If we're going to go completely silent without it, let's talk some more about retractable door handles.

 

Door handles are kinda fun imho. Nice to see them pop out as I approach. A little “welcome”. Have had no real issues in normal or winter driving.

 

I still like mine and I don't have any problems with them. My wife doesn't like them very much. She often arrives to the car before me so, of course, they don't pop out or unlock for her. I just remember to pull out the fob and hit unlock as she approaches. When I am by myself, though, I have zero issues.

 

exact same experience for me

 

Let her have a key for her purse. Problem solved.

 

...or set up her phone as a Digital Key.

 

It is common for the handles to not automatically extend when I approach the car in the garage. When they don’t extend, the multi-finger touch in the middle of the handle doesn’t work. Touching the rectangular notch makes the handles extend and seems to work 100% of the time with the car key.

Once the handles extend, the multi-finger tap to the middle of the handle works.

In parking lots, the handles seem to always extend when I approach.

In the garage, I walk by the passenger door first. In parking lots, I usually approach the driver door first.

I think the car is in a semi-sleep state in the garage. I think it is the sleep state that keeps the handles retracted rather than the direction of approach.

I carry my car key, phone digital key and watch digital key with me.

It was challenging to get the digital key onto the watch. But once there, it works. To get the watch NFC to work, I have to hold it at the NFC reader for longer than expected.

I believe the digital key requires the NFC hold while the car is sleeping, but if awake, the handles will extend on approach of the phone digital key, possibly via Bluetooth. I suspect that the watch doesn’t use Bluetooth for the digital key.

Since I am not brave enough to leave the real key at home, I am mostly using the digital key on a sleeping car in the garage and the handles don’t extend until I do the NFC tap. But sometimes, to my surprise, the handles do automatically extend with only the digital key on my person.

For the digital key, I use this procedure: 1) If the handles extend, just pull the handle to open. 2) If the handles are retracted, press the recessed notch to extend the handles and unlock the car. 3) If touching the notch doesn’t do anything, hold the digital key at the NFC reader to extend the handles.

The car is missing the interior door lock pins, but I haven’t touched one in years, so I’m Ok with their absence.

Mercedes has kept mechanical releases in the interior door handles which unlock and open the doors. This is a critical safety factor as there have been people dying in Tesla fires when the electric interior door release was disabled and they didn’t know where to find the hidden mechanical release.

The exterior handles also have a mechanical release if you pull them past the electronic release.

Before owning the car, I had safety concerns with handles, especially given the safety issues with Tesla handles. Now, I think from a safety design standpoint, the integrated mechanical overrides make the handles safe in an emergency. I continue to think there is a potential for emergency bystanders or emergency responders to lose critical seconds thinking about the retracted handles rather than thinking about ways to break the window glass. If retractable door handles were more common and they all had mechanical overrides in the door handles like Mercedes, the loss of time issue during an emergency would go away.

Hopefully, it is intuitive to pull the exterior handle past the electronic release to the mechanical release to extract people in an emergency. I haven’t tested this as the car always opens at the electronic release point.

In a crash, there is always the possibility that the car automatically unlocks but doesn’t extend the handles. I have no way of estimating the chance of this occurring. This would be the primary case where the Mercedes retractable handles are less safe than traditional handles. I wrote to the IIHS to inquire if the handles extended in their E Class crash tests but never received a reply.

I believe the operator’s manual recommends doing the multi-finger middle touch to unlock and the single finger recess touch to lock. Since that doesn’t work, I use the recessed area to lock and unlock. It is odd that the recommended operation in the operator’s manual does not work consistently.

When I first got the car and the digital key and multi-finger tap didn’t seem to work and the handles weren’t extending, I thought the traditional mechanical door handles were far better. With a traditional handle, you pull the handle and it opens the door mechanically. It is simple.

For multiple weeks of initial ownership, I found the handles unpredictable. I spent more time than someone should need to on door handles. Now that I can use them in a predictable manner, I don’t mind them and somewhat like them. To get a handle on the door situation, I think of the handles as being locked while recessed. To unlock, I touch the recessed rectangle or hold the digital key at the NFC reader.

I could be missing something, because the handle operation seems to vary by car state. There are multiple touch actions, some of which do not work all the time. The car key, phone key and watch key all act a bit differently.

If anything above is wrong in my response or if I can simplify my handle usage please reply and let me know.

 

I just tried a door handle experiment using only the Apple Watch digital key. My wife just returned in the car 30 minutes earlier, so I'll assume the car wasn't asleep.

I left my car key and Apple phone in the house. Before I even saw the car, the handles were extended with the car locked. I was expecting to need to use the NFC reader with the watch. I wasn't expecting the handles to extend automatically. I touched the inside of the door handle and the car unlocked.

Once I sat down, the car tried to crush me using my wife's seat settings. I tried the fingerprint reader, but it did not recognize me and disabled itself for security, just in case I was going to do a brute force attack using 1000 fingers. The camera apparently didn't recognize me either, nor did the watch digital key associate to my profile. I forgot the pin code since I normally keep it in a password manager on my phone and have no need to memorize it. I was profile-less. I adjusted the seat rearwards to escape. I locked the car, retracting the handles and went back into the house.

I wanted to repeat the process on the off chance that my wife had left the car locked with the handles extended, although I don't think this is possible. When I repeated the process, the handles, again extended automatically. The car was locked, so I touched the inside of the door handle to unlock the car as before. Once I sat in the seat, the car again attempted to crush me. This time the camera recognized me post crush and authenticated me to my profile. I pressed the start button to put the car in ready mode. I was expecting to be required to put the watch near the interior NFC reader, but I was able to start the car with the watch on my wrist.

I repeated the process a third time. Again, the handles automatically extended. I touched the inside of the door handle to unlock the car. The car did not attempt to crush me. It recognized me this time, presumably by digital key or camera. I was able to put the car in ready mode by pressing the start button.

In summary, during this experiment, the watch was able to communicate with the car over distance not just at the NFC reader. I wasn't expecting this. Profile authentication was unexpectedly bad. It was pretty cool to be able to enter the car and start the car wearing the watch normally without using any other key. The door handles frequently act in ways that I am not expecting them to, which they did in this experiment, but I have seen enough to handle the situations as they arise and unlock and open the door.

 

I would write up a state transition diagram on the door handles to post to the forum, but I don't understand all the states and transitions. I'd have to take guesses at what seems to be sleep states where the car keeps the handles retracted. At this point, the handles do their thing and I bend to their will.

 

@Mercuccio, when you walk around your house with car parked are you carrying any of your keys (digital or otherwise) and is your car close enough to where you are walking to activate the car. The reason I ask is if you are walking near enough to your car with any key it can cause the handles to extend and the car will continue extending and retracting them over and over as you move around. It will eventually stop to preserve battery and unnecessary wear. When that happens they won't extend automatically any longer until some internal reset. I have previously speculated that many who use a digital key on their phone or watch are causing the car to do this and is a likely reason the handles do not automatically extend when home for them. It's much more common to move about your house with your phone or watch on you than it is with the key fob although some may be doing that too. The tell tail sign is that it works as expected when away from home but not when home. At home, many are close enough to their parked car to cause the car to react every time they walk around with a key. When away, that is not typically the case.

 

The idea is that you adapt to the door handles, not the other way around. It is their world, you are just living in it.

 

I think they are a super cool update and wish they could be retrofitted to my 213. Definately improve the lines of the car, who cares if they take time to learn!! Once you see them, you realize this is the look of the future. Makes my car look dated. Maybe I could do it by swapping out the doors?

 

I heard that those could be banned . They look cool but I prefer W212's two piece door handles

 

They appear to be on the newly announced S-class. I don’t think they are going away very soon. I love mine. As I posted before, the local car jacker looks silly desperately trying to find my door handle.

 

You present interesting observations and an interesting speculation/hypothesis.

The handles do seem to extend automatically away from home. At home I normally have to tap the recessed area to extend the handles.

I am always wearing the watch with the digital key. I normally keep my car key fob in my pocket too. I frequently have my phone with me in the house as well. I am usually walking around the house with three keys.

I'll rephrase your hypothesis and apologize in advance if I misstate any piece.
1) When walking around the house with an Apple Watch or phone digital key, the handles may extend
2) When walking around the house using the Mercedes key, the handles may extend
3) If the handles extend (unintentionally) and retract multiple times, they may stop extending to save battery life and handle motor wear and tear
4) If the handles are not extended unintentionally, then they should extend during proximity of the key fob (or a digital key in passive entry mode.)

My tests confirm that premise 1 is true. If I walk in a specific area near the car with the Apple Watch or iPhone with the digital key in "Passive Entry" mode, the handles will extend. It seems to be a highly localized area of less than 5 feet nearest the garage wall. This area is a common pathway in the house.

The Mercedes key did not trigger the handle extension. Premise 2 might be true for others if the car is very close to an interior wall. It looks like I can carry the Mercedes key fob in the house without extending the handles.

I did not test premise 3. It would explain the handles extending when not at home and not extending when at home. If premise 3 is true, I'm guessing there is some type of logic that says that if the handles extend, but none of the doors open, it can go into a state where it saves battery and handle motor life by not extending the handles.

I can add a fifth premise. If the handles don't unintentionally extend when I carry the key fob at home, then if I only carry the key fob, (and don't unintentionally extend the handles by walking inside the garage,) the handles should extend at home like they do away from home. On the first test of this premise, the test failed when the handles didn't extend. I found this result surprising.

My test procedure was to keep each of the three keys 30 feet away from the garage wall. Prior to the first test, I got the car into the state where the handles would extend in proximity to a key by opening a door, closing the door and locking the door. I used only one key per test. I walked inside the house near the garage wall carrying the key as I would normally. Then I placed the key 30 feet away from the garage wall. Next, I went into the garage and observed if the handles extended or not. If the handles extended, I retrieved the key, opened the door and then closed and locked the car.

Actions from test results: I turned off "Passive Entry" on the digital key for the watch and the phone. This way the watch and phone will not automatically extend the handles from a distance. Opening and starting the car was difficult using the iPhone NFC readers, but If I need to use the watch or phone as a spare key, I can always turn on passive entry for the digital keys.

As a side note, during one of the tests, I had extended the handles by walking in the house with my Apple Watch. I took off the Apple Watch to see if the handles had extended, which they did. I put on the Apple Watch and tried to unlock the car. I hadn't entered my watch passcode, so the door did not unlock. I tried pulling the handle to open the door which remained locked. It was intuitive to pull the handle past the electronic opener to the mechanical release when trying to open a stuck door. Thus, the answer to the question, "is it intuitive to pull the exterior handle all the way to the mechanical opening position in an emergency?" I would conclude that it is intuitive and a natural motion to pull the external handle all the way to open the door in an emergency.

@L1Wolf I think you are onto something here. I'm not sure why the keys were extending the handles during the tests, but then when I tried with only the Mercedes key on my person as the final test, the handles didn't extend. I may have done the final test improperly by not opening the door, closing and locking it on the prior test. I'll see how it goes in the next few days!

 

I'm not sure how the digital keys (phone or watch) may behave differently with regard to the car reacting to the key moving in and out of its detection zone. I do know that the key fobs go to sleep if they have been motionless for a while but will wake up once motion begins. When a valid key enters the detection zone, the handles should extend. If a door is not unlocked and opened within a set period of time, even if the key is still in the detection zone it will retract the handles. I believe in that case you must move out of the detection zone and move back into the zone for them to extend automatically again. My understanding is that the phone and watch digital key work on NFC for starting/unlocking and UWB for the handles to extend. This is intentionally short range for security reasons while the key fob has a greater range. It's quite possible that your key fob test never actually left the detection zone for the key fob even if it did for your phone or watch. It could also be possible that the car was not reset after timing out from a prior test. Hard to say seeing exactly what was done. Good on you for taking the time to do this testing. I don't have a digital key on my phone (Android) and I don't typically walk around my house with my keys. Even if I did, my garage is detached and over 200 ft away from my house so I never have this situation. This may be why I've never had an issue with the handles automatically extending when I approach the car.

 

I just did a test of premise 3 above: "3) If the handles extend (unintentionally) and retract multiple times, they may stop extending to save battery life and handle motor wear and tear"

Using the Mercedes key fob and with the watch and phone keys set with passive entry off, I approached the car until the handles extended. Then I timed how long until the handles retracted. Next, I waited and repeated until the handles did not extend on approach.

Here are the results:
1. Time from first extension to retraction: 4 minutes
2. Waited one minute
3. Time from second extension to retraction: 4 minutes
4. Waited 5 minutes
5. Time from third extension to retraction: 4 minutes
6. Waited 10 minutes
7. Time from fourth extension to retraction: 4 minutes
8. Handles did not automatically extend on the fifth approach

Given this single test result, (which is far from conclusive) it is possible that premise 3 is true that the handles will stop automatically extending after a number of cycles without opening the door.

 

In each case, did you move away before or after they retracted or did you stay near the car the whole time and then just move around again once they retracted? I suspect that if you don't move away from the detection zone they will not extend again as I believe it's the entering the zone that triggers the behavior. By the way, thank you for taking the time to do some actual testing and sharing your results.

 

apparently i shoulda put some sort of sarcasm label on this post.

 

lol I was going to post it for you - people did not realize it was a joke and this topic has been beaten to death.

 

Oh, I think everyone knows it was a joke. That doesn't mean we can't take the opportunity to discuss a feature of the car without people constantly *****ing about it. The moment this turns in to a ***** fest, I'm gone. I'm happy to discuss and learn how the actual system works or doesn't work so I'm more informed.

 

The topic has been brought back for an..."extended"...period of discussion, and that's no joke. Additionally, I would like to..."retract"...my earlier comments on this topic.
(If that doesn't kill this thread, I don't know what will )

 

I was betting you didn't realize that this was going to result in handle testing. LOL.

After @L1Wolf posted, I think I understand the handles a little more. After I turned off the watch and phone keys "passive entry" mode, the handles are extending more frequently when I approach the car in the garage.

I did addition handle extension tests.

Test 2 2026-03-11
1. Extended for 4 min.
2. Waited 0 minutes. Extended 4 min.
3. Waited 0 minutes. Extended 4 min.
4. No Extension.

Test 3 2026-03-11
1. Extended for 4 min
2. No Extension.

I was expecting test 2 to have an extension on the fourth approach and then to not extend on the fifth approach. But those tricky *******s stayed retracted. Then on test 3, they didn't extend on the 2nd approach.

In deference to my 9th grade English class: "Retracted and motionless, proud and disdainful, E-Class door handles the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last."

 

I watched the VLE class unveiling with excitement and anticipation of the US market getting an Asia-style luxury min-van. The unveiled unit has retractable handles, some physical buttons on the steering wheel, and physical buttons below the entertainment screen. While Amazon music and Spotify were shown on the music apps, Apple Music was notable in its absence.

 

Get a grip. (But not on a E handle, that baby's never going to extend.)