toledotom

Being a Cancer Patient in re-mission and having 8 cycles of R-CHOP I was diagnosed with Chemo Brain! It effected my memory and attention to details along with simple multi-tasking! I subscribed to MBrace hoping to have an aid to locate my vehicle, unlock & lock my vehicle and added protection when I am in the car! Well, going on 4 weeks now the service does not WORK I was having NO Problems before supposedly their UPGRADE and now it doesn't recognize my car! I am paying for a service which does NOT HAVE Reliability, Boy, what happens if someone steals my car? Get in a serious accident, my wife has another heart attack behind the wheel and needs help? MBrace took almost 3 minutes to respond in the vehicle the other day! I have called them 5 times now....same result, Engineering is working on the issue??? Well, I see they are getting my $20 a month For WHAT? I am really dissapointed in a Car Company with a critical service with such BAD Reliability. is having MBrace worth it?

jlc740

I purchased a 2010 E350, I called MBrace last week to have my service activated. I agreed to pay $420 for a two year contract. The next morning, my car would not start - the battery was completely drained. The MBrace buttons inside the car would not work. Luckily, it was in my garage and I wasn't stranded in the middle of nowhere! I called MBrace and spoke with Alice, she told me they no longer offer Roadside Assistance?!? She stated, MBrace changed in 2013 and this service was discontinued. However, she agreed to a one time complimentary roadside assistance call. I told her I wanted to cancel my service. She transferred me to Stacey. Stacey stated she had no idea why Alice told me they no longer offered Roadside Assistance, because they did, however, I would be charged extra for each call. I told her I no longer had faith in the service and wanted to cancel. Mysteriously, the call was dropped. This happened two more times when I called back. Finally, I spoke with Rhonda and my service was cancelled. In my opinion, the service they offer is a joke. As a side note, the dealership could not find anything wrong with my car. The battery was new when I purchased the car, but, they would not say that the MBrace activation is what caused the problem.

PeterUbers

Does anyone know what happens if you don't have mbrace active and you hit the sos button?

nycphotography

I did it in my CLK63... they basically inform you that you don't have roadside assistance.

I imagine they would send the ambulance if it was life threatening, but luckily I only had a flat tire, and I have roadside assistance with my insurance for I think $5 or $8 per 6 mo.

jlc740

When I spoke with Rhonda at MBrace yesterday to cancel my service, she stated the SOS Button in my car would no longer work. This was part of her reading from a script, telling me all the "dangers" of what cancelling my service would mean. I chose to live on the edge, and cancelled my service anyway.

listerone

I'm a believer in mBrace/Onstar/BMW Assist for one reason...automatic accident notification.I had an accident in my Bluetec in the middle of nowhere when it was -25F (I kid you not...200+ miles north of Montreal in January).The airbags deployed and about 15 seconds later a voice came on asking me if I was OK.They knew exactly where I was and dispatched an ambulance quickly.

It sure sounds as if the OP has the right to expect the dealership to remedy his/her situation.

listerone

Good question.One might think that nothing would happen *but* the company's legal department just might order otherwise...particularly in a situation where the airbags deploy.They might have (secretly) decided that it's better to dispatch an ambulance rather than deal with a huge lawsuit claiming...well,use your imagination.

Of course if,by chance,my hunch is right they're *surely* not gonna make it public.

nycphotography

Woman Stranded In Car For 6 Days After Crash Suing General Motors

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/10/2...eneral-motors/

PeterUbers

My friend was in a major accident and his 2009 E550 and the airbags went off and he never paid for embrace, but the voice came on the embrace system to dispatch medical help.

That's why I always wonder

El Cid

Who paid for the ambulance?
Personally I have never used MBrace or any similar service.
However, if in US, you need to check with MBUSA re: Roadside Assistance. It is NOT a part of MBrace per se. Under certain criteria, you get it whether you have MBrace or not.

thefisch

Has anyone without a current Mbrace subscription just hit the emergency button to see what happens?

PeterUbers

Will do this tomorrow and claim accidentally hit button

PeterUbers

The patient will always get billed for the ambulance ... Why would Benz pay for that??? My friend paid $4000 once for an ambulance ride, true story... Just sayin', I know a guy ...

listerone

I'm not at all surprised.Although I'm not a lawyer I can easily see how *failure* to respond in *just* that kind of situation could open them up to a huge lawsuit in which the jury wouldn't be particularly sympathetic to a giant foreign corporation.

El Cid

What about all the cars that do not have MBrace, NorthStar or similar systems? They don't get sued for not sending medical help.
If the vehicle owner decides not to use a system, doesn't make the manufacturer responsible. If a driver does not use his brakes, the manufacturer is not responsible.
Still have the question that if air bags deploy, does the vehicle operator have to request medical assistance? If MBrace sends an ambulance without it being requested, this would make MBrace responsible.
EMS responses have become a major cost issue for governments and insurance companies. Truly appreciate what they do, but it costs money and they will bill somebody.

listerone

This feature isn't mandatory in the US.Therefore not all cars have it.So cars without it cannot,in *any* reasonable sense,be expected to offer such a service.
One might think so.But imagine a lawyer telling a jury of plumbers,clerks,retirees,teachers (that is,"ordinary" folks) "Mercedes got the urgent call.They only had to make a three minute phone call to Emergency Services but refused to do so because of a fee of a few dollars.That,ladies and gentlemen of the jury,is willful,heartless,negligence".

An argument like that just might resonate with a jury
As happened with me they first came on asking me if I was OK.I said I was.They asked if I wanted an ambulance and I said "yes".IIRC the policy is if MBrace gets no response when they ask "are you OK?" they send one and if they're uncertain they send one just in case.I doubt that health care costs enter into the decision making process.

El Cid

1. Also true that for any car where the owner decided not to pay for the service, the "reasonable person" (legal standard) would not expect the manufacturer, call center, etc. to respond.

2. Your jury would see the plaintiff as just another rich guy and his rich lawyer trying to milk the system. They would also think "I don't have this on my car, so why should a rich guy too cheap to pay to subscribe be rewarded?"


3. What is "IIRC?" Regardless, all costs for MBrace actions are considered by somebody at some point. Then they prepare policies for call center representatives.
My original thought though was that if vehicle owner says he/she did not call the amublance, but MB sent it and he/she refuses to pay, who does the ambulance service bill? They will bill somebody. Most, if not all, EMS' are totally or partially funded by governments. Even the "volunteer" ones receive substantial government funding.
Incidentally I have full respect for EMS' and their personnel and the work they do. However, there is a financial cost that has to be considered.
Sorry for any confusion, but have never figured out how to get multi-quote to work.

nycphotography

There may not be any obligation to send road service, but anywhere in this country, if you are aware of an emergency you have an obligation to call 911. Sure, lots of people don't do it, but nobody knows who didn't call, so they can't really be held responsible.

But with the system on board, MB would have a hard time claiming they didn't know emergency assistance was required. So they call 911 and let the local authorities handle the situation.

The only real defense they could present would be if they forensically determined that the system had either been disabled, or malfunctioned.

The only way for MB to really NOT call 911 would be for them to design it such (and make it clear to the owners) that the system gets disabled IN THE VEHICLE and can only be reenabled by a dealer. THEN they could be not responsible for reporting emergencies, because only when would they truly be unaware of the emergency.

El Cid

I served on a city council for years and also was on a committee to rewrite the entire city ordinance codes. There was no law that said someone had to call 911 if they were aware of an accident.
I am not aware of any state or federal laws that require notifying EMS if there is an accident.

listerone

<B>"In the United States, as of 2009 ten states had laws on the books requiring that people at least notify law enforcement of and/or seek aid for strangers in peril under certain conditions: California, Florida,Hawaii,Massachusetts,Minnesota, Ohio,Rhode Island, Vermont,Washington,and Wisconsin."</B> From Wikipedia's piece on "Duty To Rescue"

nycphotography

And regardless of any specific CRIMINAL codes in any specific state, I myself would not want to be in the position trying to defend myself in civil court for choosing to not make 30 second 911 calls as a matter of policy intended to encourage people to pre-pay for the service.

I mean, on the one hand I understand that they need to make a profit to provide the service. But they also need to create enough optional value to get people to subscribe to it.

It's an awkward position, once you have knowledge of something some obligation can be implied, particularly in civil court where the standards of guilt are lower and you can be guilty of negligence, which is really just "not doing things that you think are extra but which were deemed expectable by a panel of 12 idiots when persuaded by lawyers"

El Cid

The article states the laws are not enforced. The full article is far more informative. For one thing, one reference implies that the laws refer to reporting sexual abuse, especially of minors.
Other sites on the internet state a specific relationship between the "rescuer" and the "rescuee" must exist.

Regardless, this thread is about whether or not people think MBrace is worth the cost.
Incidentally, has anyone contacted MBrace to determine that
1. SOS button is effective even if no subscription?
2. MBrace will respond to SOS button if no subscription?
3. Isn't MBrace actually a contracted service and not a part of MBUSA?

jahquan3

I did once and a person came on the phone and asked me if everything was ok. I swear they knew my name after I only had the car for 2 days but maybe I'm mis-remembering like Clemens said. I told them I was ok and that I hit the button by mistake.

listerone

+1

Beemie

Well, I'm late to the party but I thought I'd chime in to this latest MBrace thread with my two cents.

Although I was skeptical about keeping the "concierge" service with MBrace plus, I was very glad I had it during a recent two week trip around the Colorado Plateau. We traveled in rural areas for days on end, and while our AT&T phones had no service, the MBrace "proprietary Verizon network" almost always did.

This came in very handy when we needed to call the ranger's office in Chaco canyon to find out if the roads to Chaco were passable for car after recent rains (the car handled great on 30+ miles of rutted and washboarded dirt/mud roads ) or to call the emergency number of a small-town vet when our dog woke us in the middle of the night with a apparent emergency (thank goodness by the time we drove 30 minutes to the vet, who had gotten out of bed, our dog's episode had passed and she was fine again).

I also find myself using the remote lock and "send to benz" features on my phone on a regular basis, as well as asking the concierge to enter navigation while driving (because voice command is so awful). I haven't used the "find car" feature, but it sounds like that's the OP's most important feature and it's a bummer that feature isn't working - I hope there is a remedy for that aside from canceling. But for my purposes I'm glad I have MBrace, even though I'd be happier if it were free. Just my two cents in case anyone researching MBrace finds it helpful.