The 2013 Mercedes-Benz M-Class is a luxury vehicle above all else, and materials, ride quality and comfort are superb across the board.

As you might expect in a Mercedes-Benz, the M-Class has excellent seats--well-contoured and soft, yet all-day supportive. There's space for taller adults in the second row, too, although fitting three across will prove tight. You can, however, adjust the rear seatbacks, and even with them up and in place there's more than 36 cubic feet of cargo space behind them.

The cabin experience is tight, quiet, and isolated. The standard suspension provides good comfort but also responds well when you push it in corners. There's a rather wide difference between the two modes (Comfort and Sport) of the available air suspension and adaptive damping system, which play a major part in pairing isolation and control. Comfort provides more of a traditional luxury-car ride, while with Sport you get a somewhat crisper feel at turn-in, with a little more road noise and coarseness.

Mercedes made considerable advances in refinement and materials with its sedans in recent years; and with the 2012 redesign it brought many of those improvements to the M-Class. It also addressed a quirk that's been an annoyance to some for years, repositioning the turn-signal lever from the 8:00 position to the 10:00 position.

And thanks to much-improved aerodynamics—and a spoiler at the trailing edge of the roof—the interior is noticeably quieter than prior versions of the M-Class, as well as most other utility vehicles with this kind of profile.

The M-Class, like most Mercedes-Benz products, has had a very strong safety record for years–with technologies and design going above and beyond federal requirements. The 2013 M-Class is no exception.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) gives the M-Class its top five-star rating, with five stars in two categories and four in the rollover test.

The M-Class gets top 'good' ratings in all crash-test categories from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), along with the group's Top Safety Pick+ nod.

Active safety feature and drivers' aides are what really push the Mercedes-Benz vehicles beyond the competition. Attention Assist, which keeps tabs on driving style to help identify the signs of drowsy driving—triggering a coffee-cup icon and some warning beeps—is a standard feature on all M-Class models. The available Distronic Plus adaptive radar-based cruise control is one of the most sophisticated and unobtrusive systems of its kind on any vehicle—capable of coming to a full stop with traffic and restarting, and potentially reducing fatigue. Pre-Safe, Lane Keeping Assist, and Blind Spot Assist (all optional) all provide the sort of alerts that might make a split-second difference in accident avoidance.There's also a Collision Prevention Assist function, which uses radar to warn the driver if they're approaching a vehicle too quickly and can ready full braking power from the moment when the driver hits the pedal.

The M-Class also features a full complement of air bags, including driver and passenger front and side airbags, curtain air bags for both rows, and a driver's knee air bag. A rearview camera is optional, as is the Surround View camera system, which shows an overhead view of what's around the vehicle for true parking ease.

The 2013 Mercedes-Benz M-Class offers several different models, all of which can be equipped the kinds of options found in the brand's flagship S-Class sedan. Depending on the equipment you choose, this can be a very luxurious experience.

That said, even the standard of equipment on entry models is rather extensive. All ML350 and ML250 BlueTEC models include power heated front seats and a power liftgate--both items that are a step up in some rival models. MB-Tex vinyl seating surfaces are standard on most models, with leather at least an option.

The base audio system is acceptable, while optional Harman/Kardon and Bang & Olufsen systems provide some varied and superb-sounding entertainment, and include an SD-card slot, 10 GB of audio storage, CD/DVD compatibility, HD radio, weather band, and Bluetooth audio streaming—as well as Bluetooth hands-free calling. There's also a USB port within the center console.

Many extras are grouped into Premium and Convenience packages, including, for instance, a Dynamic Handling Package that adds adaptive damping and an air suspension system. A Sport package adds AMG wheels and body cladding.

Standout options include a heated and cooled cupholder that can heat up to 141 degrees F. And there's an available iPad docking station, positioned between the front seats and in view for rear passengers. A night-vision system is among the standalone options, as is an Advanced Park Assist system, which helps steer the vehicle back into a parallel-parking space as the driver controls the accelerator and brakes. A panorama glass roof can also be added, as can heated rear seats, front-seat ventilation, and ambient lighting.

Although it has been continuously refined over the years, we're still not all that enthused about M-B's COMAND screen-based interface, which includes a rotary/button controller, placed just ahead of the driver's right-hand armrest. There's simply too much looking at the screen required--even once you begin to remember the menu system. Thankfully it does include a couple of programmable shortcut buttons. Mercedes uses the system instead of a touchscreen in the belief that it's less distracting than poking at a display, which we generally agree with. We'd just prefer a slightly more logical setup.

The new ML250 BlueTec should be the most efficient of the M-Class bunch for 2013, although we won't know until official EPA mileage ratings are announced.

As for the gas engines, the rear-drive ML350 tops the charts, at 18/24 mpg. Add 4Matic all-wheel drive, and the ML350 drops to 17/22 mpg. The ML400 4Matic, another new powertrain for 2015, actually does slightly better, at 18/22 mpg, despite having higher output figures. And then there's the ML63 AMG, which drops down to 13/17 mpg.