I think MB just put the most basic rearview camera in this car and called it a day. It doesnt have lines telling you the distances between cars (even my old nissan pathfinder had it) , and it doesn't have the lines where it tells you where you'll end up when you turn the steering wheel. is it even in color? cause i cant tell. haha

With that said you should always turn your head anyway, regardless if it had all all those, but still, its way too basic comparing to equal/lesser competitors.

 

Ha! I do. Nor does it beep.

 

its a decent system, def worse than my BMW and Infiniti's.

I hate the fact it takes like 3 seconds to kick in when u go from park to Reverse.

 

Just an FYI fellas... we exchange the factory camera for our OEM MiniCAM at a rate of about 10 per week locally. It does not have lines (which I personally hate), but it does have .5 Lux night vision and 170 degree angle (great for parking lots and seeing down the aisle before pulling out!)

I am walking into some great "thats what she said" so go to it!!

 

I wish it had the lines like the C and GLK's I have driven as loaner cars. I do not understand this omission. I would not say it is useless by any stretch, but, it should not be less useful than the same feature in other models. Especially since it would have been virtually a no-cost feature to include. The team assigned to the rearview camera during the E development should all be drug tested.

 

agree on the lines, i think the camera is fine except for the omission of the guidelines, not that we can't back up without it but when other models within MB have it, why not the E, same with the folding sideview mirrors.

 

coming from never having a rear view camera ever, I'd say it's decent....
I can tell from other posts that it isn't as good as other, less expensive cars......
but again, I have no actual working experience with any other models...
but I have found it does help a little when backing up.....for oncoming traffic that's just slightly out of view from inside my car....
but overall....I could live without it you know?
now, if we could use it as a secondary rearview while in motion........then there might be something

 

The problem with the lines on a proper wide angle camera, is they look odd and skewed to the driver. Some of the cameras are narrow angle (about 80 -100 degrees) and the lines look good. However, when you get a wider angle, which is MUCH more useful... the lines don't work well anymore. They would be strange looking bows on the screen. When you have a 170 degree wide angle camera, and have a Denali parked on one side of you and a H2 on the other, you can see all the way down the aisle at the parking lot (not to mention the obvious of what is directly behind you). That way you can see to back out and see if people, cars, or carts are coming. No turning of the head is going to help in this situation. When you drive a car, and not an SUV, this is a very common occurrence.

 

Personally, it's not worth the $$$ paid for it. But with that being said...it's better than not having it.

 

yeah, but living Hawaii, is there not a higher bikini to fully clothed ladies ratio about?

 

personally ( and no offense to anybody ) but i think if you need lines on your rear view camera to park then the problem is not the camera.

 

 

I find the angle to be odd too. My Acura could literally see down the block behind me (as well as the bumper on the bottom of the screen), so I could see things WAYYY before they got anywhere near me. On the Benz, the camera seems to only catch what is directly behind it. The TL also has nice green/yellow/red guidelines. I was actually surprised at the low quality of this camera compared to my TL and G35x. I think the 2012 E350 has the guidelines though, so I guess they realized they made a mistake leaving them out on the 2011.

 

this is an ignorant statement... no one's complaining about an inability to park or backup their car without guidelines... for me at least, it's about being basically shortchanged on 55k to 70k car, where most competitors offer a more technologically advanced system on lesser priced cars, MB just gives a simple rear camera view. just think that MB can do better as a benefit to the general consumer of these luxury cars and pointing out shortcomings (in this case the rather simplistic rear view camera system) is such a way.

Same thing as my biggest complaint about the E350, up until 2011 a 268HP rated engine for a 55K plus luxury car, same for the C350 & ML350 at least for 2012 they are now caught up.

Changes have been made as the new ML rear view camera is an improved system, however i get the other comment prior about the sedan camera being sort of a fish-eye, my E rear view is much more "fish-eye" than on the ML so if that is why guidelines don't work, that makes sense, however other brands obviously have different, maybe better systerms??

 

This is the first car I've owned with a camera so the only thing I can compare it to is no camera.I don't use the camera for guidance...I use the side view mirrors for that.The only thing I use it for is to judge distances when backing straight up.I suppose that if I had lines I'd find them useful but can't say for sure.The camera I have is certainly better than no camera at all.

 

Having the camera is better than no camera. However, I would much rather have the ultrasonic sensors with a graphic display about what is behind or in front of you. These are on just about every rental car in Germany. I wish this was available here.

 

100% agree with this.

My only complaint about it is that it doesn't activate when you want it to. I would LOVE to be able to control when I can turn it on.

I never had a rearview camera on a car before, so all the fancy lines and "tell you when to make a move" stuff are meaningless to me at the moment. Having such a simple camera back there is AWESOME to me.

At the same time, things like these make us operate at lower levels of sharp consciousness. Speaking for myself, I now am kind of like a chicken with its head cut off when driving "lesser" cars with no backup camera. I get freaked out that I can't see what's going on back there, and am less sharp than I used to be, at it. With lines, and wheels turning for me, it's like I'm not exercising my abilities and reflexes, i.e operating at a lesser pace than the guy next to me, in a car with no creature comforts.

 

You can turn on the camera when wanted (when driving forward) with our aftermarket Mercedes systems. I think with just a little work, I could get it to do it on a factory installed system too. It would depend on how much demand there was for it, to make it worthwhile designing a circuit for it.

 

LOL...the E does not get close to salt water spray.

 

I think an owner would be insane to let someone romp in his new car merely for this......

 

Lighten up a bit Park. While the MB camera may not be the most technologically advanced camera on the market it is far from useless.
I for one would rather not have any guidelines on the camera as i think they just interfere with the view. I like being able to have the unobstructed view and the camera does exactly what its intended purpose was, to give you a rear bumper view of objects below your field of vision.
Thats all i need it to do.

 

It is poor. I test drove a Hyundai Genesis and it was very easy to back up using the camera. Lines told me exactly where rear of car was, etc. Still have not determined that after two years with my E. It also seemed to show what was further out behind the car.
Also, E camera does not show anything at all to sides.
IMO, it will show what you hit when you hit it!
Have a Toyota Tacoma with the screen in the rear view mirror. Handy for watching both mirror and back-up camera at same time, but too small. It does not have lines or show much distance or to sides either. Ironically camera is in handle on tailgate.
IMO, most cameras are pointed too much at the ground instead of to rear of car.
I ALWAYS use all three mirrors and turn my head in the E. Look at the screen when I start, but not much after start moving.
BTW, have had a couple of times when it actually did not activate at all. If leave audio on Music Register, this sometimes interferes with camera coming on as it takes so long for MR to load. Usually the camera comes on before MR fully loaded, but still delayed.

 

I do wish we had the grid lines. My buddys brand new Lincoln has it...with a bigger nav screen too. However he always notices that my camera and screen quality blow his out of the water hehehe. His is all fuzzy.

 

Its useful,,no doubt,,especially when u need to get close without a tap,,hey someone else paid full price for it in my case

 

+1

Gridlines are distracting, IMO...

OBVIOUS SOLUTION: Program the camera to have gridlines and give the driver the ability to turn them on/off at their discretion. BOOM! SOLVED