ToofDoc

OK, I built my 2011 E550 Coupe online and just picked it up last week.

Love the car, but just learned that I don't even have mbrace hardware/parts installed in my car because I didn't selected as an purchase option. I thought that mbrace technology/hardware was a standard equipment and the mbrace option when you build online was for a prepaid subscription and not the actual hardware for the technology!?

So now my awesome coupe does not have mbrace technology.

Questions:

1) those of you have mbrace, how is it? Useful or useless?
2) how much value or demand will my car decrease without mbrace built in?

lfranklin

You're in the wrong forum...switch to w212. I have NEVER heard of a new
car being delivered without mbrace. You will probably get many more responses in the E class forum.

Musikmann

I thought the hardware was always built in too, just like the TeleAid used to be.

balticgreen

I use it every day for the traffic feature alone; the rest is icing on the cake. But then again I live in traffic hell where a five mile drive takes at least 30 minutes on a good day.

Probably not much, if at all. On the models where mbrace is optional, it's rare to actually see one with it because the dealers tend not to order it for their inventory. I would guess that even most customer orders don't come with mbrace, but even if they did, factory orders are a small percentage of all the cars sold. I'm sure there are plenty of other E Coupes out there without mbrace.

I do have it on my C and when I called for the initial setup call, the guy on the other end even said, "Wow, a C Class with mbrace. We never see that."

It's standard on most Mercedes models but optional on a few: C, E Coupe, E Cabriolet, GLK, and R.

It's not an expensive option, as far as options go, and I don't quite understand why Mercedes doesn't include it as standard on all models. Yes, cost cutting, but still. People aren't likely to select it as an option but they are likely to sign up for the service (hello, ongoing revenue stream!) if the car already has the hardware. Sirius XM would have nowhere near the number of subscribers they have now if they hadn't signed deals with every car manufacturer to get the hardware into a large percentage of all new cars sold in the last 5+ years. Even GM understands this and puts OnStar on every single car they sell, including the $12,000 Chevy Aveo hatchback. They get to advertise it as a standard safety feature and enough people renew to make it worthwhile.

WEEE63

mBrace is crap. I got a 2007 E63 and basically none of the features even work. I was told my Navi is too old. Uh, 3 years is too old? Then I went to cancel and they told me I wouldn't get a refund. Why? Because due to the fact that they couldn't figure out their own accounting system, they put the 3 free months at the end of the period. And look, you made several calls to our service. Yeah, that was to tell you that it wasn't working. From what I hear, even the newer cars have issues with it. Save your money.