Like the subject states, just how good is MBUX? For those of you with BMW's, how does it compare with Idrive?
Looking for any feedback. I may sit tight to see if 2020's are getting it, but would like some opinions if you can provide.

Thanks much -

Aceman

 

According to https://www.automobilemag.com/news/m...les-2019-2022/ the E-Class is getting a facelift and MBUX in Spring 2020.

My A-Class is on order, due to start production any day now.

 

As a 2019 A250 4MATIC owner, I can say that MBUX is amazing. Compared to Audi or BMW, the one thing I love about MBUX is the customizability -- an example is the driver's instrument clusters -- you can replace the speedometer and tachometer with a map, g-force indicator, consumption display, driver assistant graphic, etc. Also - themes! If you do a particular layout (maybe speedometer + GPS + consumption, with green ambient lighting), you can give it a name and save it. Then, in the future, when you want that exact layout again, you just tap your theme and the layout and lights go back to the way it was when you saved it.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea -- I am loving MBUX so far.

The only thing that is missing, in my opinion, is the automatic steering feature that is not available in Canadian models. We only get the DISTRONIC adaptive cruise control with stop-and-go traffic. However, in my opinion, that's enough for me (don't know how comfortable I am letting go of the wheel!)

 

during the ownership, did you experience any issue/problem? for example, check engine light? vibration?

 

I've noticed vibrations when the car is idle, but because it is a brand new engine, I'm guessing that's probably it, and once I drive over 1000 km ("break" it out) it should be much smoother.

 

ok, please let me know if you notice the vibration still keep going after you got over 5000km, i'm waiting to buy A220, but want to hear from other owners, thanks!

 

by the way, vibrations at idle is not normal, what's your RPM when you feel the vibration?

 

I usually idle between 700 to 1200; the vibrations are worse if DISTRONIC drives my car and brings it to a full stop (shakes a lot) -- I still feel vibrations when I manually drive and bring it to a stop, sitting at idle without Eco Start Stop turning the engine off, and the coolant temp at around the usual 90 degrees C.

The car is going into service this week to get Mercedes Me checked out (Sales Manager told me out of 150 cars sold in Canada, only 2 have defective Mercedes Me online connections and the "hey Mercedes" AI feature, and my car is 1 out of the 2 that is sold defective from day 1) -- I will ask them to check out the vibrations.

 

please let me know if they have find the reason.

for that DISTRONIC, is that function going to help you do a turn?

 

Re: turns, DISTRONIC in the A class controls your speed from acceleration from idle all the way down to a complete stop (so if there is a car in front of you stopping for a red light, the A class' new DISTRONIC will bring it to a complete stop. When the light is green, you accelerate either automatically or you push the resume button). However, it will not brake for you during a turn; it has radars that detect the vehicle in front of you and adjust your distance based on the speed the front vehicle is going. It's pretty much the adaptive cruise control feature on Audi but with stop-and-go, so it works even on city roads (e.g. 50 km/h) and traffic lights, not just the highway speeds.

 

nice one, i will get this for sure. waiting for A220 to come

 

Definitely recommend the new DISTRONIC, especially when you're in heavy traffic and you don't want to step on the gas / brake every few seconds. You can just take your foot off and let the car drive itself through traffic.

 

sure thanks!

 

I just got a new A220 and was pleasantly surprised at how nice the MUBX is to use. Overall the interface is well designed, pleasing to the eye, responsive and smooth. I prefer it to Apple Car Play. That being said, the voice assistant is dumb as a box of rocks. Think Siri but without internet. The navigation is pretty good, but you can't say something like "Get directions to the nearest car wash". MBUX will just open navigation and you have to type it out, then select internet search. I use CarPlay for music and navigation and MBUX for system controls and displays.

 

Wow, this sounds like a way more limited implementation of MBUX than what reviewers had access to in the pre-production cars last year. Does the manual explain what kinds of things you can do with voice commands? I haven't been able to find any documentation on mbusa.com, and I would like to know as much as possible about the car before I take delivery.

 

i think the car will learn over time, and because it's software, it will update next time

 

It is actually much better than Siri, but you have to hotspot to enable the internet (you get 8 wifi setups). The process for doing the HotSpot literally took me less than 30 seconds without even a prompt for a password.

The manual covers in depth what you can do with commands and it is quite extensive (manual btw is almost 500 pages), while it does use natural language you sometimes have to use particular terminology. With the hotspot internet setup you can ask all kinds of questions and I compared it to Siri, much better.
So I asked about an architect with a Swiss name, Siri couldn't even figure out how to spell it and said "Hmm, I'm not sure". The MBUX system not only got the spelling perfect on the first try but read me a short biography.

If you get tired of saying "Hey Mercedes" there is a button on the steering wheel that automatically prompts it to answer questions. Overall impression, the best by far in voice commands in cars I've seen and personal assistants on phones. Using the map is a delight, just say "Navigate to address x" and it figures it out very quickly.

 

Thanks for clarifying this. I was under the impression that internet was included via the 3-year complimentary Mercedes Me Connect service. Oh well. I'm going to pick up the car in a couple hours!

 

I have the car and Mercedes Me Connect is activated. Internet is included, and voice control commands involving weather, restaurants, trivia questions, etc, all work as expected. (They did not work until the services were activated.) I did not have to enable the in-car Wifi hotspot service, which I understand costs extra after the 1 month free trial.

So far the Voice Control System works fairly well--I'd say it does what I want most of the time, but there are some rough parts. "Change the light to red" - works, "change the light to green" - works, "change the light to blue" - works, "change the light to purple" - doesn't understand and sometimes turns off the ambient light. "Turn off ambient light" - works, "turn on ambient light" - it says it's turning it on, but nothing happens. Light brightness is still set to zero. "Set ambient light to max brightness" - sets climate control to max temperature. It's quite an adventure.

Location queries seem to work well. "Show me the nearest hamburger places that are not McDonald's" - returns list of restaurants as expected.

When I paired my Android phone via Bluetooth, I noticed it didn't sync contacts until I went into the settings menu of the Bluetooth app and enabled contact sync. I then said "navigate to <name of person>'s house" and it worked perfectly. I also tried it with a contact that didn't have an address, so it said "no address found, would you like to enter an address?" That worked fine as well, but I'm not sure if it will remember this address or I'll have to do this again.

Not sure if this is an issue with my particular phone, but Bluetooth play/pause and track skip mostly don't work as expected. The play command just doesn't work at all. Track skip works once or twice then stops working. When the system interrupts the music to give me navigation instructions or I use the Voice Control System, usually music will resume playing, but sometimes it stops and I have to start again via the phone.

I'm sure glad we get software updates over the air--I expect lots of little improvements over time.

 

nice to know

 

Ditto on MBUX - I love it, I don't even need to use Apple CarPlay. However, there are some kinks in it. Here are my thoughts so far.

1. You cannot send text messages while connected with iOS, but you can with Android (so I heard)
2. There is no way to use Siri instead of Mercedes that I know if either, I could be mistaken on this because I've only had the car for less than a week.
3. You cannot control any safety options in the vehicle. Eg, You can't roll down windows, actually open the sunroof, lock doors.
4. You can also ask to see your average MPG and interact with some options in relation to that.
5. Navigation works pretty well, somethings the AR features of the navigation work great, other times it doesn't.
6. When you first get into the vehicle, Mercedes is not available for maybe 30s-1min as things are still loading in the background.

My initial thoughts on MBUX is pretty darn positive overall. I haven't had that many issues yet. My biggest complaint is messaging.

 

I'm a big fan of MBUX; it's the primary reason I got this car.

I've found the voice controls to pick a destination spotty but I'm guessing it's half me trying to figure out the correct phrasing and half Mercedes just not understanding it. I like that it gives its best guess but it's mildly annoying when I ask to go somewhere in my town and it finds matches in distant states. I'm in WA state and I've been directed to drive to Maine, Texas and California (so far). Maybe it should consider distance and ask "Are you really sure you want to drive all the way to Maine today?". Anyway, that's a mild annoyance.

I have my car in for maintenance (the passenger airbag warning light came up for some reason) and am driving a loaner. The infotainment system makes me think it's years behind compared to what I've grown used to in the A220. It's a 2019 CLA. I really can't imagine downgrading in future cars (so I hope MBUX is here to stay for a long time.)