Overview
With the Indian SUV segment growing in leaps and bounds, carmakers are constantly churning out newer products for the domestic market. Consequently, apart from the regular SUV offerings, premium off-roaders are also making their way here. So we pit three contemporaries – the Mercedes-Benz M-class, the BMW X3 and the Volvo XC60 – against each other to tell you which makes for the best buy.
The Merc M-class is a size bigger than the BMW X3 and Volvo XC60 and has traditionally been a rival to the larger (and more expensive) X5 and XC90 from BMW and Volvo respectively. So why are we comparing these SUVs? The answer lies in the ‘250 CDI’ badge on the M-class. This recently launched version of the M-class comes with a smaller and less powerful engine than the ML 350 CDI, but it also costs Rs 13 lakh less! That means you can have an ML for what you’d pay for the more powerful diesel versions of the smaller X3, XC60 and Audi Q5. We’d have liked to include the Q5 3.0 TDI in this test as well, but Audi did not have the updated version of the car that is scheduled to go on sale later this month.
What we seek to find out is if the smaller-hearted ML is too much of a compromise in terms of performance, or if it is actually a well-rounded premium SUV that just happens to be well priced too?
