The things that bother people? Seems so trivial.

 

Thankyou for replying. That sounds like a process used to park a 1935 Packard safely, LOL.
-ac

 

It's trivial, but annoying. None of my Hyundai, Honda, Chrysler or other cars had parking brakes that automatically engaged when the engine is turned off. Mercedes must think low-IQ airheads buy their cars. This is my first one. Will try BMW next. Maybe that company views their customers as being more intelligent than Mercedes does.
-ac

 

You'd think so! The car wash is 5 miles away. That's several stop-lights, or the highway, depending on what route I use to come home. The weather is warm (Summer) and the sun shines on my car in the morning for a few hours before I drive it to go to the health club. But if this 2024 GLC300 went through the car wash the day before....it's BANG! from the brakes when starting to drive out of the driveway. Maybe it won't do this after the car reaches a certain mileage. It has a little over 3,200 miles on it now.
-ac

 

BMW parking brake is only engage if you have auto hold enabled.

 

In Volvo vehicles the parking brake sets automatically when you turn the car off, just as with Mercedes. Good safety feature.

 

Macan and I believe Cayenne also requires you to engage it manually even when engine is off. I like MB's implementation much better.

 

It has everything to do with lawyers and risk mitigation. A very small portion of the population doesn't know how a car works and gets injured by not putting it in park. Lawsuits then follow, and new "safety" features appear to prevent said scenario. It is very likely that all vehicles will adopt this behavior soon.

 

The automatic parking brake engagement largely came as a consequence of the electronic gear shift selectors and engine push button starters. With the old mechanical gear shift selectors, people didn't accidently forget to put it in park. My wife's car which still has a mechanical selector for example doesn't let you remove the key from the ignition unless the transmission is in P. So there were always safety mechanisms in place, but newfangled convenience tech often has unintended consequences. If you haven't done so already, google Anton Yelchin. He got tragically crushed by his own car, because he accidently forgot to put his Jeep I believe it was in Park when he got out to check his mailbox. The car had an electronic gear selector and it didn't automatically go into P when the door was opened and the parking brake didn't automatically engage, either. This and similar accidents lead to additional safety mechanisms. That's how it works. A few people got killed or injured because car manufacturers thought they need to change how the gear selectors work and how we start/stop the engine and had to implement mitigations to not get sued out of business. Also, many people with automatic transmissions are not used to engaging the parking brake. They rely solely on the parking pawl in the transmission to keep the car from rolling away, as opposed to people who used to drive manual transmissions for most of their lives and instinctively engage the parking brake. It's not the drivers have low IQ, but convenience often leads to complacency and then accidents happen. Google "Swiss cheese model" to understand how risk assessment works and how to prevent failures by adding mitigations that moves just one slice of cheese out of alignment so the holes don't align for a hazard to pass through.

As for driving after washing the car, Chicago tends to get humid in the summer, so even if you drive for a bit, the air cannot absorb the moisture and the brakes don't necessarily dry enough. Then if you park the car outside in the humidity, the brakes stay damp and the metal in the pads starts rusting. In the winter the issue is compounded by the roads being wet and the salt on the road. Parking the car outside means it's always exposed to the elements. I don't just drive to dry the brakes after washing the car, but I also park it in my garage, so it's out of the elements.

 

On my Jaguar auto hold only works with your seat belt on. I sheet you not! First time I took it off at a drive-through to get money out of my pocket I almost rear ended the guy in front of me.

At least the parking brake engages as expected anyways.

 

Me too but full disclosure, I've never had seized brakes probably because of my location.

 

Fair enough : )

 

It's good to know one European car maker gives us credit for being responsible, intelligent adults. Thank-you!

Maybe BMW next, if they have the center mounted big screen like my GLC300 has. Love it far more than the extra-long high up screen on our GLE350.

 

Thank-you for the thorough explanation. I wish we didn't have even have this conversation. The more lawsuits there are, the more people are treated like idiots by all kinds of manufacturers. It's not deaths that make them do this. It's lawsuits. I opened my car door to pick up my neighbor's newspaper for her last week and my GLC300 slammed on the brakes and screamed all kinds of warnings. After 45 years of driving the way I want to drive, I thoroughly resent my car "protecting" me.

 

I wouldn't mind if the damn pads didn't glue themselves to the rotors when they're moist upon parking, or if they get moist from overnight rain, but are dry (and glued) when attempting to pull out of the driveway the next day.

 

Talk to the feds. They're the ones responsible.

 

At the current pace of federal intervention, it won't be long before our cars refuse to start, if the emissions emitted during our last drive, were higher than the climate change driven parts-per-million limit.

 

This is already here. Just try running a diesel with a DEF system malfunction. Fortunately we've only had to deal with the start counter twice. First time it went to the dealer, second time I took more extreme measures.

 

Next stop; breathalyzers in all new cars. Start inhibited, until sober breathalyzer results. Bring a sober friend, if you don’t have a designated driver.

 

Yeah the future of cars is definitely generally uninteresting. Some want to eliminate the driver completely by making cars self-driving appliances and others want to mandate all kinds of systems that takes the fun out of driving. Not even getting into how EVs are worse at being cars as they offer less freedom due to their charging needs if you wanna go farther than the range of the battery. You are forced to a specific route and stops where the car's system dictates to make sure there are charging stations. The complete opposite of the perception of freedom that's associated with cars that has allowed us to just hit the road w/o any plan whatsoever. Pick any route we want and just stop for a few minutes at the next gas station if the tank runs low.

Europe now mandates annoying speed limit warnings in every new car as of this year. It must be activated by default every time the engine is started and usually have to dive into the menu on a stupid touchscreen to turn it off every time. I'm going to Germany at the end of the month and will be renting a car. Not looking forward to this. US legislators want to mandate this same system here. It's gonna be fun when the camera recognizes the wrong speed limit and the car starts yelling at you.

Good thing AI will kill us all eventually anyway. It can just drive everybody into a wall .

 

I just created a short video how to disable automatic parking brake in Mercedes. It has to be done manually always, but I do this every time on winter to avoid parking brake on freezing. Especially important after car wash on winter ❄️

 

Different strokes for different people, I guess. People (like my brother) who bought the new S-class, and who also owned the prior-gen S-class, say the entire character of the car has been destroyed, and cheapened, with the large center-mounted screen in the new S-class. The Prior S-class obviously had an identical dual sceen setup to what the current GLE has. And the new S-class has a similar, but significantly more higher-end screen, that the new GLC has.

And I tend to agree with the people who dislike the new screen-filled S-class. But putting larger and larger screens into the interiors of cars, is going to accelerate as a trend, than be toned down, whether we like it or not. Similar to the trend that takes away driver control, and converts the driving experience to more of a riding experience.

After driving my GLE or the All-Terrain, when I drive my 2019 Honda Fit with a stick-shift, the experience is drastically different. The Fit also has a screen (7", I guess) and has a 1.5L DOHC Normally Aspirated engine, has a manual grab-handle type parking brake, and the car is raw, and light as a feather when compared to the Mercs. As a consequence, the Fit is highly tossable, and you are reminded what "driving" a car is, versus "guiding" a highly automated car, using steering inputs and gas/brakes. We will of course see automakers creating cars for "guiders" going forward, than "drivers", and the unveiling of that roadmap is well underway.