JPent

I know I'm asking a lot of questions - I really appreciate everyone's input and experiences.

What are your thoughts on the Driver Assist Package? Worth the money? Honestly, when I went for my test drive, I was a little overwhelmed by all the technology but by the end and after playing around, I liked some of the features and I think I will get used to it. The last time I drove a Mercedes was over 10 years ago and things have certainly changed. I keep my cars for 10+ years if I can as I don't really care to switch my cars out a lot. I love German cars and plan on any future cars being Mercedes, so I'm going to have to get used to all the new technology and gadgets. I go into all this because I feel at first I may be a little distracted by the beeping and wondering what its for. However, the salesperson was explaining how much safer it is, and I guess I just wanted to see what your thoughts are on this particular package.

Thanks!

cincy8

If you look thru inventory, it looks to me like most cars have this.
Yes, occasionally the car beeps when you approach a bridge at an angle thinking you might hit it, or the car tries to steer you to stay in your lane when you mean to change lanes (use the turn the signal!), but I think it's worth it.

I'm know it's caught me once or twice when I didn't see a car in my blindspot and started to veer over.

I also like that the cruise control keeps you at a safe distance from the car ahead.

c4004matic

A most definite must have. It should be standard on a vehicle price. Its just another way to jack up the price. A practice that Mercedes-Benz has always been unashamedly guilty of.

nc211

I don’t have the distronic drivers assistance package on mine, and honesty, kind’ve glad I don’t. The car has blind spot protection, and the cameras are excellent with providing a 180 degree image for backing up or pulling out and seeing down each path for oncoming traffic. Parking assist is a must have but think it’s pretty standard.

I thought I really wanted the distance control cruise control until I started hearing about a sense of jerkiness when the car your pacing behind leaves and it races up to the next one to match the distance, or abruptly slows if someone merges over between you. I can flick the button on the steering wheel myself instead.

I do like the idea of the lane keep assist and it’s ability to steer between the lines for you for a few seconds. That I will admit sounds nice on a long cruise. But again, not a major loss for me to not have it, and would likely irritate me if wanting to gently change lanes on an empty highway and not needing to use the blinker to do so to keep it from fighting me or beeping at me.

In my opinion - if you have to choose like I did between one with 20’ inch wheels but more driving assistance tech, or the 21’ inch wheels and less tech - I’d say go for the wheels instead. Their width and slightly lower profile tire make it very nimble and tracks like a freight train.

I do wish it would show me the speed limit though. But again, I see posts with those who have that feature being annoyed at how the car won’t go past the posted speed limit when it’s on. I’d just like to know as an FYI. My 2015 VW does it and no camera involved.

end of the day - a benz’s true joy is in the drive. Sometimes too much tech gadgets can interfere with that pleasure for some of us. I’m one of them. My 2014 E350 sedan has none of the driver assist stuff, not even blind spot monitor - and I flippin’ love that car!!

superswiss

The Driver Assist Package is really a collection of two kinds of features. The first kind are safety features and the second kind are assistance features that take over some of the driving tasks if desired by the driver. None of them are blocking the driver from doing anything and they all can be turned off if they are not wanted for whatever reason. The speed limit recognition (it recognizes the actual speed limit signs) does not prevent you from driving faster than the speed limit for example. Not sure where that misconception comes from. It's FYI, but if you so desire you can either manually adopt or let it automatically adopt the current speed limit as the set speed for DISTRONIC. The automatic adoption can be turned off, which is what I've done, but the current speed limit can be adopted as the set speed at any time by pressing Resume while DISTRONIC is active. That's very convenient to set the initial speed for DISTRONIC, and then increase it in increments to what you want and it will stay there even if a lower speed limit comes up. I had the automatic adoption turned on in Europe, because speed limits there change frequently and the enforcement is much more strict, so it was helpful to avoid being caught by any of the speed traps.

The car has some base safety features even w/o the driver assistance package, but if you add it they become more capable. For example if I remember correctly it doesn't recognize pedestrians by default, but with the driver assistance package it does. With the driver assistance package it also recognizes stationary objects such as cars in the road and the safety systems work over a wider range of speeds. The owner's manual should have a comparison table that shows what these systems can and cannot do with or w/o the driver assistance package.

As for the assistance system, they can be useful and reduce driver fatigue on long journeys and/or increase your level of alertness if you can leave some of the tasks such as keeping your speed and staying within the lane markings to the car so you can focus more on what's going on around you. Studies have shown that using these features makes the driver more alert. Mercedes actually has implemented them quite smart to avoid the driver from nodding off and getting bored. For example the Active Steering Assist doesn't keep the car perfectly centered and allows a little bit of swerving, so the driver regularly has to help along, which keeps you awake and alert. We've probably all seen some of those YouTube videos with Tesla drivers asleep behind the wheel and AutoPilot driving the car w/o them. That's partly a side effect of AutoPilot keeping the car dead center, so the driver gets bored, because in many situations they have nothing to do. Just to be clear here, Mercedes has two systems for keeping the car within the lane markings, and both can be individually turned on or off. The lane keeping assist as mentioned above is purely a safety system, so it falls into the first category. It alerts the driver if they are about to drift into another lane. It does this by vibrating the steering wheel and if necessary use course correcting braking to steer the car back into its lane and at the same time shock the driver into paying attention. The second system is called Active Steering Assist. That system is like Tesla AutoPilot. It actively steers the car, keeps it in the lane, negotiates turns and keeps you away from other cars. This is very useful on long journeys as it reduces your steering effort and you don't have to constantly make steering corrections to stay in your lane, and it's also very nice and useful in stop&go traffic where the car effectively drives itself along in conjunction with DISTRONIC. If traffic is particularly slow, you don't even have to periodically keep your hands on the steering wheel. You can literally chill and let the car follow the traffic.

Depending on what kind of driving situations you find yourself in, the Driver Assistance package is worth every penny. I have it in my AMG. If I wanna be fully in charge and drive the snot out of the car, I turn things off, but I also often do long road trips and occasionally find myself in stop&go traffic and then these systems are wonderful and make long distance driving less fatiguing and stop&go traffic less frustrating. Ever since my first car with adaptive cruise control I have decided never to get another car that doesn't have at least adaptive cruise control. Regular cruise control is pointless unless you often drive on empty highways in largely rural parts of the country, where you don't have to constantly fiddle with the set speed in order to avoid running into the car ahead of you. BTW, DISTRONIC in combination with the Active Steering Assist can also change lanes on its own. Just turn on the blinker and if the lane next to you is clear, it will automatically perform the lane change. Not that one can't do that themselves, but it just adds to reducing fatigue and makes long drives very relaxing.

sunnyvali

Thank you for posting such a detailed explanation of this option and features. I learned quite a bit and do use these features quite regularly. It is a must have in my opinion and like you, will not buy a car without adaptive cruise control.