Mcfancy14

Not sure if I have a gremlin. The system seems to act arbitrary....so when driving and drifting towards and over solid or non continuous yellow line on driver side, it will (a) sometimes give a mild steering wheel haptic vibration, (b) sometimes provide the actual nudge back or (c) do nothing at all. I took it to dealer with video and they did a software upgrade but really no change. For a major safety feature, this is too haphazard about choosing when to be effective. Thought?

jsa1983

I would say that’s how the assistant works. Happens to me too and the first thing I do when going to the road (not within city limits) is deactivating it for safety reasons. Ironic, ain’t it?

superswiss

I don't know if it's different in the GLE, and not sure what year your car is, but what you describe as arbitrary is actually deliberate. The system at least in my AMG is capable of recognizing if you are crossing the line deliberately or if you are carelessly drifting towards an adjacent lane. Depending on that, it either intervenes or doesn't. It also doesn't intervene at all below a certain speed. Basically it recognizes one's driving style. For example when I hit up the canyons and cross the center line inadvertently, it never intervenes, because I'm driving in a dynamic fashion and the system recognizes that. However, if my mind drifts for a moment on the highway and I start straddling the lane markers it will first vibrate if I'm just slightly drifting, or actually course correct to yank me back in my lane. If I have to have one complaint it's that sometimes when I'm casually making a turn and I'm kinda coming close to the lane marker it starts vibrating, but overall I leave it pretty much turned on at all times and in the 1.5 years I had the car it seems to always intervene at the right times, and stay out of my way when I know what I'm doing and if I'm deliberately crossing a lane marker w/o using my turn signals. I believe it factors in the data from the attention assist, which based on your steering inputs can actually derive whether you are paying attention or not. The science behind it is quite interesting.

This is a good read on ATTENTION ASSIST and how it builds a profile of you and continuously monitors you for drowsiness and lack of attention. BTW, you can also pull up the ATTENTION ASSIST on your dash and it will tell you how alert it thinks you are.

https://media.daimler.com/marsMediaS...ml?oid=9361586

Philamg

Agree with all you say, great system.

Mcfancy14

Thanks...it’s a 2020. I guess I was comparing to my experience in my Lexus. If i slowly drift towards the center hashed or uncashed yellow line, it will beep. Of course if it’s more of a deliberate steer it knows and doesn’t intervene. I guess I expected the same consistency in the new Benz

superswiss

A system like the one in your Lexus is best described as a dumb system. It basically mindlessly alerts and intervenes for the most part. I suppose you can describe that as consistently dumb . The more time you spend with Mercedes technology and understand it, and if you ever get a chance to talk to some of their engineers, you'll be amazed about how much effort and research they put into these systems to design them in a way that they provide a safety net w/o fighting/annoying you constantly. A lot of these nanny systems are disliked, because they indiscriminately intervene. From ESP systems that don't let you slide the car just a little bit in a controlled fashion to LKA etc. babysitting you the entire way. A lot of people tend to get annoyed by such systems and turn them off, defeating the entire purpose.

I've had the smarter kind of these assistance systems for about 7 years now in my cars, and let me be clear, I like to drive spirited and fast and I hate if the electronics try to babysit me, but aside from some occasional false positives primarily in the early generation systems, for the most part these systems only intervened when I had to admit that if I had paid more attention at that very moment, they wouldn't have intervened. From frontal collision warning systems slamming on the brakes before I had a chance to react because my eyes weren't quite on the road to drifting in my lane because I allowed my mind to wander from the monotony, they do what they are designed to do without being intrusive.

I have developed some respect for these systems, because almost exactly two years ago I literally had a wakeup call on a trip to Iceland. For the first time and so far last time I fell asleep behind the steering wheel and ended up careening off the road in the middle of nowhere. Both my wife and I walked away unharmed aside from my bruised ego. We were lucky that we ended up in a grassy field and not the more typical lava rock fields. I wish I had been driving a Mercedes at the time. Two major factors played a role in that. First the very short days this time of the year near the artic circle. If you've never experienced it, it totally messes up your sleep cycle, and the second factor was the monotony of driving on the seemingly endless roads without anybody else in sight at fairly low speeds limits. It's kinda ironic, we are being told over and over again that driving slower is safer, but I've never come even remotely close to falling asleep behind the wheel on the German Autobahn going at tripple digit speeds, but that's another conversation. Anyway, it can be humbling when coming face to face with one's limits and if one finds the assistance systems to constantly intervene, the problem might not be the systems, but how one is driving.

Ron.s

As I have stated previously, I never use Lane Keep because of the intrusive “brake to correct”! When a vehicle has Distronic it corrects similar to most or all other systems by steering back into the lane. Nudging you back into a lane is much more user friendly as mentioned by Mcfancy14. My April 2019 build came with no ability to turn it off permanently for 4 months so I had no choice but to turn it off every time.
IMO, a less experienced driver could panic (like my passengers did on occasion) because at speed it can be a very abrupt brake correction. I sold my GLE 450 in August 2020 but until then my car did not seem to distinguish a purposeful crossing of the lane marker. My wife refused to drive the car with Lane Keep active. I was also concerned about what would happen if the correction happened on “black ice”. Would the car slide out of control?
More people should formally complain to Mercedes CS & the Dealer if they share my opinion.

nsoltz

I have not yet experienced it in 4 weeks of GLE ownership. My 2018 GLC did not have the feature-- only distronic. FWIW, my wife's Kia has it and she refuses to drive with it activated for the very same reasons discussed above. I'll keep it activated for the moment in the GLE and we'll just turn it off when she drives it.