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I decided to give this one more shot over the weekend. I burned a cdr with the laptop I use for DAS. I had previously burned DVD-R and CD-R with both Windows and Linux and had no success with any of them. This time I think I finally figured out why. I had always been getting into the menu and waiting until it asked for the disc before inserting the CD. Again, that failed this time. However, on the second try I put the disc in first... system griped because it was an invalid CD. THEN I got into the menu, tried the update, and it worked. I had the clock set to the right time already (easy to do if you park somewhere with no GPS reception). This let me set the date... not that it really matters. Even the service intervals haven't been wrong since I've owned the car, it just counts days and km since the last service. BUT... now it all works, which is one less little frustration. A big thanks and shout out to @Polar Bear for the fix.
Now, if only someone could keep Distronic/Park Assist from setting off alarms and/or panic braking on the highway every time I get near a newer Ford or some Toyotas... I'd pay for that fix.
You've had issues with the car panic braking? That's a major safety issue...I would definitely bring that up with the dealer. I've had issues with parktronic like everyone else, but never with the car braking by itself on the highway.
You've had issues with the car panic braking? That's a major safety issue...I would definitely bring that up with the dealer. I've had issues with parktronic like everyone else, but never with the car braking by itself on the highway.
the early cars with invisible front / rear radars to do the parking sensor bit, do freak out picking up Jaguar / Land Rover and Nissan frequencies and just go mental.... as do some temporary lights or cheapo aftermarket sensors. There is NO fix for this.
As for the car braking by itself on the highway - mine has ALWAYS done this on occasions. If you have disctronic plus on (active cruise control) certain vans cause it to freak out.
The standard set up is to have suspension level set up, then get all four wheels aligned. Then your dealer books up the special cruise alignment tool and they can adjust the main radar.... then it makes no difference whatsoever. So you have a "minor scope perform" carried out using STAR calibration tuning as you drive down the road. And it makes no difference at all... so you get you torx driver out and move the radar bit yourself till it drives correctly. Do half a turn at a time pointing it more into your lane.
I got it from from nasty hesitation all the time as is sees traffic in the lane beside you - down to only now and again, some HGV (tucks or whatever to u guys) or these odd panel vans cause it. I even had all radar sensors and BAS updated …. then post software update ONCE I was the only car on the road and it just stood on the brakes at 70mph down to about 35 mph.... not done it since but the changes from the software updates are worse than it was. So I don't recco it. Also reduced the point where it decides the rain is too much and you lose all cruise control … NEVER had that beforehand !!!
the early cars with invisible front / rear radars to do the parking sensor bit, do freak out picking up Jaguar / Land Rover and Nissan frequencies and just go mental.... as do some temporary lights or cheapo aftermarket sensors. There is NO fix for this.
As for the car braking by itself on the highway - mine has ALWAYS done this on occasions. If you have disctronic plus on (active cruise control) certain vans cause it to freak out.
The standard set up is to have suspension level set up, then get all four wheels aligned. Then your dealer books up the special cruise alignment tool and they can adjust the main radar.... then it makes no difference whatsoever. So you have a "minor scope perform" carried out using STAR calibration tuning as you drive down the road. And it makes no difference at all... so you get you torx driver out and move the radar bit yourself till it drives correctly. Do half a turn at a time pointing it more into your lane.
I got it from from nasty hesitation all the time as is sees traffic in the lane beside you - down to only now and again, some HGV (tucks or whatever to u guys) or these odd panel vans cause it. I even had all radar sensors and BAS updated …. then post software update ONCE I was the only car on the road and it just stood on the brakes at 70mph down to about 35 mph.... not done it since but the changes from the software updates are worse than it was. So I don't recco it. Also reduced the point where it decides the rain is too much and you lose all cruise control … NEVER had that beforehand !!!
Hmm interesting. Never had issue with panic braking. The collision warning thing works quite well too. I am pretty sure I am running the latest firmware on the modules. Did some major updates after I got the car. I should try cruise control see if I run into the same issues. Not a big cruise control fan.
You've had issues with the car panic braking? That's a major safety issue...I would definitely bring that up with the dealer. I've had issues with parktronic like everyone else, but never with the car braking by itself on the highway.
A few times. As @BOTUS describes, you'll be cruising down the road with Distronic-Plus engaged, and when passing certain vehicles... the car will brake sharply. I had it happen once when there was no vehicle in the right lane (that's the slow lane here, for you UK/Aussie/Japanese drivers), but there was a large diamond-shaped road construction sign there. It's highly inconsistent, but now that @BOTUS mentioned it... I believe it may have always happened on a curve, which would indicate maybe a less than perfect radar alignment. I'll be under the hood for a few other things over the next couple of weeks, maybe I'll try tweaking that just a little. Testing it is difficult, since it's really only happened 3-4 times over the past year-plus of driving.
Tried this today but it's a no go. The update applies quickly, then says "Software updated successfully. Please remove disc" but the unit won't restart. I've burnt 3 different CDs using Windows 10 and Ashampoo program recommended above.
I had my maps updated last July to the lastest available when the car had a service at the main dealer. Do I need to visit them again for an all round Comand update or is there anything else I can try in the meantime?
A few times. As @BOTUS describes, you'll be cruising down the road with Distronic-Plus engaged, and when passing certain vehicles... the car will brake sharply. I had it happen once when there was no vehicle in the right lane (that's the slow lane here, for you UK/Aussie/Japanese drivers), but there was a large diamond-shaped road construction sign there. It's highly inconsistent, but now that @BOTUS mentioned it... I believe it may have always happened on a curve, which would indicate maybe a less than perfect radar alignment. I'll be under the hood for a few other things over the next couple of weeks, maybe I'll try tweaking that just a little. Testing it is difficult, since it's really only happened 3-4 times over the past year-plus of driving.
one thing you can do, is go in the cluster and turn on the display so you can see what its seeing.... the little car thingy....
then you'll see it making mistakes frequently.... its very dim witted reacting late after processing with about 1 to 1.5 seconds delay..... if you are following cars in two lanes aim for the middle and you'll see which side its looking at... the software updates made the throttle lazier (from too much before) now too little in comfort and a bit too much in sport and braking from perfect to rubbish !!! could be worse I was in a VW and the stupid thing swa gaps between traffic and went after them....
My BMW was light years better…. it never offended me and never made mistakes... it was so good you could literally forget you were using it, it processed stuff instantly if a car went past and cut back in front... it ALWAYS went well he going faster than you so he can't hit you so don't react.... the merc stands on the brake trying to manage the 2 second rule everytime ….
I don't expect perfection. The radar cruise control in my wife's Volvo is near perfect, but it's nine years newer than the Mercedes, and that's a very long time for technology like that. I mostly would just love a way to prevent the sort of false triggering when driving in town, not even using the cruise control, when stopping in traffic. On the highway it's OK... not perfect, but OK. In town, some days I just have to disable the radar to shut up the alarms that pop up at every other intersection. There's no fix for it yet, and may never be, so it'll just have to wait until the 2019 S-class gets down into my price range... in 2030 or so. And then we'll gripe that the old cars don't have maglev or teleportation...
the beeping round town is a sperate safety feature you can turn on and off in the cluster....
Its pretty much what today is called city safety (and on modern cars stops the car smashing up the bumpers) its a safety thing suggesting the way you are driving is a little more lively than it thinks you'll be able to react to.... so beeps to alert you it thinks things are getting squeaky. Its part of the safety features getting the brakes ready to stand on it (even if you press gently). This behaviour and the beep changed with the 2011 software update. It now beeps much more often (twice as much), usually when not needed. I don't even notice it does it, unless its helps stand on the brakes when I'm trying to ease off them... its a rarity and the beeps don't bother me, so never felt the need to turn it off.
BAS plus - If you drive fast towards a vehicle the radar can see and appear to do nothing it arms the car for impact. If you don't react it just lets you kill yourself (they didn't want the law suite), even when it could have avoided it.... if you do brake, it says OK he's an idiot but trying to miss it, so now we're taking over.... It then stands on the brakes, moves the seat and side bolsters to crash position, unlocks the doors, closes the windows and sunroof, drags you back in the chair via the seat belt and arms all the air bags for the fun. If there's no car it doesn't bother. If you get it to do this it usually offends the passengers, its quite dramatic.
the beep you don't like is shown here "turned on" (bottom left), its the rear and front of the two cars with exclamation mark in the middle RTFM
the beeping round town is a sperate safety feature you can turn on and off in the cluster.... its a safety thing suggesting the way you are driving is a little more lively than it thinks you'll be able to react to.... so beeps to alert you it thinks things are getting squeaky. Its part of the safety features getting the brakes ready to stand on it (even if you press gently) and airbags ready to pop. This behaviour and the beep changed with the 2011 software update. It now beeps much more often (twice as much), usually when not needed. I don't even notice it does it, unless its helps stand on the brakes when I'm trying to accelerate... its a rarity and the beeps don't bother so never felt the need to turn it off.
BAS plus - If you drive fast towards a vehicle the radar can see and appear to do nothing it arms the car for impact. If you don't react (they didn't want the law suite) it just lets you kill yourself even when it could have avoided it...., if you do brake, it says OK he's an idiot but trying to miss it, so now we're taking over.... It then stands on the brakes, moves the seat and side bolsters to crash position, drags you back in the chair via the seat belt and arms air bags to pop. If there's no car it doesn't bother. If get it to do this it usually offends the passengers, its quite dramatic.
Not at all what I'm talking about. I'm referring to the constant "PARKTRONIC UNAVAILABLE" beeping alarm that pops up frequently when coming to a stop in traffic when certain models of Ford, Toyota, some Subarus I think, and others are around. Their radar sensors interfere with the Parktronic radar, and once you get down to about 10-12 MPH it will alarm with a display and a loud beep. The ONLY way to stop it is to turn the radar off, which of course disables Distronic and Parktronic completely. It's a well known issue... DAS or a scan tool will also show errors about external devices interfering with radar sensors.
its a result of different manufacturers using differing frequencies... its quite rare. JLR and Nissan are worst offenders.
But yes the car pointlessly stores info this happened... they killed off this hidden radar sensor system shortly after. The 221 came out in 2005 but by mid 2007 they stopped using this and went to conventional sensors you can see. But its becoming more irritating as toys are becoming more common. There is nothing you can do, disctronic plus uses more than just the main radar. Updates to those sensors makes no difference to other cars being a nuisance
Just did this fix and it worked fine. Thanks Polar Bear! Your instructions are very clear and make a potentially confusing procedure easy to accomplish.
On a different subject. While I was sitting in the car watching the meters for the file download, I could hear a pump towards the rear of the car cycling on and off every ~40 seconds for ~5 seconds. Is this the pump for the ABC or is this the air pump?
PSE air pump..... left rear, behind the back of the boot trim. It runs for a few seconds as you unlock the doors and gets the pressure for the seats / massage / side bolsters and lumbar. It should stay inactive if no features are used, cycling is a leak. It does dump the air after the cars locked for 7 minutes....
I just found a pin ***** on one of the hoses right beside my pump.... all seats threw errors, as the pump eventually shutdown and locked its self out to save excessive wear... clearly a deliberate effort from a garage to get some money (it never see's sun light, never got touched, never stressed, kinked or trapped) - trust no one over anything..... or take the pink pill and smile
Here is a link to the update and instructions for use in a .ZIP file to update your COMAND NTG 3.0 to fix the ongoing date/time issue and setting of the analog clock.
This is my contribution to the W221 community and is the work of several people to get the NTG 3.0 clock and date bug fixed again.
I decided to give this one more shot over the weekend. I burned a cdr with the laptop I use for DAS. I had previously burned DVD-R and CD-R with both Windows and Linux and had no success with any of them. This time I think I finally figured out why. I had always been getting into the menu and waiting until it asked for the disc before inserting the CD. Again, that failed this time. However, on the second try I put the disc in first... system griped because it was an invalid CD. THEN I got into the menu, tried the update, and it worked. I had the clock set to the right time already (easy to do if you park somewhere with no GPS reception). This let me set the date... not that it really matters. Even the service intervals haven't been wrong since I've owned the car, it just counts days and km since the last service. BUT... now it all works, which is one less little frustration. A big thanks and shout out to @Polar Bear for the fix.
Now, if only someone could keep Distronic/Park Assist from setting off alarms and/or panic braking on the highway every time I get near a newer Ford or some Toyotas... I'd pay for that fix.
Hi, I put the request back because I don't know if the previous one was successful.
I would like to know if I can burn a DVD-R instead of a CD-R as the reader mounted on my 2009 Class-S W221 is a DVD reader.
Thank you very much
Hi, I put the request back because I don't know if the previous one was successful.
I would like to know if I can burn a DVD-R instead of a CD-R as the reader mounted on my 2009 Class-S W221 is a DVD reader.
Thank you very much
needs to be a CD, the drive should read both happily - either a CD or a DVD
its now an official fix at a dealerships… with the engine running, no cables needed, just the cd you can do the job start to finish inside 10 mins.... if you have a good dealer they MIGHT do for free
(they might have the disc, certainly won't get how to get in the engineering mode so grab a copy of the instructions)
And then we'll gripe that the old cars don't have maglev or teleportation...
THANKS 
Perfect Fix
