A bit unclear what’s described here. The alarm won’t be armed when the car is unlocked.The car also don’t automatically lock itself, only when you unlock it and then do nothing, it will lock itself back. Outside of that, no auto lock.

I fueled the car with my wife still in it, it doesn’t trigger the alarm or anything.

 

I just did the same yesterday and my wife opened the passenger door to hand me some trash. No alarm sounded. This was car unlocked so might be different with it locked.

 

unfortunately this is exactly what is happening with my car. again, it could be because this is EU spec (Belgium). I had to find the hard way in the following scenarios that the alarm (ATA) is being primed, even if the car remains unlocked:
1. I come down to the garage, enter the car (unlock it by touching the door handle). but before I start, I simply wanted to shuffle some papers in the glovebox. after like 30 seconds, alarm was triggered due to movement inside. completely stupid and unnecessary. all this time, I have my key in my pocket. the car should detect that the key is inside, everything is under control. i am disturbing neighbours, FAIL. Solution: should have opened screen, click on car menu, swipe right, untick Interior monitoring...
2. some other time, i go to the garage and directly try to open the trunk using the handle, with the key in my pocket. the alarm is triggered for half a second (loud noise) but then the trunk is being opened and alarm stopped. most likely car was 'sleeping' from what I read in other threads. Solution: I should have unlocked from key to 'awake' the car, then proceed. so even if I have keyless entry I cannot trust it to work as it should every time. my previous non premium car never did this. FAIL
3. I stop for filling up. my wife and one child stay in the car. the oldest comes with me for a quick leak. I knew that I should disable the stupid interior monitoring (see the 5 steps at point 1), so ATA is not triggered. key is in my pocket the whole time. i fill and enter the gas station to pay/take my son to the toilet. my wife decided just to open the door and help my younger one in the back with something, alarm is triggered.... because car was not locked, but ATA was primed. FAIL
4. again, stop at gas station, I instruct everyone to act paranoid and not move/touch open anything while I fill the car. I proceed with the 5 steps at point 1. I take my other son with me this time, the two other passengers stay in the car and behave. when coming back, my son runs ahead of me and tries to open the door, i was lagging behind a bit. of course, key was not in range, alarm was triggered. FAIL again!!
5. I don't reiterate the episode at the tyre shop. there I disabled manually (the 5 steps the interior monitoring and towing sensor). but since the valet whatever moved the car several times (started stopped the car several times), the settings are reset every time. due to the car being raised several times, towing sensor kept being triggered, alarm screaming. they guy was unlocking from key, but car was suspended, so could not have opened door. after like 30 seconds, again, same thing, alarm turned on. the guy had to actively unlock the car from my key every 20 seconds to avoid it screaming in the shop. MEGA FAIL

there must be a way to disable this permanently, I contacted the dealer and asked for instructions, I find it completely stupid as design and I don't see who could benefit from it, while for sure I can see numerous people being annoyed by it.

 

Try changing your key battery and see if that helps.

 

the car is brand new, had it for three weeks. does the same with both keys, so it looks like all this is 'by design'...

 

Assuming the batteries aren't aged out, you've eliminated the easiest to fix issue.
Managing your herd is hard enough. You don't need this aggravation.

What happens if your wife has a key and locks it from inside, instead of your locking it from outside?

When I'm away from the car and my wife is inside, I like the security of a locked car. But I know if I lock it from the outside and then she tries to get out, alarms will go off.
I think the interior motion sensors aren't active if it's locked from inside, and my wife can exit without alarms.

I wonder if it behaves differently for different bottle of years or different versions of MBUX.
Good luck. Hope it's something easy.

EDIT: I just went back and read your detailed scenarios.

I think it's possible that you have a competing setting in Mercedes me.
There's a new version of the app that came out quite recently, and I'm still struggling with valet protection. And perimeter alerts.

 

It really seems like there is a component malfunction rather than a design issue. Can you test a vehicle at your Dealer to confirm that other GLE’s have a similar issue?
Logically…there wouldn’t seem to be a reason to make the alarm any different in Belgium/EU than in the US.

 

The behaviour @gmr555 is describing is exactly what I have experienced as well. I have talked about this with the dealership multiple times, and the techs have confirmed the issue. One of them has a GLE that does the same thing, including the tailgate issue.
In the aftermarket coding scene, I believe this is called "alarm auto-on". It appears to be a feature, god knows why, but it's far from the only idiosyncrasy on the GLE...
The dealer looked into deactivating it, but couldn't. All they could do was deactivate the whole alarm module, I said yes please, but then I heard back they weren't allowed to from Mercedes BE.

The easiest way to "get around" the issue while fuelling up, is to leave your key in the car, and turn the ignition on. Then the alarm won't auto-arm.

For me the biggest issue remains the tailgate setting off the alarm, even with the key in my pocket. At the moment I've resorted to always opening the tailgate from the key (long press on the tailgate button) when the car is unlocked but the alarm is armed. Then it actually bothers with an unlock event and disarms the alarm.

I'm starting to wonder if we need to start writing strongly worded letters to Mercedes BE about this, because it's infuriating.

 

Maybe this changed with some model year? I have an EU 2022 GLE and this never happens. I always leave the family in the car when I'm filling up and leave the car unlocked when I'm at a manual car wash. The alarm never arms by itself and never goes off.
The interior motion sensor is on when the car is locked, because recently I left the window open in the garage and when I reached inside, the alarm went off. The car was locked then, however.


When your alarm arms itself, does the car lock also? Or is it just the alarm?
I've had the car lock itself when I was nearby with the key. It happens when the door handles are very dirty, sometimes it registers that as a touch.

 

Just the alarm arming. Still unlocked, mirrors folded out and all.

 

I'm still wondering if there is a conflict between your Mercedes Me app and your car settings.



I think it would be worth verifying, because your situation is baffling.

 

Nope, has nothing to do with it. As I've posted multiple times, this behaviour has been verified by the dealer as "normal".

 

Naive question and sorry if it was asked before... Have you checked that a random car in their showroom behaves the same way?

 

The following observations were made by trying it out on my US vehicle, so your experience may vary. However, the issue you're encountering seems quite unusual; it's difficult to accept that this would be considered "normal" for cars in Belgium, and it's more likely indicative of a defect or an oversight.

I've been unable to replicate the behavior you described, regardless of whether the key is inside the car or not. When you use KEYLESS-GO and open the driver or passenger door, the alarm should not rearm, nor should the doors lock automatically.

My car was parked and locked for 18 hours. I'm not sure if that duration is sufficient for it to enter "sleep" mode. When I approached the trunk and pressed the release button with my keys in my pocket, it opened smoothly without making any noise. At that moment, I noticed that the alarm was not disabled and the doors remained locked. I tried to activate the alarm by moving my hand around inside the trunk area for some time, but it did not go off, which suggests that the system is designed to behave this way. Subsequently, when I pressed the "Open/Close" button on the trunk door, the trunk closed and the car made a "confirmation" beep, which is a feature I have enabled to signal that the car is locked. Everything functioned as expected.

My car was at the dealership recently, and they moved it, opened it, and closed it about five times while they were changing the tires and washing it, yet no alarm was set off.

Your car appears to behave as if it is always locked, continuously rearming the alarm—this applies to all scenarios you mentioned.

Could you or someone else experiencing this problem take a few screenshots from the Mercedes Me app? Specifically, the "Vehicle Status" and "Vehicle Alarm" pages would be helpful to see when your alarm is armed inappropriately.

 

You may have posted before, but why not answer my direct question?
Did they verify that the app settings don't compete with the car settings?

Or, why post on the forum if you don't want suggestions?

 

@stktyz33 The forum thanks you for going above and beyond to ferret out this set of circumstances.

It may help troubleshooting, and it may give more information for a technician to assist in troubleshooting.

That's what forums are for!

 

I have no problem with suggestions. I have a problem with repeating myself.

There is no difference in app settings vs car settings. It wouldn't affect any of the behaviour anyway. The alarm simply auto-arms in some markets, even without locking. Yes, it's annoying, and I too consider it a defect (especially the tailgate issue), but apparently MB does not.

 

Thank you for answering.
I guess that means that you can't override the car with the app.
I can.

 

I can also disable the interior monitoring from the app, just like I can do it from the car. but after start / stop, it be again on. and the behaviour will be the one explained. so MB wants us here to train ourselves to follow a strict 5 step process in a short timebox after unlocking/stopping the car, and enjoy the 'extra safety' this feature brings...

 

Sure I can. Only when it's actually locked, though. Have cursed this many times. Always need to go back into the car, wait for MBUX to wake up, decide it wants to show me the vehicle settings screen, then go turn off interior monitoring and/or tow-away alarm. The tow-away alarm is a pain in the butt when unloading a trailer, by the way, as that'll set it off...

Indeed. MB really has gone full nanny state, both alarm and driver assist features. It's ridiculous.
Need to get on with getting Xentry/Vediamo running so I can code out all this crap, hopefully.

 

This all seems like a terrible bug in the software in some markets or model years. Like I and some others have said, our alarms work exactly like in the manual. It ONLY arms when we lock the car, never by itself. I'm in the EU, but the US manual says the same thing. It's not that Mercedes wants it to arm by itself, because the manual says it should arm when locked. It should NOT arm by itself if the car is unlocked.

 

I agree. That's why initially I was also convinced it was a bug, until I talked about it with the dealer.
But just to be sure, I just sent an e-mail to MB BE, detailing the issues I'm having (both auto-lock and alarm going off when opening the tailgate). We'll see what they say.

 

I think we've covered all the possibilities that the Forum can think of.
Everything points to a bug, not a dastardly scheme from Mercedes.

 

Nearly 3 weeks later, and MB BE hasn't felt the need to reply yet. Wonderful.

 

We had a 450 that did just as you say. If someone opened the door when unlocked and the key was not nearby it would alarm. Traded it and got the same year 63 and it does not do this. There is something different in the programs on certain cars and when I presented the question to the dealer there was not a valid reason. You would think the same year model GLE's would all be programmed the same but it apparently is not the case. The 63 also takes much longer to "boot up" when you get in it than the 450 did. Traded up and some of these little "things" feel like we traded down.