How the M-Class awful?
My best friend has a ML350 with the upgrade to AMG 18" rims,a nd the 320 entertainment package, and it's absolutley great.
Living in Alaska, we take it everywhere, we had it going back the Kenai River last year in water and mud up the nerf bars. It's comfortable, drives well, handles like a dream, my only problem with it is it's slightly underpowered compared to somthing in the same class and price range, such as, the Touareg and the X5 (4.4 and the 3.0).
There is way more room then X5, the back seats are far superior in comfort to Touareg or an XC90. (I'm 6' about 240, the backseats of an X5 are extremely, "challenging" if you will)
All I can tell you, is when we don't take our boat and my truck, we drive his ML350, and we dirve the shit out of it. We offroad with it, drive 500-700 miles in a weekend going back and forth to Seward and Homer, He bought it the end of last summer, the first fishing trip was 1100 miles in 4 days. It's got 22k on it now from hunting, and winter fishing, and frankly, I'd love to buy one myself if I didn't have to tow a boat.
BTW the G-Class starts at like 65k. If your spending that kind of cheese, buy a Range Rover. But for 30k, you won't find a better luxury SUV then an ML-Class. My wife and I also bought a Touareg about 2 months ago, and we love it. I chose it over an ML, X5 and an XC90. But if I were getting a 350 for 30k, no question what I'd buy. (Ok! Your right, I didn't get to choose it
)
Just an opinion from someone who actully has spent alot of time riding and driving one instead from people who read magazines.