Used Mercedes-Benz ML 350 for Sale in

Partlow, VA

I am 6’ 5” and weigh 360 lbs. This makes it difficult for me to find an automobile I am comfortable driving. I would have preferred a two seated sports car, but there is nothing I can get in and out of. The Mercedes Benz M series doesn’t look as big as a Lincoln Navigator or Cadillac Escalade, but it is taller, longer and wider than it looks. The doors are simply massive. I can get in and out easily, and I have plenty of leg and head room. With the rear seat folded down, I can sleep in the car. This is useful for me as I go camping twice a year. This car has an inverter in it which supplies 110 Volt AC so I can use my CPAP which allows me to sleep well. Several times a year I travel through wine country. I could carry a few dozen cases of wine in the cargo area. The car is well insulated and features tinted windows, and there is a sun shield that should help keep wine at a reasonable temperature on hot days. Of course it has a great air conditioner system. I never went looking for a massive SUV, but here I am at 67 years of age owning a car bigger than I ever thought I would own. I have owned pickup trucks and Jeeps in the past, and the ML250 is a lot more comfortable, quieter, and generally more civilized than anything I have ever owned. It is also the first vehicle I have owned with an automatic transmission. At $65,000 it cost twice as much as the last car I bought in 2005. I didn’t think I wanted the PARKTRONIC parking assist package, but I have only a few inches of wiggle room in my garage, and the cameras and sensors make parking a lot easier and allow me to use every inch of available garage space. A rear viewing camera is an option with Mercedes Benz, but the parking assist adds three forward/side facing cameras. It also uses acoustic sensors which are connected to an array of LEDs on the dash. These warn you when you are about to hit objects. I am glad I got this package. I also have the Driver Assistance Package. This is very useful for warning of cars in your blind spot. Californians never use their turn signals. If you use turn signals, everyone assumes you are drunk or insane. I use turn signals probably just because I am old and remember when we used to use hand signals. Today if you turn on your turn signals, people remember they want to exit the freeway and rush into your blind spot. The DAP uses radar to tell you when people have moved into your blind spot. This system also tells you if you are drifting out of your lane. Everything works as advertised, but I am not so sure how useful it is. Perhaps it could be a life saver if I ever start to fall asleep, but it seems overkill to me. The cruise control is great. It uses radar to sense how far you are from the car ahead of you. It will slow down to keep the distance between cards to the level you set. If the car ahead speeds up or changes lanes, the cruise control will speed up to the original cruising speed. I also have the Premium Package. The radio is far more complicated than I am used to, but I am getting used to it. I like that I can receive the local PBS stations in HD. As the Blues Brothers might say, the satellite radio is good for both kinds of music “Country and Western”. For the rest of us, XM radio is a waste of time and money. Mercedes offers a high end radio for more than $5000, but I didn’t select this option. I also have keyless entry. It doesn’t affect me at all. I never locked my doors. I still don’t, but they lock themselves and unlock when I return. This is the first time I have had a built in navigation system in an automobile I own. Frankly the navigation in my phone is better than the one Mercedes Benz supplies, and I get a new phone every few years. I will be stuck with this navigation system for the next ten to fifteen years. It would be nice if someone built a car with built in PC or Apple, and the customer could choose google maps or Bing software or whatever internet music system such as Spotify, Pandora, iTunes, Media Monkey or whatever appeals to them. I was surprised that I like the heated/ventilated seats. My back was acting up, and the heating helped. We shall see whether the ventilated seats help on a hot day. When you come to a stop sign, the engine turns off. This is to save fuel. With a diesel engine starting again is very quiet. I suspect the starter motor is not involved as a warm diesel can start by injecting fuel into the cylinder. If anybody is reading this at all, the question everyone is asking is what about performance? The ML250 is rated as 200 horsepower, and with the same chassis; the ML63 AMG has 518 horsepower. I have not driven the ML63. I am sure it is faster than the ML250. There are several gasoline engines available more powerful than the four cylinder diesel that powers my ML250. In 2014 Mercedes Benz offered a six cylinder diesel engine, but in 2015 the only diesel option is the four cylinder engine. I read that the four cylinder engine allows the car to qualify for tax advantages in the EU. This worried me, I thought a car this big would have needed a six cylinder engine, but I was wrong. The car is very fast despite its weight. If I floor the accelerator, the seven speed transmission shifts down and the engine speeds up to 4000 RPM. This means that all two hundred horse power is connected to the four wheel drive, and the car moves. I haven’t driven above 90 MPH, but I got there very quickly. With my previous car, I could never get the car to go over a nearby hill at any faster than 70 MPH. I tried the same hill with my new ML250, and took it at 90 MPH. There was plenty of power left, but I didn’t want to go any faster. This is a big car and with the four wheel drive, it feels solid and in control at high speeds. I am not an aggressive driver. Much of my driving is at 70 to 80 MPH in cruise control. I am averaging a little more than 30 MPG. The odometer displays the mileage, average speed, total hours of operation and MPG over the life of the car. The trip odometer can be reset and displays similar information. I reset it every time I fill up the tank. Since the ML250 has a 20 gallon tank, I can get 600 miles to a tank of gas. BlueTEC is Mercedes Benz’ trade name for their emissions control system. Urea is injected into hot exhaust gas right before the catalytic converter. This lowers emissions considerably. While there are faster cars and lower emissions cars, the ML250 combines high performance, low emissions and good gas mileage. The automobile isn’t cheap, but I am planning on driving it for between ten and fifteen years. We shall see.