subzer0

I was driving my 1-year old 2015 C400 that has 31000km (about 20000 miles) on a highway a few days ago when the panel lit up with several error messages indicating that Collision Prevention Assist, Tire Pressure Monitoring, and Traction Control (I forget the exact term) were inoperative. That was in the morning. Later that day, I took the car again and the messages came right up when I started the car. After about half an hour, they went away and everything was back to normal.

I took the car to the dealer the next day and they told me that my car was in need of several software updates, which they did, and that those were likely the cause of the errors. And also that my right rear shock absorber needed to be replaced because it was defective.

Questions:
What could possibly have caused the error messages I was getting? I'm having a hard time believing that the defective software which I have had for a full year would suddenly cause this.

How do we get notified if software updates are available for our cars?

How unusual is it to have a shock absorber fail at 20000 miles? It's good that it was under warranty but I understand they are pretty expensive. Are they particularly prone to breaking?

MASSC450

Could you list the work order numbers for the work you had performed?


I'll be taking my 2015 C300 in for it's "A" service soon, and I'd like to go in to the dealership prepared.

BenzC400

Interesting. I had my C400 (11,500 miles) in a couple of weeks ago for software updates and to complete service bulletin, 2015090005 - Replace mounting nuts for damper to spring control arm, when they found the right rear strut leaking. It was replaced. My car has AIRMATIC.

BenzC400

Unless it's a safety recall I doubt we will be proactively be notified of software updates. My dealer has been reluctant to do any software updates unless the customer reports a problem.

subzer0

I have Airmatic as well. I had reported rattling noise from the rear suspension and the work order says they found "damage to thread on piston in damper - replaced strut"

subzer0

The work order doesn't specify any numbers. All it says is that they tried disconnecting radar sensors, tested connectivity to the sensors, reconnected them, re-tested, and then decided to update the software in the "ESP control unit", then they calibrated the steering angle sensor.


I just noticed that they also executed service bulletin 2015-12-0004 which is related to a recall concerning the electrical steering system. This was also a software update.

DBOC205

What the OP is describing is a condition likely caused within the ESP module. It behaves like that when you do a self test on the control module as well, so you've probably had some temporary internal fault or crash, which then shows up all those inoperative errors on the central display.

In terms of software updates - you won't get notified. The car has upwards of 50+ control modules each with their own software. Until you hook the car into Xentry, you will not even know which software is installed on each module and then it's still a task of manually checking each module to see if there's an update. Doing that for each module is obviously not feasible so you're likely to only see it done on those modules which are indicating a fault condition or where the owner has reported an issue - or perhaps where MB has issued a specific service bulletin.