Instrument Panel Reboot While Driving
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2023 EQS 580 Sedan
Instrument Panel Reboot While Driving
About 3 months into ownership and has now happened twice, anyone experience an instrument panel “blackout and reboot” while driving? Unnerving to say the least but is there a fix? TSB or other update needed?
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17 E43; 21 GLS580
Map updates happen all the time. This can lead to a quick reboot while driving. When I did my 4000 mile trip it updated every time I passed a time zone. Very rarely you will get a black screen (mbux system) that does not reboot by itself. (everything will keep working but you can't control the system). Park the car, lock it, and wait 15 min or so. Return to the vehicle and it should reboot. The car works fine even if MBUX is having a "moment" The drivers display and controls are a separate system.
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2010 E350 4Matic
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2023 EQS 580 Sedan
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EQS 450v4
I had a Volvo EV a couple years ago and both screens rebooted CONSTANTLY -- like 2x per hour, but because that was using Android Automotive OS, the important indicators on the driver display stayed alive even when the rest blanked out. It was maddening enough to make me get rid of it, even though I enjoyed the driving. I would have lemoned it, but those were the days where people were paying more than purchase price, so I unloaded it to a dealer.
But file a report so it gets the attention it deserves. These car companies can't keep shipping crap software just because they're not good at it yet.
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Joined: Oct 2002
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From: Cincinnati
2010 E350 4Matic
Map updates happen all the time. This can lead to a quick reboot while driving. When I did my 4000 mile trip it updated every time I passed a time zone. Very rarely you will get a black screen (mbux system) that does not reboot by itself. (everything will keep working but you can't control the system). Park the car, lock it, and wait 15 min or so. Return to the vehicle and it should reboot. The car works fine even if MBUX is having a "moment" The drivers display and controls are a separate system.
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2022 EQS 450+, 2020 BMW i3, 2017 BMW 328d
This happened to me. It was random, but after I got the car back from one of the software recalls it started doing it once per minute. The entire gauge cluster went dark, rebooted, and came back up about 5 seconds later. Here is a video of it.
Took it back to the dealer the next day and it was ultimately fixed with yet another software update, this time to the gauge cluster. The order reinforced my opinion that Mercedes' software architecture just sucks. Yes, bugs occur, but why wasn't this fixed on my first visit for the recalls? Reason is the architecture is fragmented and doesn't use a complete vehicle integration. The 40+ ECUs on the car are not matched with each other and are only updated individually. By comparison, BMW releases their software as one single whole-vehicle build and tested as such. Individual ECUs on a BMW may stay the same across releases, but at least you know it's been integrated with whatever else was actually updated.
Took it back to the dealer the next day and it was ultimately fixed with yet another software update, this time to the gauge cluster. The order reinforced my opinion that Mercedes' software architecture just sucks. Yes, bugs occur, but why wasn't this fixed on my first visit for the recalls? Reason is the architecture is fragmented and doesn't use a complete vehicle integration. The 40+ ECUs on the car are not matched with each other and are only updated individually. By comparison, BMW releases their software as one single whole-vehicle build and tested as such. Individual ECUs on a BMW may stay the same across releases, but at least you know it's been integrated with whatever else was actually updated.
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From: Atlanta
2022 Mercedes EQS 580
This happened to me. It was random, but after I got the car back from one of the software recalls it started doing it once per minute. The entire gauge cluster went dark, rebooted, and came back up about 5 seconds later. Here is a video of it.
Took it back to the dealer the next day and it was ultimately fixed with yet another software update, this time to the gauge cluster. The order reinforced my opinion that Mercedes' software architecture just sucks. Yes, bugs occur, but why wasn't this fixed on my first visit for the recalls? Reason is the architecture is fragmented and doesn't use a complete vehicle integration. The 40+ ECUs on the car are not matched with each other and are only updated individually. By comparison, BMW releases their software as one single whole-vehicle build and tested as such. Individual ECUs on a BMW may stay the same across releases, but at least you know it's been integrated with whatever else was actually updated.
Took it back to the dealer the next day and it was ultimately fixed with yet another software update, this time to the gauge cluster. The order reinforced my opinion that Mercedes' software architecture just sucks. Yes, bugs occur, but why wasn't this fixed on my first visit for the recalls? Reason is the architecture is fragmented and doesn't use a complete vehicle integration. The 40+ ECUs on the car are not matched with each other and are only updated individually. By comparison, BMW releases their software as one single whole-vehicle build and tested as such. Individual ECUs on a BMW may stay the same across releases, but at least you know it's been integrated with whatever else was actually updated.
What I can tell you is that I have had Tesla, Porsche, and Rivian and it happens to all of them, and the Mercedes one is one of the more reliable along with Porsche. The Tesla one had this sort of issue almost every month. In my Mercedes I have experienced a screen glitch twice in 2 years and neither required a trip to dealer.
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As a side note, I also haven't allowed the dealer to install any updates. I got a little one over-the-air as I recall but that's it.
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2022 EQS 450+, 2020 BMW i3, 2017 BMW 328d
I can't comment on BMW but it wouldn't surprise me if the latest generation of BMWs has the same issue.
What I can tell you is that I have had Tesla, Porsche, and Rivian and it happens to all of them, and the Mercedes one is one of the more reliable along with Porsche. The Tesla one had this sort of issue almost every month. In my Mercedes I have experienced a screen glitch twice in 2 years and neither required a trip to dealer.
What I can tell you is that I have had Tesla, Porsche, and Rivian and it happens to all of them, and the Mercedes one is one of the more reliable along with Porsche. The Tesla one had this sort of issue almost every month. In my Mercedes I have experienced a screen glitch twice in 2 years and neither required a trip to dealer.
By comparison, BMW issues a whole-car integration release called an "I-Level". There are three I-Level releases each year, for each platform: March, July, and November. Dealers get the latest, while OTAs lag one cycle behind. Any time a car is reprogrammed as part of a repair, the car will automatically receive the I-Level that is on the dealer's ISTA (BMW's equivalent of Xentry) instance, usually the latest. When my other car got a new steering rack, the entire car from the steering rack ECU down to the headunit was reflashed from Nov 2020 to Nov 2021 release. Bear in mind that the car initially left the factory with November 2016 software.
If what happened on my EQS occurred on a whole-car integration architecture, the cluster would have automatically received the updated software at the same time it received the recall. You can argue that such a model would prevent updates from rolling out faster, but typically in an integrated release you do the software scoping, planning, development, integration, testing, and regression in context of the whole car, rather than just the ECU.
Last edited by capt_slow; Jul 27, 2024 at 01:59 PM.
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2023 EQS 580 Sedan
Update and Direct quote: “I’ve never seen so many module updates needed on one car”. True to other info shared here, updates are individually downloaded vs BMW’s singular download strategy. Takes hours apparently. Clearly sitting on the showroom floor for over a year put this car into a virtual black hole for any software updates. What makes me more cranky is that the dealer sold it to me without checking that things were up to date. #Lazy. I’ll report back once I get it back. Hopefully this week.
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EQE350 SUV 4MATIC
The strategy that MB takes is to only do "optional" update at the dealer IF in response to a reported problem. So a car sitting on the showroom then being prepared for delivery to a customer would only get the updates pushed out via OTA, none of the other updates. The dealer has to put a case to HO to authorize these updates.
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2022 EQS 450+, 2020 BMW i3, 2017 BMW 328d
Update and Direct quote: “I’ve never seen so many module updates needed on one car”. True to other info shared here, updates are individually downloaded vs BMW’s singular download strategy. Takes hours apparently. Clearly sitting on the showroom floor for over a year put this car into a virtual black hole for any software updates. What makes me more cranky is that the dealer sold it to me without checking that things were up to date. #Lazy. I’ll report back once I get it back. Hopefully this week.
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2023 EQS 580 Sedan
You are 100% correct. If a dealer doesn’t have an error code to bill against, Mercedes won’t do anything about it. You have to demand they do the research to find the root cause of your complaint, regardless of error coding. The Best or Nothing slogan leaves something to be desired as relates to class-best customer service. I’ve owned 12 since 1999, and nowadays I feel like I’m at a Chevy dealer by the way I’m treated. BTW, car is back, fresh from 3 pages of system updates, and appears to be ready to roll. All good so far after two days in the shop.
Last edited by dmstl; Aug 3, 2024 at 04:32 PM.
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2022 EQS 450+, 2020 BMW i3, 2017 BMW 328d
The more I think about it, the more I think MB is just behind the game on OTAs. In the past, the major roadblocks to OTAs were the delivery pipe (cellular, Wi-Fi, etc.) and power, both of them are not really relevant in context. Today's 4G or 5G is enough to deliver delta updates. And for power, you used to rely on a external 100A+ 12V power supply to power the ECUs during programming, but that isnt relevant anymore with EVs and 48V mild-hybrid systems. Other makes have embraced OTAs much more than MB has and it just screams they are behind, either by their own choice or as a by-product of their vehicle software architecture.
