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Reflections on first extended drive in 2021 GLE 450
I just returned from a trip to LA and back to Portland, about 2,300 miles. Was a great chance to learn more about several comfort and safety features of the vehicle, and evaluate their effectiveness and benefit over a long haul (5 longer days of driving between 250-500 miles per day).
Bottom Line: Awesome driving and comfort experience. Never felt tired or stressed at end of drive-day under any conditions, including dense fog, driving rain, and 8-lane LA Freeway.
I have the Driver Assistance Package PLUS, and in my book it was worth every penny and what made this trip quite enjoyable. I've always been a cruise-control driver, but the added features of distance/speed control and lane-keeping make this the next best thing to total autonomous driving (IMO). Takes a little time to get used to how to manipulate the settings and adapt to the driving situation, but pretty easy to master. Some of my observations and lessons learned:
On winding freeways and highways where there are yellow reduced speed signs the car will react to (when in cruise-control) and slow down, I found the Sport setting to be more aggressive around the corners and keep closer to the speed limit. In Comfort setting it would slow down way more than I could manually speed through the corner. However, this Comfort setting was actually quite helpful and safer when driving down the California Coast Highway (1) and through the many hairpin turns.
As an experiment I tried to find and disable the speed sign reading/adjusting feature but without success. Anybody have luck doing that, or is that a baked-in function? This came about as when zipping along at 75 on the freeway it would mistakenly read a 55 MPH sign for trucks and slow me down fairly abruptly which was not safe when other cars are following you fairly close. I've found you need to be ready to tap the gas pedal quickly when this happens to 'override' the automatic slow down. Same frustration when going through school zones in the city.
I also experimented with the Glide feature which (AFAIK) only works in Economy mode and when not using cruise-control. Kind of cool, but to me doesn't override the benefits of cruise-control.
On the freeway I used and enjoyed the auto lane change feature (while in cruise-control). I found it really helpful when it was raining in heavier traffic. A flick of the turn signal and it takes over. I felt really comfortable and safe using it.
In stop-and-go freeway backups, I set to Economy and the cruise-control distance between vehicles a little closer, and we effortlessly crawled along. I have discovered that if the car is stopped for more than a few seconds I have to flick the resume tab to get the car going.
MOST impressive was when driving (with cruise-control) at the speed limit for over an hour on the freeway in fairly dense fog. The car would sense a vehicle in front of me (at about 300 feet) before I could visually see it (around 250 feet) and slow down when I got closer. I set one of my display screens to show the car detected and distance between and set the distance to keep at maximum. I felt totally safe and still “in control” of the situation. My wife not so much, but she's getting more comfortable with how smart the car is.
I hope there might be a nugget here to help shorten your learning curve.
As an experiment I tried to find and disable the speed sign reading/adjusting feature but without success. Anybody have luck doing that, or is that a baked-in function? This came about as when zipping along at 75 on the freeway it would mistakenly read a 55 MPH sign for trucks and slow me down fairly abruptly which was not safe when other cars are following you fairly close. I've found you need to be ready to tap the gas pedal quickly when this happens to 'override' the automatic slow down. Same frustration when going through school zones in the city>…...David
I have reported extensively on the traffic sign issue in other threads but thought it was just my car. My camera was replaced and the local Dealer has finally escalated a Tech Ticket at MB…supposed to get possible diagnosis and support. They requested a video that I supplied well over a month ago. It’s a little dangerous trying to anticipate the next sign; move to the inside lane so a car doesn’t block your view; start recording to catch the misread and then let it brake to the incorrect speed without getting rear ended.
I reported mine to the NHTSA as a safety issue. Mine may be worse than most because it misses 50% of reads including truck limits as you mention and also numerous others like 80 as 60, 70/50, 55/35. Only once I was set at 40 in a 35 approaching a small town and it changed to 60 and started accelerating. Glad I didn’t have to try to explain that to a cop! Like you said at higher speeds it brakes aggressively…not safe in heavy traffic. My 2020 450 worked almost perfectly and both cars had a setting to turn off Route Based Speed that was removed from my GLE 53 after a software update a few months ago. It didn’t work anyway on my 53, but I think it worked on my prior 450…no way to double check now.
Does yours change the Set Speed on a misread? Mine does that randomly, not always but frequently. Since it’s only an issue on Freeway trips it’s not a big deal short term, I’ve adapted to a quick tap on the gas that also returns set speed to the original setting if I do it soon enough???
Does yours change the Set Speed on a misread? Mine does that randomly, not always but frequently.
Yes, it changed the set speed on a misread, and this happened several times with the truck speed signs. I only recall one time when the set speed seemed to reset down at random where I saw no obvious sign that caused it. Overall, I'd say these errors occurred less than .001 % of all the signs I passed. But being a safety issue, that is still something to worry about. Your situation sounds much more buggy than mine.
Regarding my attempt to turn off the sign reading function, I found and turned this setting OFF. Made no difference in managing cruise control. I think it just has to do with display and warning when speed exceeds limit.
In taking the above photo a few minutes ago I saw this feature - Route Based Speed - on another screen which I now wonder if it may be the switch to turn off the sign reading/adjusting function of cruise control?
Digging into the manual, I found this:
Maybe this is the answer to my question about turning off the speed limit sign reading and adjustment function. I'll try next trip out of the house. I'll be perfectly happy to adjust cruise control myself when speed limits change if that eliminates any misreads.
Let’s hope it works for you. I went through every setting and turned all off even though most had no logical reason to create the problem. Sent a video of all my settings along with a clean video of the issue in action. I’m wondering if the Mercedes A Team is busy on the new Gen software for Electrics and E Performance models. The 450 has been out almost 3 years…the 53 about 18 months starting in Canada.
Have a GLE 53 on order - subscribing to this thread as my current E43 doesn't have the speed limit sign problem - it recognizes them, but I have the setting turned off and it always maintains the cruise speed I set. That's pretty critical to me...
I saw this feature - Route Based Speed - on another screen which I now wonder if it may be the switch to turn off the sign reading/adjusting function of cruise control?
Maybe this is the answer to my question about turning off the speed limit sign reading and adjustment function. I'll try next trip out of the house. I'll be perfectly happy to adjust cruise control myself when speed limits change if that eliminates any misreads.
After turning this (and the traffic sign assist) function on and off during some recent long drives, I found no combination of settings that "turned off" the traffic sign reading and automatic speed adjustment while using cruise control. So, I'm presuming it must be baked into the Distronic feature. I may have stumbled on a 'work-around' though as when I set the speed higher than the sign, it didn't drop when a lower speed limit sign was read. I can't say definitively if this happens all the time or I was just lucky on a couple of occasions.
After turning this (and the traffic sign assist) function on and off during some recent long drives, I found no combination of settings that "turned off" the traffic sign reading and automatic speed adjustment while using cruise control. So, I'm presuming it must be baked into the Distronic feature. I may have stumbled on a 'work-around' though as when I set the speed higher than the sign, it didn't drop when a lower speed limit sign was read. I can't say definitively if this happens all the time or I was just lucky on a couple of occasions.
......David
Setting it higher doesn’t seem to make a difference. I typically set mine 5 over and get lots of misreads.
After turning this (and the traffic sign assist) function on and off during some recent long drives, I found no combination of settings that "turned off" the traffic sign reading and automatic speed adjustment while using cruise control. So, I'm presuming it must be baked into the Distronic feature. I may have stumbled on a 'work-around' though as when I set the speed higher than the sign, it didn't drop when a lower speed limit sign was read. I can't say definitively if this happens all the time or I was just lucky on a couple of occasions.
......David
I use Distronic all the time, at least for the adaptive cruise. Mine reads the signs but doesn't slow down. The only time the vehicle slows is when the road changes like encountering a traffic circle.
I use Distronic all the time, at least for the adaptive cruise. Mine reads the signs but doesn't slow down. The only time the vehicle slows is when the road changes like encountering a traffic circle.
Interesting. Curious if you have Traffic Sign Assist set to ON? Route-based Speed set to ON? Any other setting you think might control the speed limit sign adjustment function?
Interesting. Curious if you have Traffic Sign Assist set to ON? Route-based Speed set to ON? Any other setting you think might control the speed limit sign adjustment function?
Thanks..........David
I'm almost certain the traffic sign assist is off because I didn't like it telling me I was over the limit but i do know route based speed is turned on.
If you're in the screen that allows you to set 5 over, you're in the screen that disables it completely.
Drill down one more level.
The disable setting for Route Based Speed worked on my 2020 GLE 450…never a problem when an occasional sign was misread. On my 2021 “53” it doesn’t disable the function when turned off and a late summer update of all my Firmware and other software removed Route Based Speed entirely…no longer have it as a setting. Mercedes Tech Support instructed my Dealer to update all of my software to the latest version even though most of it was unrelated to the issue.
I was referring to setting my speed at 5 over with the “Set Speed” function when using Distronic. It’s been over 2 months since my issue was elevated at MB Tech Support as a Safety Issue…still no answers. The Dealer Shop Foreman experienced the same issue while driving another car so mine doesn’t seem to be the only one. My Camera was changed so it might be a bad chip causing the problem. The Mercedes General Manager just returned from a Mercedes meeting where he was told the our cars have up to 4-5,000 chips in each one. Hard to believe, if true they must be counting anything silicone even dumb on/off chips.
If you're in the screen that allows you to set 5 over, you're in the screen that disables it completely.
Drill down one more level.
While you were posting this tip, I was out and about and discovered the Limit Adoption setting. I toggled it off/on/off and sure enough, the cruise control does (when switched off) ignore the speed limit sign and maintains the manual speed setting.
I think you can turn the speed limit adaptation feature on and off from the steering wheel via pressing up on the “res” button more than once. I’ll check next time I drive mine. 2022 GLE with driver assistance plus.
I think you can turn the speed limit adaptation feature on and off from the steering wheel via pressing up on the “res” button more than once. I’ll check next time I drive mine. 2022 GLE with driver assistance plus.
Let's hope so.
I dug into the manual and found this explanation for that button:
I'll give it a try too, but I interpret the explanation to mean a tap-up will adopt a speed limit presumably when you have "Limit Adoption" OFF. I don't see anything about a double-tap, so maybe that's an undocumented feature. Hope so.
I dug into the manual and found this explanation for that button:
I'll give it a try too, but I interpret the explanation to mean a tap-up will adopt a speed limit presumably when you have "Limit Adoption" OFF. I don't see anything about a double-tap, so maybe that's an undocumented feature. Hope so.
Thanks...........David
The only way the limit adoption works, persistently, is to actually turn it on in the vehicle settings. Otherwise, you get what you just read in the manual. Even if you push up twice, yes, it will recognize the current speed limit but will not change when you encounter a new sign, as far as I know and have experienced.
The only way the limit adoption works, persistently, is to actually turn it on in the vehicle settings. Otherwise, you get what you just read in the manual. Even if you push up twice, yes, it will recognize the current speed limit but will not change when you encounter a new sign, as far as I know and have experienced.
I just returned from a short drive and confirmed your explanation. Pushing the resume lever up (when Limit Adoption was OFF) adopted the current speed limit. Pushing the lever UP or DOWN did not change the underlying Limit Adoption setting.
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