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#26
HeatherA
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Join Date: Sep 2019
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2016 C300



I just had this happen yesterday. (Very) fortunately, I was driving in my neighborhood and was able to pull over right away. ALL of the lights lit up on my dash, and message said, “Collision Prevent Assist Inoperative” AND car lost power; pushing down gas had very little effect. Had this happened on the highway, it could have been very bad. My two small children were with me. Just had maintenance done at independent garage... wondering if they could have caused something? I don’t drive the car that much. Wondering if it is even safe to drive it to dealer? That’s 45 mins away, much of it driving on D.C. Beltway. My Blind Spot Assist had also been randomly inoperative for a couple of months prior. Had that checked last month and they “were not able to replicate” nor find any computer clues as to the source of the issue. Basically implied that I might be imagining it. Husband implied that it was user error! Makes me so mad; I’m not stupid, I know my car, and obviously the occurrence yesterday was not user error...

 

20. Raoul, 18 E300

 

Here is the latest, for others who are trying to get this issue addressed. The response from MBUSA gets more comical by the day.

A Senior "retention specialist" from the MBUSA CAC made me a "goodwill offer", to be used toward trading in my dangerously-defective vehicle toward another MB product.

This offer was equivalent to roughly 25% of the negative equity in the car - given I am 15 months into a lease. I would have been absorbing five-figures of negative equity to exit the lease and move into a new vehicle which does not have this defect. I was told this offer was "final and non-negotiable". I was told paying "a little more for a car without the issue" was a good idea. (!!!)

A few weeks later, I was given another higher offer - still less than half of the delta between payoff and car value - and I was told "a letter will be mailed" explaining the offer. This letter was never mailed, I was unable to consider it.

Now MBUSA is taking the position that the offer "expired", before I ever formally received it, and they are refusing to communicate at all.

They have been made aware - the CAC as well as the MBUSA legal team - of these issues, and the list of customers here.

So for anyone who has posted about your issues, and ends up with any damages related to these malfunctions, those damages have now formally and legally been incurred *after* making MBUSA aware of the defect. I am also happy to share the contact info for my rep at the CAC so that everyone can formally register your complaint - please PM me and I'll pass it along privately and directly.

MBUSA is effectively saying that the near-misses all of us are having are not a concern to them - it's the worst version I have ever seen of buyer-beware.

 

Has anyone thought of going to their local TV station or newspaper? Negative publicity, together with the huge fines MB just was assessed in Germany for their own diesel emission scandal might be the only thing that moves them.

This offer seems to me to be admission of some defect in the car.

 

One only has to look at how Porsche handled the cheaply designed and built 996 and Boxster engines from the late 90's to the late 2000's to not be surprised by another German company's despicable handling of their own mistakes.

 

Yes, I have a contact and will reach out to them next week and get this moving.

The MBUSA CAC just told my dealer that the "goodwill offer" they extended to me is "no longer available". So now we have (a) safety defects, (b) amazing lack of response, and (c) zero integrity in their dealings with customers - failing to honor an offer that was formally made by a senior executive???

Mercedes, setting new standards for poor customer service!

 

Stumbled across this thread while searching for the issue among sprinter owners. I just started getting this warning within the last week. It’s gotten more and more common and yesterday happened 8 times within town all within about 15 minutes.

It’s never happened previously. And there’s never anything in my way nor am I approaching anything too fast.

first time was heading up the the mountain skiing (slippery road) and the warning went off. I thought it was the traction control. Finally it beeped more than twice so that I could see what the graphic was.

brakes have never been engaged thank goodness. On ice this would be a disaster.

any updated on the issue?

I have a 2016 2500 sprinter van with 4wd. Thanks

 

I have a 2017 E300 with mileage in the low 20,000s. Never had this problem in the three years I’ve owned the car...until yesterday. We were driving on a major road at about 35 mph with no other cars anywhere close. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, the brakes slammed on hard and the seatbelts rapidly retracted. I don’t recall hearing any sounds like beeps. It was very startling. At first, I thought we may have hit something in the road but there wasn’t anything. Had there been a car behind us, the sudden stop could have caused a rear end collision. Also, I am a very experienced driver and, while startled, didn’t lose control. Could be different with an inexperienced driver (imagine a newly licensed teenager encountering this). Now I’m concerned that it could happen again, maybe in traffic with a car close behind.

 

20. Jdski, e450 coupe

 

I have a 2020 E450 coupe which has less than 1500 miles on it. My husband was driving about 30 mph down a straight road at night when the car suddenly came to a full stop, ABS kicked on and seatbelts locked with no warning. There was nothing near us, though it was drizzling, and I'm sure my car was quite dirty from the rain, so maybe the sensors were dirty?

I had a 2017 C300 coupe for three years and never experienced anything remotely like this, even when the car was filthy.

Based on the posts here, it sounds like I need to take it in to be checked out.

 

This is my third episode of unwarranted emergency braking in my 2017 E300. Basically exact same experience as last time which was reported earlier in this thread. I was in the left lane of a divided four-lane road going about 20 mph as I accelerated from a traffic light 300 feet behind me, The closest car in front was several hundred feet away. Without any warning or beeps the brakes were slammed on and the seat belts tensioned. My wife later said she had seen three kids running in the opposite direction (towards our car) on the sidewalk one lane over to the right. Hard to imagine they would have triggered the episode since they were no threat and on a sidewalk a full lane over to our right. Fortunately nobody was close behind us. Gave us both quite a scare.

Has anyone ever gotten an explanation or remedy from MB about this apparently somewhat common and very dangerous flaw? Shouldn't there be a recall for something like this?

 

I also have a 2017 E300 with about 20,000 miles. I have had this happen 3 times where I am stopped usually on an uneven surface or bridge grate and when starting to accelerate the car slams on the brakes and scares the heck out of me. Thank goodness there was no one following close behind when I accelerated. Scary!

 

I hope someone can find out why this happens.. this is very dangerous.. there was no reason for the car to auto jam on the brakes

 

Add mimisbenz e300 same problem

 

I have a 2019 GLC300 and have the same issue. This happens every day under overpasses at about 30mph or less. MB says system operating normally.

 

Very scary and the dealerships say they never heard of it! 🙀

 

 

Is this happening on cars that have DISTRONIC or is this happening regardless, even with Collision Prevention Assist (PLUS)? My 2016 E350 has CPA+ and has given me a couple of false warnings, but never any braking.

I know it is an inconvenience, but you guys should consider disabling these systems for now if your car is doing this daily.

 

In my case, I have the driver assistance package which includes distronic. This only happens when distronic is on. I tried turning off the braking assist but it still does it.
Dealer claims they never heard of it. After being on here, there are too many people with the same issue. MB should replace whatever faulty part is causing the Issue.

 

I have posted this on the W213 forum https://mbworld.org/forums/e-class-w...ml#post7940101

But to recap, mine has the whole assistance package (came as standard, alas), and I haven't had any incident like this for over a year, since disabling the active steering assist. Hope this fix can help some of you.

My theory is that with steering assist on, the car would also rely on the camera inputs for driving-related functions (instead of just speed sign recognition), and cameras are much less reliable than radars when it comes to detecting obstacles, or lack thereof. I have the assistance screen on the whole time in the instrument cluster, and the radar only really struggled once with a white car reflecting the sun back at it.

 

I keep Active Steering Assist off at all times except maybe once a year when I do a do a long roadtrip. Each of the three phantom breaking incidents I encountered were with Active Steering Assist off.

 

Just to clarify I mean to disable the system (with the hardware button), not just keeping it off (not using the cruise control).

But I imagine there are probably several systems that could potentially result in the sudden breaking. And the latest incident you posted about is different from all mine in that they all came with the two rapid beeps right before the embarrassing head slam.

Hopefully you can isolate and deal with the culprit(s) soon, or, however improbable it is, perhaps MB can get its act together and patch/fix this somehow.

 

My active brake assist is set to the Standard when I turn on the car. I've had the same scenario occur as most other users, driving through traffic and someone brakes and approaches left turn lane, the car thinks hes braking in a straight line and beeps and sometimes activates the braking system. Also happened when trying to squeeze through a gap, the car suddenly braked and the vehicle behind me almost rear-ended me.

I've seen another post that talks about removing a fuse in the trunk. Anybody done this? Mercedes should allow you to choose your permanent settings when taking it in for service. The beeping is obnoxious at times, though it doesn't actually endanger the safety of the passengers of the vehicle like activation of the brakes.

 

Here's the update on my situation:

-I have video proof of these defects.
-I filed a claim with the BBB 'lemon law' department. Despite the proof being clear, the arbitrator dismissed the case because of an unrelated issue (short version: in addition to this defect, a different defect caused minor injury, so the BBB dismissed the whole thing as an 'injury incident').
-I don't have the time or energy to deal with lawyering-up. The case is cut and dry, but I am just way too busy.

If anyone out there is dealing with these same issues, send me a private message and I am happy to share the contact info of the MBUSA CAC Senior manager who was on my case. I would be happy for them to understand how many people are dealing with this very dangerous defect.


Note: I do not have distronic. Or active steering assist.