My wife & I cruised to FL(from Canada) these last few days. We started in a snowstorm, then freezing rain, then amazing heat, and finally a major rainfall. I had loaded on the hitch bike rack with 2 bicycles, and used a ATV vinyl cover to protect, along with half a roll of duct tape to keep it on!
First day was... 'eventful' to say the least, with the Distronic Plus shutting off numerous times??? explanation to follow.... Worse still, the driver's side mirror warning light flashed occasionally, with no cars beside us... Then, (especially when passing semis, the ML would jerk to the right... basically the avoidance system was somehow thinking there was a vehicle on our left??? How could that be??? I was in the left lane, and NO, I wasn't 'straddling' the outside line! I originally put it down to a frozen sensor! Wrong! When the weather started to warm, and I had had enough of steering jerks/rear brake steering, etc, we pulled over to get a handle on things, restarted car a few times, blah, blah, blah!
Answer: the f-cking vinyl tarp I had used to protect the bicycles had come loose, and was 'flapping' in the left rear corner!!! The ML's sensors were trying to protect us from an "imminent" left rear end hit from behind!!! When the flapping vinyl moved/blew the right way, the sensors detected a possible collision, and took 'appropriate' action. Tore the cover off at the side of the road and no more surprise veering to the right! I have to say I changed my underwear that evening, LOL! Trucks are not fun to play chicken with, let alone the car wanting to take you by surprise! Our understanding was that the trucks' wind and draft had the tarp flap just right, and initiate it's response.
So, you've now been warned, the system works well.... really well!
Lots of what ifs came to our minds... glad it was something simple. Might have been tough to explain to our Insurance Co., LOL!

 

Good to know. I vaguely remember a few years ago someone else also posting about a similar experience. This is only with the "active" saftey features. In their case, I can't remember what the car was sensing on one side of the vehicle but it veer the vehicle to the other side almost into another car. My wife would say these are trying to be too smart for their own good.

 

Exactly!!! Forgot to add, when the Distronic first failed 3x, We were in the midst of an Ice storm, and the center emblem(radar) was iced up considerably! I, stupidly, just assumed that some other sensors had screwed up, giving the car the 'read' to rear left brake and lurch the car to the right, heheh, to try and take out a Semi! Somewhat scary, as one could never 'relax' with the steering wheel. You never knew when it would lurch again, and have to fight back!