DaCeptak0n

So I have parktronic, explain me this. When I'm parking in my garage, my parktronic sensors work flawlessly. I'm in traffic and I'm coming to a line of cars stopped a red light, only the two center lights light up but nothing more such as the distance indicator goes off, how does it know the difference??!!

85mm

Here's my guess. You have to be really close to the car in front or back of you before the sound goes off atleast compared to my Discovery. In the garage you're more likely to keep going forward until the sounds kick in. If you do that in traffic, by the time the parktronic sounds kick, you'll be well past your minimum distance to the car in front of you comfort level.

Newbie_2_MB

You've got to be pretty close to an object to get the warning alarm to go off. I've had it go off when I'm sitting at a red light & a pedestrian crosses the street in front of the GL.

85mm is right...I think you'd be way beyond your comfort zone if you pulled up behind a car in traffic and the parktronic alarm went off.

I've become quite dependent upon this gizmo and I had a sensor fail in the rear bumper & didn't realize it. I was parking the GL and got very close to a post thinking, "Gee, the alarm should have gone off." I parked & got out to look. Sure enough, you could have slipped a piece of paper between the bumper & the post, but that was about it. I had a sensor failure in the rear bumper & the system was deactivated. I didn't notice the Parktronic light on the center console was on (hard to see in the daylight) which means that Parktronic is off. Got the sensor fixed & all is good, but I'm not as dependent upon it as I was before.

85mm

Yes, it's very easy to become too dependent on the parking sensor. Both my wife and I bumped into something going in reverse. She claims she never heard anything but I say it was because she was yapping with a friend. In my case I thought it was just the rain drops throwing it off again and me being impatient from lack of sleep with my younger babies. Even with the rear back up camera, I'm really careful going backwards.

StevethePilot

It also doesn't work if there's a part of what you're backing up into that sticks out farther at a different level than your sensors (like the stucco-covered concrete post I was backing towards -thank God for MB-thick paint!)

Never become too dependent on anything like this, it's purely technology and only there to assist, not to make the decision for you.

85mm

There were some scratches on my Discovery that I wanted to remove before I sold it. I took a paint code matched paint pen to it and made it look worse. I was quoted $1k for a full detail including removal of my handywork. With my black GL450 I knew there was lots of waxing in my future so I ordered one of those Griot's Garage Random orbital kits. It worked beautifully on the Discovery. I than used it on my Civic where I rubbed it with my lawnmower handle, gone! Of course the first time my wife parks the GL450 at her work garage, we get a mild scratch. Mostly fixed that too with a quick test try. It's a slippery slope though. The kit's $200, but I ended ordering another $200 in other tools and already need a few more goodies out of the catalog.

emayer

+1

I use the orbital on all my cars for polishing and waxing with excellent results thus far. Saves alot of time and elbow grease. No swirl marks evident either which is always a concern with these devices.