adisco93

Just got an email from Mercedes about the upcoming expiration of my current services- Remote Engine Start, Remote Door Lock/Unlock, Vehicle Locator etc.
My vehicle is approaching it's 1 year anniversary- weren't these services supposed to last 3 years??? I took a look at the page MB directs you to, these services aint cheap!!
Anyone paying for these already? Is it worth it?

darlop

What model year? My 2020 has 3 free years but I wouldn't be surprised if they reduced it.

I don't use them enough to justify paying for it. The remote start is mostly pointless since it turns off as soon as you open the door. If you want to cool down or warm up your car then you need to remember to start it a few minutes before you are leaving. And you can't set the AC controls in the app so you have to remember to put them where you want them before you get out of the car. Obviously designed by someone who never daily drives one of these with a family.

adisco93

Model year 2022. Picked it up in Feb 2022.

z28lt1

I believe they changed it late in 2021 (from 3 years to 1) So, Feb 2022 should be 1 year, unless the car sat on the lot for a long time.

PPL1

As far as I know, all the literature on these services refer to three-year duration, unless something unique with your model. The easiest way to check is to login to your Mercedes Me Connect account and check the term, mine is a 2020 MY and it just ended in late December, after 3 years. The only feature worth renewing for me was the remote lock/unlock, in case I forget to lock it and leave the car for a while ($15/yr.), as for the remote start, I agree with darlop.

ksalno

My GLS580 just passed its 3rd year and I renewed. But it’s an ala cart process. You can pick and choose what you want to keep and what you don’t. I have never used remote start, so I didn’t renew that. I use my phone and CarPlay for navigation, so I didn’t get the map updates and traffic alerts. I think if you get everything it’s close to $200/year but my bill was under $100. Just another way the car companies are bypassing the dealers and extracting money directly from their customers. I know BMW is adding annual charges for some features like seat heating. That is ridiculous.

sgawiser

Our 2020 E 450 was three years but our 2023 is 1 year. Guess the idea is to figure out how to get more revenue!

darlop

These remote features have always been a monthly fee but they usually give you a free period. I don't have a problem with this since these features require cloud infrastructure which needs to be maintained.

Where we absolutely need to draw the line though is paying to "unlock" hardware that is already in our cars like heated seats and auto climate control.

superswiss

Yeah, there really are only two ways about it. These infrastructures don't run themselves, so either the vendor sells your data and whereabouts and pushes out targeted ads in exchange for "free" use of the services, that's the Google model, or you get to keep control over your data and pay a subscription instead, but there is no free lunch. As for the free period, they changed it from 3 years to 1 year with model years 2021.

jbattan

Mercedes me (née mBrace) has been crap for years. I always let it expire, for all nine of my cars. It's very slow, times out often, authentication is painful, and you can't manage the service through the app; you have to call them. In my 2021 that I still have free service on, I pushed the Info button to ask them something about an indicator, and the connection failed six out of the nine times, they hung up on me twice, and the guy didn't know what to do on the one final time I got through. Completely worthless.

superswiss

Just to be clear. mBrace has been replaced with Mercedes me connect starting with model years 2019. It's not the same system anymore. New phone app, too, and most of the services are now managed through the app. I never had to call them for anything. I did have a couple of issues in the past, for example live traffic stopped working during the pandemic, but all got resolved by contacting them via email. Last time I had to call a live person was during the initial setup on delivery day. The web portal was not working at the time as the new platform had just been released, so they had to activate things from their end. I was sitting in the car with the sales guy. Me on my laptop, him on his tablet and Mercedes me support on the car's phone, but we managed to get it all working. My experience has been very good with Mercedes me connect and I recently renewed most services after the initial 3 years expired. Never used remote start, so didn't renew that, but the alerts are nice to let me know the car is unlocked or if the battery is low and I use it frequently to send destinations to the car's nav. Live traffic is also very accurate in my area. Can't complain for roughly $10/month. Maps update frequently, and I can check on the car's status any time. Thanks to OTA updates it even took care of recalls w/o a dealer visit, and dealerships can actually do remote diagnostics if you have an issue with the car.

sunnyvali

I renewed all available services for additional one year for my Feb. 2020 GLS450.

adisco93

Car was manufactured on 01/22.

jbattan

That reminds me of another huge reason why I hate the Mercedes me service. It reminds me when I have left my car unlocked, even though it's parked in my own garage with the garage door closed. There is no way to disable this warning unless I log out of the app. Extremely stupid design.

superswiss

It would be neat to define geofences where you don't want certain alerts, but other systems are not much different. For example Apple Maps also marks my garage as the parking location. Don't really need it to remember that I parked the car at home. You can do much more using home automation tools, specifically Home Assistant which has a plugin for Mercedes me connect. So then you can set up an automation that only sends the alert if the car is unlocked, but not parked at home. I played around with Home Assistant for example to automatically open my garage door as I pull up. Ended up not using it, because there's a delay in how often the car reports its location, so sometimes the garage wouldn't open until I was already in front of it, but the technical capabilities are there for those who have a smart home and want to do some more complex things.

adisco93

Many thanks for this.

EWL5

Is it still stupid if your car is ever stolen from a public lot the one time you forget to lock the car despite your phone getting the message?

jbattan

yup

mikapen

Go to your phone -> apps and disable notifications for Mercedes me, or any other apps for that matter, one at a time.

jbattan

That's not what I want. There are other notifications from the app that I want to continue to receive, for curfew, speed limit, and accident. Turning them off on the phone turns off all notifications including those.

MDMercedesGuy

I'm going to go out on a limb here...

You could always just lock your car?

TNS550

In the words of the venerable Sir Mick Jagger, "You can't always get what you want."..........As I have also found with a couple of features of my GLS.