Refugee18

My rear parking brake actuator failed yesterday in my 2018 GLE350. I could not find a way to manually release the parking brake, and since the parking brake would not release, the car could not be driven. I find this "auto engage parking brake" feature is not necessary for me, and now it has demonstrated the ability to cause the actuator to fail preventing the vehicle from driving. Has anyone used the BenzNinja that advertises endlessly on this site to re-code this feature so the parking brake no longer activates automatically?

If so, what was your experience with BenjNinja, and did they correctly recode the W166 to stop the parking brake from automatically engaging?



Thank you

BlownV8

Never heard of coding that out. The actuators are not that expensive and will all fail. Oh, they are also easy to replace. I ordered mine off Amazon and highly recommend that if your vehicle in a rust belt state to do every 70k miles and if you are in the rainy south every 100k miles or less.

streborx

I'm always humored by these error messages that refer you to the owner's manual. In my G550's OM index, under "Parking Brake", it says "See Electric Parking Brake". Under Electric Parking Brake it refers you to a page with instruction for releasing the parking brake manually. It says nothing about the manual release not being able to operate a failed actuator. So you're screwed. The error message would be more useful if it said "Parking Brake - Speed Dialing Local MB Dealer Now".

Jr1244

I wouldn't waste time or money coding this feature out. I'd just replace the actuator, it's literally less than a $100 part and it takes about 5 minutes to change once you have the wheel off. My right rear failed, same error message. What I found is that the o-ring on the caliper wasn't sealing well and water had gotten into the plastic housing. I've heard you can do the replacement with the car on the ground, wheel on, but I'm sure that turns it into a 15-20 minute job.

Refugee18

I did the repair yesterday and agree it is not difficult or lengthy. The actuator has 2 T-30 bolts, an o-ring and an electrical connector. Once I had the car on the lift, the processing of removing the wheel (for ease of access) and replacing the actuator was about 15-20 minutes. This does not include using the scan tool to diagnose the bad actuator and test the replacement one after installation.

My interest in re-coding to disable this feature was the fact that the actuator failed in the locked position with no way to release or override it - the vehicle could not be driven with the parking brake engaged. Since I rarely use this parking brake, the idea of activating it only when I want to is attractive.

For anyone interested, I did speak with BenzNinja and they can do this specific re-code along with many other custom codings. Unfortunately, they have a minimum charge which was above my budget, and I did not need any of their other custom coding services. Based on my conversations with them, they are knowledgeable, capable, and patient, and I would not hesitate to use them for coding in the future if cost were not an issue for me.