I am having trouble activating the driving pilot feature in my e class w213 ? Can somebody please tell me how can activate this feature

 

Make sure red lights are on for the steering assist and speed assist buttons -they are on dash by door above round light switch. Then make sure orange light is not on cruise control stalk (if orange light is on the stalk, you have to lean round steering wheel to check, press the button on end of stalk) as that means it's in speed limit mode. Assuming all that's fine, over about 5 mph just push stalk upwards to set current speed, up or down to raise or lower speed then away from you to turn off or pull towards you to reactivate at previous speed.

 

Works better than I expected. I traveled yesterday about 15 miles on a curving interstate with heavy traffic and it worked perfectly to entire drive.

 

thank you for your reply,I will try it and I hope it works this time 😃
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I'm also trying to follow your instructions. I have the w213 with P3 package in the US. There is no button on the end of my cruise control and no light on the control either. Would appreciate a clarification. Thanks.

 

My Steering Pilot activates when I pull the cruise control stalk towards me and how it there for a couple seconds. And you need to make sure you have Steering Pilot, Speed Limit pilot, etc are all activated in your system settings. it will only activate if it is happy with the road conditions (well marked lanes, etc).

 

On the left side of your dash (for LHD cars) above the headlight dial there are two buttons, one with a steering wheel icon and another with a car radar icon. Make sure both are activated (there will be a red light)

On the cruise control stalk, the very end is a dial you can turn towards or away from you to adjust distance.

When driving, pull on the stalk to activate and you're good to go.

Hope this help!

 

Thanks! As an aside, I couldn't figure out why the cruise control stalk is designed so it can't be seen behind the steering wheel. The salesman told me it was to avoid any distractions from looking at it. I bursted out in laughter thinking of all the other distractions in this car that are far less important than the cruise control. I guess it's OK to be distracted by the lumbar support adjustment as long as you aren't distracted by wanting to adjust your speed.

 

Here's what I have concluded about the self-driving Drive Pilot suite (Steering Pilot, Distance Pilot, etc). In theory it is supposed to relieve you of the stress and constant attention of driving. But in reality it does just the opposite. After decades of driving I literally trust my own life with my skills behind the wheel, just as we all do every day. So how long will it take us to literally trust our lives with the driving skills of this or another computer? Quite a while I suspect. When Drive Pilot is turned on I watch its every move like a hawk, and am not the least bit relaxed. It actually does a surprisingly good job, especially on divided multi-lane highways. However using it is anything but stress-reducing. When I want to relax I will turn on the massage feature... and drive myself.

 

A bit off topic but the MB cruise stalk used to be visible for ages. They just recently (a few years ago) swapped the positions with the cruise and blinker stalks because many (loud) drivers coming from other brands complained about the blinker stalk being hidden. I guess we can still blame MB following the voice of wrong customers.

Both are absolutely intuitive to use and as such it should not matter which stalk is visible. It is just that the majority is used to the old approach and at least I'm still at times getting confused and operating the blinkers when trying to control cruise.

Unfortunately MB seems to have made an even worse mistake, moving CC to the steering wheel buttons like many other brands have done a long time. Remains to be seen but I doubt one learns to find the correct CC buttons from the steering wheel without a glimpse first.

 

In Europe at least the cruise stalk also controls the speed limiter and there is a small chrome button on the end of the stalk like the windscreen wash, to change between limiter and cruise. If you haven't got that button I'm guessing you don't have a limiter.

I also found steering assist and active cruise difficult to adjust to at first and was more wound up during the drive than without it. It just took time to adjust and trust it. I don't let it steer itself hand off, that's not what the system is supposed to do, i just very gently hold the wheel and let it go where it wants, giving more or less steering input myself depending on what the car is doing (like how I'd imaging riding a horse to be). Mine frequently loses lane tracking (and does so silently) so i wouldn't let it be hands off​ anyway. Driving like that is now a lot less stressful. I don't have to concentrate on lane position as much as i used to and can scan the road for other hazards around me and also gaze off at passing scenery or navigate the many pages of COMAND menus without reducing safety.

The adaptive cruise is near 100% trustworthy and I'm happy now to let it bring me to a stop from high speeds at the rear off traffic jams and follow other cars on back roads with no need to touch the pedals. That also took time to adjust to. It's only struggled when driving in roadworks where metal road dividers where used and the car is travelling some inches away from them. I can understand how the radar gets confused.

I probably did 2000 or 3000 miles letting the car drive before i started to get real confidence in it. I'll still push the lever forward to turn it off during what i consider high risk areas, especially on the motorway where high volumes of traffic merge from a joining road -way too many people swing straight across lanes without first checking or leaving adequate space and I've not seen how the car would react to that, so prefer to drive defensively myself through those bits.

It's only what, a level 2 system, but overall i feel it's already taking a lot of the stress of long trips away and it makes stop start traffic an absolute breeze.

 

I agree with most of what you said, but I'm still not comfortable with the way it brakes from speed to a stop. I find that it stops "shorter" than I would (in other words, I would let off the gas and begin braking earlier and more lightly) and it makes me worry that I will get rear-ended by the car following me (that is usually tailgaiting). So in those circumstances, I do the braking myself.

It's also slow to recognize a car changing into your lane ahead of you. It doesn't react until that car is almost completely into the lane, then it brakes suddenly..

 

The late reaction to cars coming in to the lane of why i switch it off approaching busy merging traffic.

Slowing to a stop is fine if all traffic is slowing down, it matches everyone elses rate of deceleration. If I'm doing 70 and coming up to stationary traffic with nothing between us I'll start braking myself for the reasons you describe. The car can't see as far ahead so maintains speed for longer then i would, then has to brake much harder to compensate. Long range radar does see a fair bit up the road but not long enough to make that sort of stop gentle!

 

I agree about the car waiting longer to begin braking when approaching stopped traffic at high speed than I am comfortable with and I therefore initiate braking myself in those situations. I read somewhere that the upper limit for this function is 45mph. We have also found that using CC to act as a "downshift" by reducing the speed set in the CC to 45 or lower slows the car and "appears " to have the desired effect but I have not tested this at speeds above 50mph and wouldn't recommend it in any case.
Joe

 

I agree the car brakes later than I would, most notably when the car in front has stopped or slowed way down (i.e. a substantial difference between my speed and theirs). This can be mitigated some what if you set the Distance Pilot following distance to maximum and Active Brake Assist to "Early."

 

Thanks. I have those set to early and max but it still waits a "bit" too long for me.
Joe

 

I may be wrong, but I think that the Active Brake Assist only has to do with when the warning chime goes off to alert you that you are approaching a vehicle or object too quickly and need to brake -- and begins braking if you don't. For obvious reasons, I haven't tested this. But I don't think it interacts with the Drive Pilot.

 

Definitely not 100% clear when I read the owner's manual how Distance Pilot DISTRONIC interacts with Active Brake Assist, if at all. Perhaps the aggressive stopping is when Active Brake Assist steps in and takes over for Distance Pilot when it senses a rapidly decreasing distance to a car or object ahead. They seem to have overlapping functions.

In addition to stopping too quickly when the car is driving itself, I have also noticed at times that it speeds up too quickly. It seems happiest when there is a car in the same lane directly ahead, that is within the prescribed distance, which is accelerating or decelerating gradually. If a slow-moving car in front of me changes lanes leaving a wide gap to the next car, my car will rapidly accelerate up to the speed limit and then may brake firmly as it catches up with the next car head.

I hope that as Mercedes learns more about these systems we will receive a software update that improves their performance.