aceman

Just got this from Ursula...

Dear Mr Aceman

We apologise for the belated response but we were waiting for feedback concerning the issue regarding changing radio presets on the steering wheel. According to information we have received, there is unfortunately no retrofit to
scan preset stations on the steering wheel available nor at this stage will there be in the future.

Because our information concerning the USA market is limited as we usually only cater for the German market, we advise that you contact our colleagues of the Customer Assistance Center in the USA who will gladly assist you further concerning product updates and various other topics pertaining to the USA market. This way you will also receive information faster. Their contact details are as follows:

Tel: 1-800 367 6372

Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC
Customer Assistance Center
3 Paragon Drive
Montvale, N.J. 07645

You can reach them via email by filling in the submit form on the website www.mbusa.com under "Contact us".

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Kind regards

Ursula van Eijden

ATS

I say we should all get voice command for free...!

aceman

I really like her response - we cater to the german market. maybe they should "cater" to the damn market that generates most of their $$$$.

Aceman

CE750

How many times to I have to say it.... MBUSA sucks! They can specify the cars anyway they want them.... if the damned Europeans get RDS and presets from the steering wheel, then why can't we???

Contact MBUSA ace... and give'em an earful.

Did you see my reply from them btw, regarding (Linguatronics) voice assist here: https://mbworld.org/forums/showpost....4&postcount=26

konigstiger

Unfortunately the new protocol is all USA inquiries to Stuttgart will be passed back to MBUSA since they are responsible for the USA market. The MBUSA CAC will be responsible for answering your question(s) and we all now how frustrating that can be! As far as the presets the official MBUSA response is that a retrofit does not exit for 2003 to present 211 & 219 models. Actually what else can they say, MBUSA does not have an engineering staff but more so a collection of former senior technicians that respond to technical inquiries submitted by dealership techs.

Although Stuttgart is aware of the USA dissatisfaction they simply refuse to revise the current software and seem to think they’re adequately solving the matter by making preset scanning available for 2007 models.

Stuttgart:

1. The preset issue was our reaction to customer complaints in JD Power CSI study "Radio won't stay on station" and "poor reception". Traveling outside the region where the presets are stored causes noise when toggling through. So we thought it would be better to offer the strongest stations instead of dedicated ones.

2. Unfortunately we do not foresee the possibility of reprogramming our instrument clusters, for reasons of resistance against manipulations. Dealerships do not and will not ever have the ability to reprogram instrument clusters for concern of manipulating mileage on the odometer.

MY RESPONSE: Relevant 211 & 219 MBUSA bulletins: (1) Service Campaign 2002090005 DEC02, FSS intervals do not correspond to MBUSA criteria as displayed in the instrument cluster – Corrected with STAR; (2) P-B-82.95/251a JUL03, Intermittent display “TeleAid defective visit workshop” – Replace IC, transfer the configuration settings from the old IC using DAS; (3) P-B-47.00/38a AUG05, Fuel gauge reads empty – Update the IC software (coding will update automatically).

Stuttgart never did counter other than to say: “I explained to you several times, that we plan to revise the issue you complain about in all of our cars beginning next model year. I also explained the reasons why it is technically impossible to retrofit cars with an appropriate effort.”

DEVELOPMENT: MBUSA P-B-54.30/150 NOV05, Entering total distance in the instrument cluster – Parts department will begin shipping un-programmed instrument clusters. All dealers have the ability to enter the total distance in new instrument clusters coded through STAR.

SoCA |\/| B3nz

So the European version of W211 and W219 have the ability to do the preset scan? I thought all version had this preset problem? Does anyone know if I buy a Euro Command, would this fix the problem?

konigstiger

“So we thought it would be better to offer the strongest stations instead of dedicated ones.” Actually no, worldwide the 2003 – present 211 & 219 models can only scan frequency (all channels available). What we would like is the ability to scan our preset channels.

No a EC will not fix this. In fact, this has to do with your IC software, IC MFD, and AGW interface.

CE750

Dan, God bless you man, you're more persistent than I originally gave you credit for. Looks like now.