My 2020 GLE350 met with an accident in the freeway. It rear ended a Camry ahead of us. Geico/bodyshop estimate for repair cost is 25.6K. So its a pretty nasty collision.

In such cases, I'd expect the airbags to deploy. It didnt. Also, the active brake assist which does kicks in when we are backing off, failed to activate. It should have sensed the rear end collision to happen, then should have given visual and acoustic warnings. Worst case, autonomous braking should have happened. None did. We are even doubtful safety belts tightened.

Pretty much the safety features failed completely. I believe its manufacturing defect. Thoughts?

 

Did you have those features turned on in the menu?

The airbags deploy based on deceleration. The damage to the front, while expensive, does not look like it was strong enough to deform the crumple zone. Thus the deceleration from the impact may not have been high enough to trigger the airbags.

Was anyone injured?

 

Not 3nough info.

What was your speed?
Some of those features are inactive below a certain speed.

The displayed message needs an explanation

 

It seems to say the typical "Don't Forget Your Key.", if you zoom in.

 

I may be on the opposition of most but I'm glad the airbag didn't go off when it's not necessary, which @TexAg91 mentioned above that is due to deceleration. The car "decides" when it's needed and doesn't deploy when the deceleration is below certain threshold. Did the driver's head hit the steering wheel? Trying to find the original poster's concern. Airbag powder and the deployment actually bruises more and irritates the skin, not to mention the added cost of repair and the smell doesn't dissipate for a long time.

Also on the brake assist, was the driver already on the brakes? I believe brake assist is when the driver isn't actually on the brakes at all and collision is imminent, then the car "takes over". If the driver is on the brakes already but the car ahead comes to stop abruptly, the car won't take over. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I was once in a head-on collision; I was in a late model Volvo S40, and the other driver who failed to yield was in a Scion. Obviously the Volvo won, which means no airbags deployed and very minimal damage, but the Scion had all airbags deployed and coolant leaking out and all. I actually drove home in that same car. Just had a bruise on my neck from the seatbelt tightening.

Any picture of the Camry by any chance? Must be crumpled pretty good.

 

When I clicked on the photos (on my phone), there were three. One said "active brake function currently limited" but I don't know if it's part of his post. It shows the dash of someone going 35 mph on a country road.
If it's related, that would need an answer for me.

 

Yes, as @mikapen stated, you have to click on an image to see the third one. However, it seems unrelated as the road is not the same, perhaps before or after accident. Maybe OP can shed some light - see below.....

 

OP has 350 so shouldn't have the "Power EQ Charge" wording on it.

 

Ah, my bad so sorry about that.

 

Yup, it doesn't look like the same car, if you compare the second image to the third one, the trim is different. OP's car seems to have Grey Linden Wood, the car in the third image seems to have Natural Grain Brown Walnut Wood or something if I am not mistaken it could be a forum glitch or OP really did upload this image.

Yup, it doesn't seem like it is the same car after all.

 

You would expect to see that message after an accident that probably took out the front radar. Not sure why the OP posted a picture from what is obviously not the same car.

 

My post had only 2 pictures. One on the spot of the accident. The 2nd with the door open at the bodyshop to show airbag didn't deploy. There was no 3rd. That maybe the forum showing some related threads on this thread.

That said, she was driving 40-50mph. I know the active brake assist system was on. In the past, it would trigger at times when we back up. It wasn't turned off in settings too. Camry is 25 year old, its totaled. Fortunately, no major injuries.

My concern is.. if these safetly features didnt kick in now, what if it doesnt when the situation is even worser.? Then, it could get disastrous.

On the active brake assist system, she was braking. Maybe not that hard. Even then, it should have activated and triggered emergency autonomous braking to get it to a stop and avoid collision. This they advertise but in reality, it didnt happen.

 

These are the correct answers. Collision warning only works if the driver takes no action. If you are on the brakes or actively steering the car the system won't override you.

 

The third picture was from @TonyF61 However, if you click on any picture in a thread, it goes into slideshow mode and there are left/right arrows that cycle through all pictures in the thread, not just from a single post.

 

BAS / Active Brake assist should kick in irrespective of whether driver brakes or not. It is supposed to do below to avoid collision

1. flash warning lights
2. sound warning tones
3. apply autonomous braking or situation dependent braking

None of the 3 happened, that is why I seriously think there is a safety defect here.

Above is from the MB manual. Below is some excerpts

 

Like any assistance system, it can not 100% identify all event type, so driver has to pay attention at all time.
This is stated in the warning section in page 204 on the 2020 manual (and should also be there on your model year)
And on all the charts (205, 206, 207), they use the word "may", which means the system might not always identify the event correctly.

 

That is true, however Active Brake Assist is part of the Driver Assistance Package PLUS which is optional. Do you have this package on the GLE?


If not, then I'm afraid the Active Brake Assist feature is non-existent.

 

I just zoomed in on the steering wheel picture of OP and it looks like it does not have the Drivers Assistance Package PLUS, unfortunately. The clue is the left-side of the set of buttons, the one with the package has a combo home/back button instead of separating it, and the toggles on the right side is on/off instead of distance setting.

 

Active Brake Assist System is standard feature. It can detect rear end collision.

The Driver Assistance Package is needed only to detect cross traffic which is not applicable in this accident.

 

Although I don’t own a GLE I’d like to chime in with personal experience. A couple years ago I was rear ended while coming up to a light in my new at the time C300. The car that rear ended me was an Audi Q5 from what looked to be about 2015. The speed differential was about 35 mph and caused a lot of damage to my car. Total repair bill was 15k. My seatbelts blew which obviously required them to be replaced, along with the airbag module surprisingly enough. I’m stating all that to show that it was not a light impact, however the Audi that hit me did NOT deploy any of its airbags and everyone was seemingly uninjured. Airbag deployment is up to the car’s systems and if it deems the force to be strong enough to warrant them. As others have stated, unneeded deployment can cause much more harm than good. The car does look pretty mangled up, but not necessarily to the point of needing the airbags. And as you said, everyone was fine. Now with that type of hit I would’ve expected the seatbelts to blow or at least lock. If they did neither, then it would be safe to say there’s a problem. If they blew, you’d see a restraint system malfunction on the dash.
Now for the active braking. It is not a 100% reliable system, I’m sure that’s probably stated somewhere. It’s designed to help reduce the likelihood or even severity of an impact, however it’s not perfect. In my experience it has been MOSTLY reliable, however every now and then it will go off for no reason when there is no one remotely near the car. This is rare and has only happened a handful of times between three Mercedes I’ve had with this feature. In terms of avoiding or reducing the severity of an impact it is also MOSTLY reliable. As you’ve stated, it has saved your car from an impact before. It has with me as well a couple of times, once before I had the time to get off the gas and onto the brakes, and once while I was already on the brakes and the car in front of me came to a full, very hard stop in front of me at a green light (was a Tesla model Y that had it’s phantom emergency brake go off with no one in front, ironic). Both times the car avoided an impact. There have also been times when the car hasn’t noticed at all, and my reactions were responsible for avoiding an impact when cars come to fast stops. This could be because either the system doesn’t register anyone in front, or it thinks that my reaction is enough to avoid an impact. Either way not even the audible sound was present to alert me. It’s not a perfect system. I have the alert set to medium in my C300 which seems to be the perfect setting to make it not too sensitive and not too relaxed. I have it set to late in our Model 3 because that system is way too intrusive and too often subject to phantom braking.
This accident just looks like a some unfortunate bad luck with the automatic braking system. I’m very sorry about the accident, but glad to hear there were no serious injuries. Keep us posted with what you find, there is a chance that the safety system did go kaput, but I find it unlikely. I remember reading a thread in the old w204 section many years ago about someone who let their aunt drive their car and she hit a pole at 40 mph. None of the cars safety system kicked in at all, no airbags, nothing. Her head hit the wheel so hard that it actually bent it. In that case there was a definite problem with the safety restraint system.

 

All the safety features can't overcome the laws of physics. So glad no one was hurt and the car gave up damage to spare lots of bodily harm. Be glad you were in a Mercedes GLE rather than something else.

I recall my dad hitting a guard rail, head on at 50 mph in a Mercedes 280C in mid 70's... the car did everything it was designed to do in a crash, even 50 years ago, and it saved his life. He only drove MBs from then on.

 

You're right, I revisit the old DOG for 2020 and 2021 and Active Brake Assist is indeed listed as standard equipment. The package adds the "with Cross-Traffic Function".

I wonder if we could pull up the camera / video feed from the car and see what it "thinks" milliseconds prior to the incident. Might need a lawyer and some legal muscles to grab that off the car though.

 

AFAIK the car does not record video as a normal feature. The dash cam option adds that capability.

 

Would be great to know if thats feasible. I already lodged a safety complaint this week with MB. I will also ask if this is possible.

Let's see what they have to say.

 

It would require the 21U Dashcam option, which also requires Augmented Reality.