Roni07

JUN- 2019- garage parked my 2016 GLE350 4MATIC and locked it. Was gone for a a week- came back and the car wouldn’t start. Battery was completely flat. Had to call MB roadside and have my battery replaced for $300 out of pocket cost. MB tech says not normal for 4 year old battery to die. The dealer kept the car overnight to check for voltage drain etc. No issues found.

NOV 2020 - 2016 GLE350 4Matic, brought my vehicle in to have the rims repaired. Dealer had the car for 5 days- parked in their lot. Went to pick up car and the mechanic couldn’t start it. Had to jump it.
I resisted to pick up the car and the dealer agreed to kelp it and trouble shooting it to find out why a 1 year old MB battery would die in a parked vehicle.

JAN-2020- my wife’s 2017 GLC300 was locked and parked for 5 days. Came back and battery was totally flat. Mercedes replaced under warranty.

“”””We always check the interior and exterior of the vehicle before locking it and leaving it parked in the garage. Too many coincidences for these MB batteries to go totally flat in about a week. This is not normal. Has anyone else experienced this ?
We live in a warm climate state. Weird, we’ve never had problems with batteries in previous vehicles. We are uncomfortable to leave our vehicles parked for a week now. It’s such a hassle to deal with dead batteries.

enduro963

Agree, not normal. My wife rarely uses her 2017 GLC400 during the Pandemic. I have been using a CTEK charger once a month because the auto start/stop was not working. From what I read here, the small battery beneath the rear seat may be dying. After charging, all is well for a few days...

My 2020 GLC300 sends me an App notification that the battery is low if I don’t use the car for a week! Welcome to the future!

My conclusion is that I either use the car or I charge the battery. Doing nothing is not an option. Good luck!

Roni07

~~ My wife's 2017 GLC300 battery was changed under warranty. There aren't 2 batteries-The second one hooked up to Start Stop is a Capacitor.
I might have to buy a charger to keep this luxury vehicle running. Too many battery issues with these vehicles I believe the battery is not the problem but a engineering design flaw.
We've never had any battery problems with vehicles 1/4 of the price. My wife and I agree, stay away from MB. not trustworthy

enduro963

Sorry, my wife’s car is a GLE!

Don’t despair, these are good cars. I hope the dealer can fix your issues.

Roni07

The dealer just said that the battery, which was 1 year old, had a weak cell and was draining the battery 🔋. It was replaced under battery warranty. In 5 years we’ve replaced 2 batteries. In 4 years my wife’s glc300 had to have battery replaced. MB is having too many of these “bad batch” batteries

superswiss

Aside from truly bad batteries, there's actually another reason for this. When you park the car, they don't fully shut down. They maintain an Internet connection, so that you can do things like opening/closing the windows, remote start the engine and check status from the app on your phone. That drains the battery over time. It's essentially the same thing as your smartphone on standby and also if you have a weak cell signal it uses more battery than if you have a strong signal. As mentioned above, the newer models which use the new Mercedes Me connect platform instead of the old mBrace send an app notification if the battery charge reaches critical, so you can go for a drive or hook it up to a tender before the battery goes flat. There is also a standby mode in COMAND, which is meant for when you plan to not drive the car for a while. Not entirely sure if the older COMAND has this, but when activated it turns off the Internet connection etc. and the car can be parked for an extended time. It even tells you for how long you can park it in standby mode before the battery may need to be charged first. Standby mode turns off automatically the next time the ignition is turned on, so you have to turn it on every time you plan on not driving the car for a while, but it works. I use it when going on vacation for 2+ weeks and the battery is fine, whereas w/o standby I start getting critical battery notifications on my phone after about a week. Happens every time the car is in for service that takes longer and I let my SA know when I start getting the battery notifications.

enduro963

I did not know about the standby mode, thanks for the headsup @superswiss ! We have not travelled this year because of Corona, but hope to do it ASAP after we get vaccinated.

Roni07

- The SA told me they tested - alternator etc they found out that 2 out of the 6 cells in the battery were bad and not holding charge, causing the battery to discharge and apparently all computer programming. So they replaced the battery and had to reprogram everything. Yes I understand about the smarts of the vehicle etc but I think there’s a defect with MB batteries. The same thing happened to my wife GLC300. Too many coincidences. If the car is parked for 7 days, battery might go low. But my 1st battery was completely flat. The new battery was super low and had to be jump started , after being parked for 2 days. My MBrace has expired. Nothing for me to do on the Mercedes Me App. When it was active, I tried many times to remote start it and it was embarrassing, standing at the parking lot for 15 minutes, waiting for the car to start. Watched a guy with a Ford-150. From the restaurant, hit a button and his truck started immediately. I looked at my wife, as we were watching our luxury $75K vehicle, a circle ⭕️ spinning on app, trying to establish communication with vehicle, etc , it was painful watching this process for 15 minutes. It eventually worked but useless to us due to being so sluggish. We never use that Remote start option. We’ve never worried about a irked vehicle in our lives. Never know if it will start. We live in a warm place. I can’t imagine if we lived in a cold place, these flaky batteries won’t work after leaving the car parked for 24hrs in low temps. The SA said that the problem was with the battery, it wasn’t holding the charge.
soinds like a defect to me as opposed to a system or user problem.
QUOTE=superswiss;8217126]Aside from truly bad batteries, there's actually another reason for this. When you park the car, they don't fully shut down. They maintain an Internet connection, so that you can do things like opening/closing the windows, remote start the engine and check status from the app on your phone. That drains the battery over time. It's essentially the same thing as your smartphone on standby and also if you have a weak cell signal it uses more battery than if you have a strong signal. As mentioned above, the newer models which use the new Mercedes Me connect platform instead of the old mBrace send an app notification if the battery charge reaches critical, so you can go for a drive or hook it up to a tender before the battery goes flat. There is also a standby mode in COMAND, which is meant for when you plan to not drive the car for a while. Not entirely sure if the older COMAND has this, but when activated it turns off the Internet connection etc. and the car can be parked for an extended time. It even tells you for how long you can park it in standby mode before the battery may need to be charged first. Standby mode turns off automatically the next time the ignition is turned on, so you have to turn it on every time you plan on not driving the car for a while, but it works. I use it when going on vacation for 2+ weeks and the battery is fine, whereas w/o standby I start getting critical battery notifications on my phone after about a week. Happens every time the car is in for service that takes longer and I let my SA know when I start getting the battery notifications.[/QUOTE]

superswiss

[/QUOTE]

Yes, in your case I would agree you had some bad luck with batteries. Unfortunately, what I've come to find out is that replacement parts are often stored and shipped carelessly, so they arrive defective and while they appear to solve the issue at first it soon becomes apparent that the replacement is defective as well. For example, I had a leaking transmission 7 years ago in my 2013 Audi RS5. It was discovered during my first service. The oil filter came loose at some point and dented the oil pan. So the filter was not properly attached from the factory, but getting the oil pan fixed took two visits to the dealer for a total of like 4 weeks in the shop. It turned out that the new oil pan cover they ordered got damaged during shipping. It was slightly bent and didn't make a proper seal. I discovered a couple of days later that the transmission was still leaking. Took it in again, and the dealership flew out an Audi engineer, because they suspected that my transmission may be out of tolerance, however, after measuring the pan cover they discovered that it was bent. They ordered another one and measured it before attempting to install it. Guess what? It was bent as well. So ordered another one and finally the third one was a charm. I had a conversation with the SA about it afterwards and he said unfortunately this is common. Many of the parts are not shipped in protective packaging and just thrown onto shelves in the warehouses. It's done under the directive to reduce packaging waste, but I'm sure it was also supposed to save money. The warehouse workers and shippers just don't care, so your batteries could have been improperly stored or damaged during shipment. You'll never know. This was not the last time for me when replacement parts clearly got damaged during storage or shipment. Most recent one was with MB.

I hear you on mBrace. It was a crappy system and has been replaced by a new platform called Mercedes Me connect along with a new phone app, which actually just recently was replaced with a major redesigned app. So far this stuff actually mostly works. The initial version of the new Mercedes Me connect app and the corresponding new platform had some growing pains. It was rolled out starting with the 2019 models, but it clearly wasn't quite ready when the first 2019 models left the factory. Eventually, they sorted most of the issues out, and the latest version of the app seems pretty reliable so far. The app is also supposed to receive updates much more frequently.

Roni07

Wow surprised to hear about the Audi. It’s rated much higher than MB.

Yes, in your case I would agree you had some bad luck with batteries. Unfortunately, what I've come to find out is that replacement parts are often stored and shipped carelessly, so they arrive defective and while they appear to solve the issue at first it soon becomes apparent that the replacement is defective as well. For example, I had a leaking transmission 7 years ago in my 2013 Audi RS5. It was discovered during my first service. The oil filter came loose at some point and dented the oil pan. So the filter was not properly attached from the factory, but getting the oil pan fixed took two visits to the dealer for a total of like 4 weeks in the shop. It turned out that the new oil pan cover they ordered got damaged during shipping. It was slightly bent and didn't make a proper seal. I discovered a couple of days later that the transmission was still leaking. Took it in again, and the dealership flew out an Audi engineer, because they suspected that my transmission may be out of tolerance, however, after measuring the pan cover they discovered that it was bent. They ordered another one and measured it before attempting to install it. Guess what? It was bent as well. So ordered another one and finally the third one was a charm. I had a conversation with the SA about it afterwards and he said unfortunately this is common. Many of the parts are not shipped in protective packaging and just thrown onto shelves in the warehouses. It's done under the directive to reduce packaging waste, but I'm sure it was also supposed to save money. The warehouse workers and shippers just don't care, so your batteries could have been improperly stored or damaged during shipment. You'll never know. This was not the last time for me when replacement parts clearly got damaged during storage or shipment. Most recent one was with MB.

I hear you on mBrace. It was a crappy system and has been replaced by a new platform called Mercedes Me connect along with a new phone app, which actually just recently was replaced with a major redesigned app. So far this stuff actually mostly works. The initial version of the new Mercedes Me connect app and the corresponding new platform had some growing pains. It was rolled out starting with the 2019 models, but it clearly wasn't quite ready when the first 2019 models left the factory. Eventually, they sorted most of the issues out, and the latest version of the app seems pretty reliable so far. The app is also supposed to receive updates much more frequently.[/QUOTE]

superswiss

Rated higher by whom? I don't pay attention to consumer reports, JD Powers and such. It's a bunch of baloney. Those are based on self-reported surveys and people report issues if they can't figure out how to operate the Infotainment system. There's no scientific normalization. It's like Yelp and other review sites. It's mostly the upset people that write negative reviews. I've never filled out any of those surveys. They go straight to recycling. Crowd sourced ratings is total garbage. You can't trust the masses. Complex machines have issues, what matters is how they get resolved.

barsaec

My GLs are parked for days on end sometimes. The GLS is basically our road-trip car that we drive 2-3 times a month for long weekends. Never had a problem with the battery. My MB experience with batteries is I had to replace one on my 2011 E350Bluetec in 2016 at the 5 year point. The tech stated it had two weakened cells, and recommended replacing it. I did and no further problems. I must admit I did have a few slow cranks in the weeks leading up to the service. MB uses bosch batteries which are expensive, but tend to be a higher quality battery compared to the ones found at Walmart/AutoZone. Our GLE is 4 years old and stays outside in the elements since we got the GLS in July, and have not had a problem with it. Make sure the batteries do get checked at service B intervals. I use a dedicated MB shop (non-dealer) for service. Good Luck.

Roni07

- Rated by Consumer Report, Car
and Driver and various other sources. They poll and survey customers with experienced problems and Customer Satisfaction with vehicle and dealer experience. For example C&D UK tested MB at the bottom of the list, based on Customer Satisfaction with their dealer, vehicle experience. MB was horrible experience. KIA and the rest were at the top. MB customer felt that Mercedes didn’t care about them nor did they listen to their feedback. I have to agree with that. Every time I talked to MB HQ in Atlanta, they brushed me off and all the problems I reported “were normal” and “in spec”’
Audi traditionally get high ratings on design, drive and dependability. Also Audi scores high in Quality up there with Porsche and Lexus, Acura. MB is either in the middle of the bottom. When you complain to dealer or MB , they usually come with goofy excuses like “ it’s normal” “we can’t replicated it”. “There’s no issue”. For example , the battery problem , this isn’t an issue of “did you lock your car”
We have two vehicles that were parked for 5 days “locked and armed” that battery went flat. Last time they checked for voltage drain, they didn’t find anything. This time they found bad battery cells. This isn’t an issue with what the car is doing. This is a battery defect. My wife’s GLC300, 3 year old battery
went flat, after vehicle being parked for 5 days. This isn’t normal but I’m sure if I call MB HQ, they’ll probably blame me. We’ve never had battery problems with any other vehicles in the last 29 years.
so if Consumer Report surveyed me, I wouldn’t give MB good marks. Not so much about the problems but when problems arise MB doesn’t acknowledge or accepts responsibility but instead deflects and Blames the consumer.

Roni07

- I don’t know what brand batteries Mercedes but they aren’t good. Too many battery issues issues reported but I don’t think MB will address it. I’m suspecting my newly installed battery isn’t going to last very long either. I already paid $400 for a defective battery replacement and o won’t be doing it again. MB needs to get their act together,soon.

superswiss

I get that, I'm just saying it's arbitrary to some extent. I've been active on Audi forums for something like 10 years. I can tell you I read the same stories over there of dealers and Audi saying it's normal etc. The stories here and on Audi forums are the same. That's why I'm saying, these surveys are rarely worth the paper they are written on. YMMV. Some people have bad luck, others don't.

bmwpowere36m3

High parasitic draw, TSBs attached that may apply. Just worked on a '18 GLA250 with similar issue. HERMES software was already updated, draw still persists. Requires dealer to install bus recorder to further diagnose why certain modules are waking up.

Some info here: https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...ml#post8280351

E55 KEV

4 years and only 15k miles on the GLE63s I'm on my 3rd main battery and 2nd AUX battery. All replaced under warranty. Next batteries will be at my expense so I'm gonna try this one from Walmart:

EverStart Platinum AGM Battery, Group Size H8 (12 Volt/900 CCA) - Walmart.com - Walmart.com

threeMBs

Since car is not driven often enough, consider using CTEK battery maintainer on the Main battery. While it will not save the AUX battery (unless one puts CTEK on it too), it will certainly save the Main one.

E55 KEV

Thanks. Not driven long distances but driven mostly everyday. I have another brand trickle charger mostly used on the garage queen. 2016 E63s has 9k miles and will be pulled from winter hiatus on April 1st LOL

threeMBs

Yes I've had 5 garage queens over the years as well, including current GLE43 (relative inactivity and short distances - 5K miles in 21 months - is mostly due to covid). All main batteries were on CTEK and all had original main batteries. SL had AUX battery replaced under the warranty, but Aux wasn't on CTEK, only the main one was.

superswiss

As Covid is dragging on it has gotten to the point where I had to hook mine up to a battery tender as well. I've lately been driving my wife's car, because it's been sitting in the garage for most of last year, and I had already put hers on a tender periodically, but now mine sits around sometimes for 1-2 weeks before I drive it again, and I had noticed that the Mercedes me app kept saying that the battery is only partially charged even after a 1 hour drive. My rate of driving at the moment is at 3000 miles/year. I'm thinking it'll pick up again later this year. Once the weather gets warmer I'll be heading out to the canyons again. Last year I still put on 8000 miles. But it got to the point where I had Service B done in early January, and I started to get critical battery alerts on my phone on the same day as they were performing the service. They had to do a software update, so the battery was being used, but it clearly didn't have a lot of juice left. The little driving I've been doing since then never managed to fully charge the battery according to the app, so I decided to hook it up to a tender and fully charge the battery. The app now reports it's fully charged and I've been doing a few longer drives since, which seems enough to keep it fully charged. So definitely highly recommend to hook it up to a tender if the car is driven infrequently or only for short distances.

SUV John

I get mine on a battery tender too for my 2016 GLE350. I'm out to make a 4 year old battery last. I also focus on driving to get the small battery to show it's getting charged as well. 7000 miles or so less while working at home has me coming due by time sooner than usual. I am delaying a few months on an A-check.
I'm curious where on the Mercedes Me app is battery information? I've only played with the app a few times to locate vehicle and remote start, but the app is so slow I don't really make use of it.

superswiss

You are on the old old app with the old mBrace service. Not sure if this feature is available there. I have a 2019 C63, so I'm on the new Mercedes me connect platform along with the Mercedes me connect app, which recently got a major new version, so I'm technically on the second app. Works much much better than even the previous Mercedes me connect app, but yes the old Mercedes me app seems terrible from what I've heard. No idea if they have plans to upgrade that and move you guys onto the new platform/app at some point.

chassis

I have the old mbrace app and there is no battery information included.

As I recall the Mercedes me connect from 2019 was launched as a "new service" and not included in the old mbrace service. I read a few posts on this site that the 2019 service uses a different technology partner than the problem-plagued mbrace offering.

There is no migration path that I am aware of for customers using the old mbrace app to use the newer Mercedes me connect, on 2018 and earlier vehicles.

superswiss

Correct, Mercedes me connect is a new platform, offering many of the same services, but also new ones. Migrating the old mBrace cars would definitely take at least a software update of the COMAND system. All models that use Mercedes me connect run NTG 5.5 or MBUX. The E Class switched from mBrace to Mercedes me connect with MY2019, so NTG 5.5 supports both. Traffic information for example is no longer through SiriusXM with NTG 5.5 and instead comes over the data connection from TomTom, at least initially. I think they've switched to HERE in the meantime, but I don't know for sure. NTG 5.5 with Mercedes me connect also has OTA updates, which is another thing that mBrace doesn't have, so we get regular map updates for example.