect, except for luxury. The 300cdi is based on the military G-class with a bulletproof engine and chassis, while the 350d is based on the civil G-class chassis with an Euro 6 Diesel engine. Good luck wanting to explore the world with an Euro 6 Diesel engine, which you can only do in Europe, NA, and parts of Asia as it requires modern diesel fuel. The military 300 cdi engine can run on any diesel fuel you poor in, no matter how bad the quality, so you can go to any parts of the world and find suited fuel for it.

Blah blah blah STFU idiot Not everyone wants a Land cruiser

Buy an Iveco...

Dealerships all over. Daimler Trucks and cars, you have support just about anywhere you go.

Pk Suleiman as the saying goes "a fool and their money are easily parted". These will be the Merc buyers. The value for money is a complete joke, it is a case of paying for the badge. The Merc looks like an amazing vehicle and very capable so it's not so much sour grapes as complete bewilderment as to why something so basic is so expensive.

Get your head underneath one, in detail, take a look at the quality of the welds, grade of steel, the recovery points, the axles, chassis rail thickness, transmission, cooling etc etc. You will see where the money goes, bear in mind these are not mass produced in an Asian country, but hand built in Graz Austria. The money is there, bar the usual taxes that any vehicle of its kind would attract.

80% from ever built cars still on the road ... One guy drove it around the world for 26 years (almost 900.000Km) WITHOUT a major breakdown. These facts are indeed impressing for some of us. Your are right when saying this particular model hasn't got a fancy interior but it is anything but far from beeing basic. Just an instance, once I ran out of batterie power cause of an interior light. The G gave itself a jump start from its third batterie which is stock. Is this the sort of basics you'll find on your car?

Schwanzus Longus you obviously don’t live in Australia.

True story!

But I will have this for vanity fair! I don't think that is better quality than a Japanese 4x4... marketing fools all!

LOL yeah no.

As a Jimny owner for 6 years, Nah it won't, and it will probably go through 3 gearboxes in the same time that this needs a service.

Yeah nice try but NOOOPE

Its funny how they remove bluetooth, when you can get a $150 stereo with bluetooth its not expensive tech, wonder what they will charge for bluetooth as an option 5k??? I said the word bluetooth a lot in that sentence....bluetooth

The 76 still has leaf springs for goodness sake

Fair enough, but that load carrying ability doesn't come to fruition when the G300 has 4.5T GVM compared to the 3T GVM of the 76 Series, and it already runs coils. The car is not marketed unreasonably. It has everything the 76 has and more. Buy a new 76 series for $72k and do a $25k axle and GVM upgrade and you're at $97k and have only added 660kg of payload and spent a bunch of time in the workshop. I like the 'Cruisers and was looking at one myself, but Toyota has a tonne of brand tax themselves. There are so many other 4WDs with better features for not much more, or the same. A 2017 Exceed Pajero with a bulletproof 3.2TD costs $80k with all the bells and whistles yet a base model 76 comes in at $72k. A base model 200 series is $100k with the Sahara costing $130k+. I wouldn't call it over-priced when you compared it to other vehicle brackets, I get the feeling people are looking for something to hate on it without actually looking at the specs objectively. Again, I love Landcruisers, but the price isn't all that high. You're still getting a Mercedes with solid axles and coils all round with tough everything. There's always the used market too haha

Karl Walter agree with a number of your points (although I believe the LC V8 makes up for the lack of coils in comparison). My initial and standing point is that the merc could be a winner had they just considered a few creature comforts that are now very standard expectations.

Adventure Forever yea defintely I agree with you on that

Gunter Holtdorf took his G around the world for 26 years (900.000Km)and returned WITHOUT a major breakdown.Just Google it. 80% of the G's ever built are still on the road. Some of us are indeed impressed ; )

Max Troy and longer, consume more fuel and not so practical when u re on the middle of the mountains

Comparing a JEEP Wrangler to a merc G is an insult to Merc G! Now a raptor is ignorance!

I reckon you are on food stamps.

The right way is to buy the Merc and spend another 60k on mods. Fuck the poor!