Forgive me father, for I have purchased a gas-guzzling SUV that I cannot parallel park.

I joined the club. I am now one of those horrible Suburban moms in a luxury SUV. I didn't plan this; I took enormous pride in my Mercedes E320 Wagon's low profile, reasonable gas mileage, and nimble handling. I sneered at those women-- the ones who talk on their cell phones while maneuvering their monstrous vehicles incompetently across two parking spaces. A few weeks ago, I knew with absolute certainty that I'd never buy myself a sport utility vehicle. Then, I bought a 2006 Mercedes Benz ML 350.

How on Earth did this happen?

My husband has had a bad car year. First, he gave up his trusty '96 Subaru wagon on his son's seventeenth birthday. Not the Audi TT the kid hoped for, but a big improvement over the sixteen year old Previa he'd had before. To replace it, Steve bought himself a Volvo XC90 that he loved on the test drive, but hated after a mere three days of ownership. We lost more money on that car than either of us will ever acknowledge in public. Then, there was the "reliable" '98 Honda Accord, a cheap used car that served him well for six months. With little warning, something so horrible happened to its transmission that it made more sense to donate the car to our public radio station than to fix it. After this streak of bad luck, we decided to shift gears. My husband took my wagon, and I began my search for a new car.

For me, the '06 Mercedes E 350 was the clear leader of the pack. It's a great car, but after a year of expensive automotive catastrophes, the sticker price of my test car-- $63,000-- gave me pause. Major pause. My dealer knew that I prefer wagons to SUVs, but he encouraged me to give the ML 350 a try. He told me that Mercedes had really filled in the quality gap between the ML and E class with the '06 redesign. I decided to drive the ML, but primarily just to rule it out. Oddly enough, I loved it.

Way back when I bought my E320 wagon, I test drove a 2002 ML 320. The contrast between the cars was striking. Like the C-class, the ML felt like an afterthought: a car designed simply to have a Mercedes at every given price point. It felt a bit like going to a three star Michelin restaurant in the wrong outfit: they let you through the door, treat you like crap, and take your money just the same. The ML felt like a cheapened (but still expensive) Mercedes-- not a good faith effort to produce a luxury car in the $40,000 price range.

From the moment I sat in the driver's seat of a 2006 ML 350, I knew that Mercedes had learned the error of its ways. The ML is no longer an afterthought; it's a mighty fine car, and a well-priced alternative to an E-class wagon.

I still wasn't dead set on the ML, or any Mercedes for that matter, so I looked at several other makes and models. Since our E320 wagon is rear wheel drive, we wanted an all wheel drive wagon or -maybe, just maybe-- an SUV. I began my search online. I immediately ruled out the Lexus RX 350 on the grounds that it looks like the cartoon Yellow Submarine from the Beatles' album by the same name, and the Infiniti FX 35/45 on the grounds that it's just plain ugly. On a more fundamental level, I really prefer German handling to American or Japanese cars at just about any price point. I'd take a Beetle over a Civic in a heartbeat.

Aesthetics are completely subjective, of course, and I can't really articulate what I like. I don't expect great beauty from a wagon or SUV, just something reasonably not-ugly. What makes a wagon ugly? As Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart explained with regard to hardcore pornography, I can't define it, but l know it when I see it.

Once I narrowed my choices to German wagons and SUVs that struck me as reasonably not-ugly, I was left with a list of half a dozen cars: The Mercedes E350 Wagon and ML 350 SUV, The Audi A4 or A6 wagon, and the BMW X5 SUV or 530 Xi Wagon. I wish I could say that I based my decision on exhaustive research, but it boiled down to something so simple that any car dealer would recoil in shock: I made my decision based on customer service.

The enthusiastic, helpful guy at Audi was nice enough, but it was obvious to me from the moment we sat at his desk that a purchase from him would be a lot like a negotiation for treasures at a Moroccan Bazaar. His very first quote to us was so high that I anticipated a dozen or so trips to his manager before we got the price down to an acceptable number. At BMW, we didn't even get that far. The dealer who took us for a test drive looked and sounded like Sal "BigPussy" Bompensiero from the Sopranos. Hey, I'm from Brooklyn. I can't discriminate against a man just because he drops his Rs and wears shiny pants. But when he told us that "all the otha SUVs rollova but a Bee-Em-Dubooyoo don't flip," I bolted.

I can't speak for every Mercedes dealership, obviously, but I am just blown away by the level of service and professionalism at our local dealership. There's no hard sell. Negotiations take moments, not hours. Our salesman showed us the invoice price, which we had already looked up anyway, to give us a baseline for negotiation. We quickly agreed on a price well below sticker, and signed the papers. Here's the kicker. The price on our bill of sale was identical, to the penny, to our negotiated price. If that sounds too obvious, you've probably never bought a car. With the exception of the two Mercedes I've purchased, every other car deal has disintegrated or changed in the business office, where a dealership tacks on "other" costs. My personal favorite is the $400 charge Volvo tried to impose ($200 at Honda) for their dealership's added security etching on the car's window. The charge is never on the sticker, and never mentioned during negotiation. It just magically appears on the bill of sale. So do an assortment of fees, some of them necessary, that increase the price of the car. At Mercedes, our dealer factored everything-- including license plate fees and registration-- into the negotiated price so there would be no surprises above the dotted line. I can't stress enough how much I love this practice.

Since our second car sat dead at a body shop, Steve and I planned to rent a car while we waited for the dealership to prep and deliver our new ML 350. Not necessary, the dealer told us. He handed us the keys to a loaner

2006 ML 350 - At a Glance
Base Price: $40,525
Drive Type: 4WD
Transmission Type: 7-speed automatic
Displacement (liters): 3.5
Engine Type: V6
Horsepower (hp @ rpm): 268@6000
Torque (ft-lbs @ rpm): 258@2400
Braking System: 4-wheel disc w/ ABS
Steering System: Power rack and pinion
Suspension Type (front): Double wishbone independent w/ stabilizer bar
Suspension Type (rear): Four-link independent w/ stabilizer bar
Tire Size (front): 235/65R17
Tire Size (rear): 235/65R17
Tire Brand: Michelin
Tire Model: Radial XSE
Curb Weight (lbs): 6239
Recommended Fuel: Premium
Fuel Tank Capacity (gal): 25.1
EPA Fuel Economy (mpg): 16 City 20 Highway

The Mercedes experience never ends with the car. We left the dealership with light-up pens, chocolates, travel mugs, and a travel blanket, all emblazoned with the three-pointed star. If our E320 was any indication of what to expect, there's more on the way. I have a lovely Merecedes-logo Napa leather mens' dress wallet that's never been out of the box because, well, I'm not a guy. And my husband prefers wallets that open with the pleasing sound of velcro. Anyone want it?

My Options
Like any car, the 2006 Mercedes ML 350 has a lot of options, and the base price represents a car that you're unlikely to find on a dealer's lot. I couldn't care less about upgraded hubcaps or satellite radio, but I had a short list of must-have features. My car had to be black or silver. I wanted a black interior, not tan or gray. I wanted a sunroof, heated seats, and most importantly, a navigation system. The dealer had a good match on the lot: a black on black one, with all the features I requested, plus an upgraded Harman Kardon Logic7 11-speaker stereo with a subwoofer and 6-CD changer in the glovebox. Now I can drive through the neighborhood and annoy everyone with the blasting boom-boom-chhh beat of... I don't know, The Corrs? Jewel? I'm not even a softcore audiophile, so this stereo is major overkill for me. I can't complain, though-- the sound is great!

My car also has a few other upgrades over the base model: birds eye maple trim instead of aluminum, black leather inserts instead of cloth, leather-trimmed steering wheel, privacy glass, Tele-Aid and homelink, and rain-sensing wipers. Along with the sunroof, heated seats, and navigation system, my car's sticker price was $47,125. There are a few popular options that my car doesn't have: memory seats, bi-xenon headlamps, headlamp washers, cargo net, and power tailgate. Those are features I had in my E320 Wagon, but not ones I ever really used.

Safety
Pretensioning Seatbelts? Check. LATCH system? Check. Electronic Stability, 4-wheel Electronic Traction, etc. I wanted air bags-- lots of them. I wanted a car wherein the cabin would look and feel like the inside of a marshmallow in a crash. From the Mercedes site:

Driver and front passenger are each provided with an adaptive dual-stage front air bag, side-impact air bag and 3-point seat belt with an Emergency Tensioning Device (ETD) and belt force limiter.3 Outboard second-row passengers are each provided with a 3-point seat belt with ETD and belt force limiter. Center second-row passenger is provided with a 3-point seat belt.

In a side impact exceeding a preset threshold, a multi-chamber air bag deploys along the front and rear side windows on the affected side of the car.3 The integrated rollover sensor automatically deploys the ETDs and, if deemed necessary, the Head Protection Curtains in the event of a detected rollover.

I never let my kids sit up front, but the ML 350 has an Occupant Classification System that senses the weight of the front passenger, and turns off the front airbag if the occupant's weight is below safety limits.

The Driving Experience
For 2006, Mercedes lowered the ML 350's center of gravity. The car's base may be lower, but I'm 5'6, and I still need to climb up into the seat.

One of the first things that impressed me about the ML 350's handling was its turning radius. My dealership stores their cars in a second story garage with a narrow ramp. It requires a sharp turn from a narrow lane to get to that ramp, and the ML 350 handled it in one fluid motion. The '06 ML is, amazingly, at least as nimble as our E-class wagon.

We only had my husband's Volvo XC90 for a few weeks (snicker), but on the handful of occasions when I drove it, I agreed with Steve that despite its unibody construction, the Volvo felt sort of like a truck. The Mercedes ML 350, on the other hand, feels like a car. There's very little road noise, and as my mother commented from the passenger seat, it's hard to judge the car's speed because the ride is so smooth.

I have one and only one complaint about this car's handling, but to be fair, there's no help for it. One of my greatest joys in the E320 was to accelerate into a curve and feel the car hug the road. Even with its lowered center of gravity, the ML 350 is still too high off the ground to enjoy that particular fix.

We live on a (hopefully) dormant volcano, so I really appreciate two of the ML's relevant drivetrain features: Downhill Speed Regulation and Hill Start Assist. Now, when I'm at a stop sign on top of the hill, I roll forward when I take my foot off the brake!

The ML 350's seven speed transmission is controlled by an odd shifter mounted on the steering column. From Mercedes:

Standard driver-adaptive 7-speed automatic with column shifter. Electronically controlled shifting. The column shifter provides convenient selection of Park, Reverse, Neutral and Drive. Touch Shift with fingertip shift controls allows driver to manually downshift and allow upshifts in Drive, via rocker buttons behind the upper steering-wheel spokes. Driver-adaptive programming adjusts shift points to the driver's current driving style.

Steering column shifters have been around forever, but this is different. Unlike the manual shifters of the past, this one is electronic. A flick up moves it into reverse, and a flick down into drive. A half-flick in either direction shifts it into neutral, and a silver button on the tip of the shifter puts the car into park. It takes a little time to adjust, but fear not: since it's electronic, it's hard to hurt yourself or the car with a poorly timed flick. On a rainy afternoon, at 60 miles per hour on the freeway, I accidentally pressed the "park" button on the shifter instead of the windshield wiper fluid button that's on the other side of the steering column. No worries! My dashboard flashed a gentle reminder not to park the car while it's in motion, and I haven't tried to since then.

Dashboard controls are easy to understand and well laid out. No complaints there. There are four sets of buttons on the steering wheel to control most of the car's computer functions. The dashboard design is just about my favorite part of the ML 350. Here's a peek at Mercedes' stock photo:

http://www.mbusa.com/media/images/main/models/gallery/photo_gallery/m/suv_int_3_main.jpg

My car's steering wheel is wrapped in black leather instead of wood, which I prefer. We had a wood steering wheel on the Volvo, and I hated its feel. There's no friction! The maple trim is tasteful, not overdone, with enough aluminum accents to make the car feel sporty and youthful.

For the 2006 model year, Mercedes reverted to analog clocks. The S-class has a very elegant Cartier-esque clock at the center of its dashboard; the ML has a simple dial on the instrument cluster. If this sounds depressing to all you techie types out there, it did to me, too-- until I saw it in action. The clock is analog, but it's controlled by the car's computer. When you change your time zone or daylight savings setting, the hands spin around magically until they land in the right spot.

My ML 350's seats are very comfortable, and adjust electronically in every direction. There's an adjustable headrest, lumbar support for the driver and durable MB-TX (translation: very nice vinyl) seating surfaces. If you're looking to buy your first Merecedes, here's something you may not know: those leather seats? They're not leather. Most luxury cars include leather at this price, but Mercedes does not. There are three types of seats: the basic seat is cloth, but I have never seen cloth seats on my dealer's lot. The $2200 "Trim Package" upgrades to MB-TX seats with leather inserts, maple trim, and privacy glass. The $6100 "luxury package" adds full leather seats and a host of other upgrades. Most of the cars on the lot seem to come with the MB-TEX and leather inserts. This is what we have on our wagon, and it's held up a lot better than leather.

COMAND Navigation
COMAND is the Mercedes-Benz navigation system. The system is intuitive and very easy to learn. My dealer walked me through all of its features, and within a few minutes, I understood about 90% of its capabilities. For the uninitiated, navigation is the greatest thing to hit the automobile since cupholders.

A navigation system has two basic components: a DVD programmed with maps, and a GPS (Global Positioning System) receiver that pinpoints your exact location on Earth. Most navigation systems are pre-programmed with thousands of gas stations, restaurants, hotels, hospitals, golf courses, wineries, museums, schools, parks, and landmarks that you can find by type, location, phone number, or distance from your present position. I have not printed a single Google/Yahoo/MapQuest map since I bought this car. I simply enter an address, and a female voice (we call her Mary-Alice) guides me to my destination. If I make a wrong turn, she recalculates my route and gets me back on track. If traffic is slow, I press the "detour" button for a different route. I can ask Mary-Alice for a route that avoids freeways, bridges, or tolls if the mood hits. I can give her several destinations, and she'll map out a driving plan for me that includes all of them. If the radio or a CD is loud, Mary-Alice momentarily reduces the volume so I can hear her directions.

Grandparents are simultaneously tickled by and terrified of this technology.

In addition to maps and directions, COMAND navigation provides some interesting data that's a nerd's delight. There's a compass, a digital readout of your precise latitude and longitude, constantly updated information on the number of satellites from which the car calibrates its position, and an altimeter. The rest of the COMAND Navigation system has truly exceeded my performance expectation, but the altimeter, for lack of a better word, sucks. It measures altitude in increments of one hundred feet!

I've heard arguments in favor of portable third party navigation systems, which can be used in any car you happen to drive. This might be a better option if you travel a lot or drive more than one car, but there are two drawbacks. Aesthetically, an integrated system is nicer. It blends right into the dashboard, and doesn't require suction cups or wires. On a more substantial note, Mercedes' COMAND system is so well integrated into the car that you can choose to keep a GPS readout on your instrument cluster. It's not as detailed as the main screen, but shows what street you're on and your compass heading. During active navigation, It also shows an arrow (and distance) that correspond to your next turn. This dramatically reduces the need to look at the map screen while you're driving, which can be a distraction.

iPod Integration
For $299, plus the cost of installation, you can directly integrate your iPod into the ML 350's stereo. This allows you to navigate through your iPod's playlists with the steering wheel controls. I haven't bought an integration kit-- yet-- because I bought a DLO Transpod for my iPod two months ago.

Gas Mileage. Or, how I sleep at night
In an ideal world, I would have purchased a car that gets 50 miles per gallon and emits something harmless and pleasant, like Chanel No. 5.

We researched hybrids online, and found (for the most part) too little car for too much money. As hybrid technology comes down in price and is integrated into a wider range of vehicles, it's really an exciting option. I've heard rumors that there's a Mercedes hybrid in the works, but my dealer insists there won't be one in the showroom for at least a couple more years. In the meantime, Mercedes-lovers who want to cut back on gas immediately can buy an E350 diesel rear-wheel-drive sedan that gets about 37 MPG on the freeway

During our brief ownership of the Volvo XC90, we averaged a mere 16 miles per gallon. The EPA estimates for the ML 350 are 16/20, but our fuel economy has been significantly better than that. Over the course of 1200 miles of driving, I've gotten about 18.5 city and 24 highway on average. I've seen it go as low as 14 in a parking lot for a few minutes, and as high as 27 on the freeway at moderate speed with no stop-and-go traffic. Ironically, this is almost identical to the mileage we get on our E320 Wagon. It's not great, but it's better than many. We can still feel morally superior to people driving Suburbans and Tahoes, at least.

The little things that bug me

• The vanity mirrors don't have adequate lighting. Our E 320's vanity mirrors are lit on each side; the ML 350's are lit from far above. If you've ever tried to apply mascara by the light of a dying firefly, it's like that.

• The gas cap actually fell off its arm after a minor collision with a gas station attendant's large-ish derriere. It was held on with some sort of adhesive. Shouldn't such a thing be soldered on? I mentioned this to the service manager at my dealership, and he promptly ordered a new cap.

• It doesn't block out odors as well as the E 320. The E class charcoal filter blocks out everything from cigarette smoke to freshly laid tar, both of which make it into the cabin of the ML 350 if they're present in the air.

• The silly three-pointed star that stood atop my wagon made it so easy to park because I knew exactly where the car ended. With no hood ornament, parking a big car is always an adventure. I tend to err on the side of caution, which frustrates my spouse and leads to comments like pull up! You've got, like, five feet in front of you! The SUV's three-pointed star is on the front grille. To add insult to injury, I traded my useful hood ornament for a useless, gauche replacement ten times its size.

The little things that bring me great joy

• The ML 350 has four cupholders that can each handle a grande cappuccino! Hip Hip Hooray! Our E 320 has two cupholders in front too, but one of them is barely large enough to hold a Red Bull. When we use the wagon for road trips, the driver gets the big cupholder, and the passenger gets to hold his or her coffee between his or her knees.

• In addition to the standard cupholders, the cargo spaces on each door are shaped to hold a water bottle at one end. I always keep a bottle of water in the car, so it's nice to free up the cupholder.

• The ML 350 has power outlets galore. Our wagon had one on the dashboard and one in the trunk. The trunk outlet was poorly positioned, so on road trips, we always needed a duplex adapter to charge some combination of cell phones, iPods, and portable video players. The ML 350 has one on the dashboard, one beneath the glove box, and two directly beneath the rear climate controls. There may be one in the trunk too, but I haven't had any reason to check.

• This car has more legroom, by far, than our E 320 wagon or the Volvo XC90. I'm only 5'6, but I like to keep the driver's seat in a position that most people my height would hate-- completely upright, but as far back from the steering wheel as the seat will go. In the ML 350, for the first time ever, I can't sit this way. I can't reach the pedals! This is a great car for all those tall guys out there who are sick of hunching over the wheel.

• There's a big red SOS button on the roof, just behind the sunroof controls. I don't know what it does. Maybe it dials 911. Maybe it shoots up a flare. Maybe it's a self-destruct. It would be good to know, and I plan to look it up eventually, but in the meantime, its very presence makes me feel safe.

Final Thoughts
After about four weeks of ownership, I can honestly say I love my car. The car and I are still on our honeymoon, though, so things may change. I loved my '99 Honda Odyssey for the first few months, but then it needed two new door motors and three transmissions, and we parted ways on less than amicable terms. My husband loved his Volvo XC90 for the first few... hours... but that changed, too. As the weeks and months pass, I'll continue to add my impressions of the Mercedes ML 350.

And in the meantime, be gentle. When you see a woman pull a big black SUV across two parking spaces, it's probably me. Count your blessings, though: my cappuccino is in the cupholder and my cell phone's closed.

18,000 Mile Update
I've had my car for sixteen months now, and for the most part, it's been a pleasure. We've taken it off-road several times, and it handles dirt, gravel, and uneven surfaces very well.

I've had a few minor repairs. The AC seems prone to developing bad odors, so the dealer's cleaned it out twice. The moonroof has developed a nasty rattle that's required three visits to the dealer.

Through regular use, I've discovered a few things about the navigations system that bug me. The knob-scroll-click input is very time-consuming compared to the touch-screen on the $250 Magellan system we use in our other car. The cheaper system also provides more accurate altitude information, whereas Mary-Alice rounds to the nearest hundred foot mark. If there's an easy way to enter the current longitude/latitude into memory, I haven't found it. That's another no-brainer with the Magellan 2200t. In Mary-Alice's defense, she's better at getting oriented in dense urban areas or when coming out of an underground garage than the Magellan, and she also seems to take more intuitive routes. So, despite a few missing (or hard to use) features, I'm still glad I bought the in-dash navigation system with my car.

Update 8/31/09 My ML 350 is gone. After 40 months of ownership, I'm pleased to report that although I decided to buy a smaller car, this one did me proud. It handled snow and ice better than any car I've ever owned, and with the exception of intermittent rattles and a stinky air conditioner, the car never had any problems. Unfortunately, the decent fuel economy I got in the early months of ownership was not representative of what I averaged over the next three years. As my kids got older and I started to spend more and more time taxiing them to local activities, my average fuel economy dropped precipitously to under 17 MPG average over 38,000 miles. I