Hello everyone!

This is more of a "how well does this work for you" question. We've had our GLE for 2 years now, and while we've had some issues with it (we have the whistling problem, we encountered the misfiring cylinder/rough engine issue, a couple of other minor ones), almost everything has been resolved. Apparently we have a really great dealer. One thing that is still bugging us is a minor issue with the warning that the vehicle gives when it thinks you're not holding on to the steering wheel. We have the full assisted driving/distronic package, and it works quite well. Misses the occasional speed limit sign, but it's nothing too significant. However, the warning to hold on to the steering wheel happens quite frequently, even when we're holding the steering wheel the entire time. This past weekend we were driving on some rougher roads, and the warning popped up a LOT.

I was curious if anyone else has this issue at all? The dealership says that it all checks out and there are no errors. Diagnostics show no problems with this feature. But there are times when the little warning pops up once or twice a minute, sometimes more. Generally, it will just disappear in a couple of seconds, but often enough it gives a warning tone, which lowers the radio volume when it goes off, and if that's happening every minute or so, it's very annoying. Seeing the little red steering wheel graphic show up in the dash also gets very distracting when it's happening frequently.

I'm hoping to hear that most of you almost never see that warning unless you're actually NOT holding the steering wheel, so that we can tell the dealership that this is not a common issue and that our warnings aren't working as intended, but if most of you have this happen, then we'll live with it.

 

I have only seen that warning 2-3 times in 27 months of ownership. What you are describing is FAR too excessive, in my opinion.

 

Seems like you could have a problem. Alternatively, it could be how you "hold" the steering wheel. The vehicle needs to see some torque on the wheel. I get into the habit of giving it a minor steering correction every 20 seconds or so. I noticed my GLS needs a little more steering input than my older C class did, as I had done the exact same thing I had always done and did get the warning. But simply holding it while it steers isn't enough. Needs an actual small "tug" once in a while. Makes it a bit less useful, but a lot more safe.

 

I agree. I used Distronics extensively during our recent 2000 mile road trip and I did see the warning a few times even when I was holding the steering wheel. The car needs to feel that you are actually holding the wheel actively. Simply holding it and letting the car do the steering adjustments will bring up the warning. I also make small adjustments every so often to avoid seeing the warning.

 

That sounds like what I would expect it to do. My spouse and I have both found that it's way beyond that. If either of us is driving, holding the wheel with both hands, and making sure we're actively driving, it still throws up the warning. The only thing that reliably makes it not show up is to do minor steering adjustments that make the vehicle actually weave back and forth slightly. The other thing that makes me think it's not working properly is that if you just keep doing exactly what you're doing when the warning pops up, most of the time it will flash a few times and then just disappear, even without doing any major corrective steering adjustment.

From what the three of you have described, ours is definitely not working as it should be. Thank you for giving a good idea of what you do when you're driving your vehicles

 

My works like @nextmilenium. So yeah, yours is def not acting normal.

 

I receive the warning on my C300 cabriolet. I always am holding on to the wheel. I’m trying to get my wife to take a picture. It went away before she could take a picture. Glad to know I’m not alone. Not as often as you. My MDX. Also has a sensor. I can’t recall seeing the message at the wrong time. Maybe once or twice in 4 years. The MB, sometimes every few minutes. Sometimes not at all.

 

The current Mercedes design doesn’t use “holding the wheel” as the trigger as the messing indicates. As several others mentioned in earlier posts, it’s no movement of the steering wheel left & right over about a 20 second interval that triggers the warning. On a straight road you are more likely to get multiple warnings because the steering wheel doesn’t move for 20 seconds. Our Audi is exactly the same but uses 10 seconds so is more intrusive.

 

As I understand it, some models of Mercedes have capacitive (or other) sensors in steering wheels to know if you have Hands On. Maybe new models, or the new S Class, but probably filtering down soon.

I don't like the Lane Keeping at all. I'm always fighting it, since I crowd one lane marking stripe or the other, depending on the curve radius or pavement conditions. Or places where the lines are obscured. All systems off for me.

 

One of the service people tried to tell us that we just weren't gripping the wheel firmly enough and that it measured the strength of your grip, so we experimented with that and held it much tighter than you'd normally hold it and it made no difference whatsoever. So I suspect it's more to do with the steering.

I'm guessing that you're all correct when you say it throws the warning if it detects no movement for a certain period of time. 10 or 20 seconds sounds like it would be correct. Ours will sometimes repeatedly give the warning, up to 3 times in 20 or 30 seconds, even while steering (I've actually had it give us warnings going around a curve). So I think based on the input here that ours is definitely somehow being way too sensitive.

We have friends (2 different couples, actually) who own new audis and neither of them do this to this extent, so it's good to know that theirs should actually be more sensitive than the mercedes (if those time periods are accurate).

 

Yes, I believe the E-Class was the first to debut the wheel with the capacitive sensors on the wheel and buttons. Should make it work much better, but doesn't help those that don't have it.

New wheel looks like this:

 

I have the exact same problem on my 2020 GLE350. I hold the steering wheel firmly at the proper location while using Distronic cruise control and the “hands on” warning constantly comes on. It happens more often at speeds below 45 mph, no matter how firmly I grip the steering wheel. If I wiggle the steering wheel, it goes off, only to come back on a few minutes later. And YES, I have my hands in the proper location. The dealer told me that they cannot adjust the sensitivity and that I am not the only who has complained about it.

 

I have an appointment next week to take ours in, and they're going to take a look at this issue. I'll report back on what they have to say.

 

As noted up thread, for these vehicles, holding the steering wheel unfortunately does not do anything. You have to actively steer/apply torque in one direction to the wheel. Kind of a pain, because you'll need to unnaturally need to steer the car within its lane if you are on a long straight or something.

 

That's they way my wife's 2020 GLE 450 works. I used to keep my hands on the steering wheel like you but now I just keep a hand on the bottom of the wheel, no steering, and put a small, quick input in when the warning comes up. It is a pain but I have found it to be the best for me. If the car gets confused and doesn't follow the road well, my hand it there to steer it.

 

Page 190 of my 2021 E Class OM reads "If the system detects that the driver has not steered the vehicle for a considerable period of time or has removed their hands from the steering wheel, display 1 appears. If the driver still does not steer the vehicle, a warning tone sounds in addition to the visual warning message."
The book is much to comprehensive and I find it is best to download your manual, then you can do a search by hitting 'Control + F' on the PDF.

 

Thanks SmokinJoe

I had actually read that part, and have read the entire manual (I was very excited when we bough the 2020 GLE). We use the Mercedes Guides app on our phones, too, which I find to be really effective to search for information.

It was the "considerable period of time" that got me wondering about all of this in the first place. Having it pop up multiple times in 30 seconds but at other times not pop up at all for several minutes, even though we've changed nothing at all about our driving is what is making me think things aren't quite right. We've had the warning tone sounding for us, but that's when doing something obvious, like NOT holding the wheel at all for about 20 seconds, at which point we get the warning, and then later the warning tone sounds off. We literally get the warning pop up MORE often with our hands on the wheel than we do if we remove our hands completely and then just grab the wheel every 15 to 20 seconds, make a slight adjustment, and then let go again. I've been able to go for 20 minutes at a time doing this, and that shouldn't be the case. (I know - not the safest thing to do, but it was on a clear road early in the morning and I had woken up early specifically to do some of my own testing. I probably should have mentioned this in my original post - all I was looking for was other people's experiences).

It's good information to have for my appointment next week.

 

Interested to see what they find. I've got the new fancy steering wheel. I also purposely made it sound to see how far I can go. It will sense my knees as my hands. It also pops up if I get close to the lane marker line in the road. That is a gentle warning I think.