meldour

Just a quick question.. If I use the distronic plus feature in a traffic jam, will I need to press the gas pedal every time I come to a full stop that is longer than 1 second? Or will the car continue to move on its own if the vehicle in front of me moves up?

AppleFan1

The answer is no you do not need to step on the accelerator again. However, you do need to pull the distronic lever towards you so your car will accelerate forward.. You will note that if you are on ECO mode, the engine will usually stop (depending on certain conditions being met) if you are stopped in traffic. As soon as the vehicle in front of you moves forward, the engine will kick in. However, your car will not move until you either pull the distronic lever toward you or you step on the gas pedal. If you use the HOLD feature, you will need to pull the lever toward you twice: once to release the hold and the other to accelerate forward. You pull the lever towards you twice really quickly. Usually, I pay attention to the car in front and as soon as I sense it will move after being stopped for a traffic light, I pull the lever and my car proceeds to move as well. I love the distronic feature.

As a warning, once in a while if the car in front of you turns, and there is another car stopped at the next traffic light several hundred feet ahead, your car will not necessarily see that other car in time to come to a stop. So, you do need to pay attention and be prepared to step on the brake. I usually have the driver information screen on the "Driver Assistance" or whatever it's called. This allows you to discern what your car sees in front of it and how far away it is.

Without starting another thread, I have a question on what the "Driver Assistance" screen shows. What exactly does the person symbol on the left side mean? I think it appears when it is dark enough and your headlights are turned on. I know it has something to do with the Night Vision Plus, but I don't think the owner's manual explains it very well.

BadMojo

The person icon is an indicator that the Spotlight feature of Night View Assist Plus is enabled and active.

AppleFan1

Thank you BadMojo. Btw, I have no idea whether or not the spotlight feature works. I know for sure that a red rectangle is place around a human on the sidewalk while the Night Vision Assist Plus is on. But is it evident that a spotlight shines on that person? In my case, it could be that whenever I came across people walking or running on the sidewalk, it was not totally dark out but basically dusk. I saw the red rectangle. So, does it have to be totally dark for the spotlight to shine?

BadMojo

It definitely works. I've seen the flashing of pedestrians a couple of occasions, which was pretty cool. In order for it to activate, the following conditions have to be met:

- pedestrian recognition is active
- the road surface is not lit
- the driving speed is at least 40 mph (60 km/h)
- the "Adaptive Highbeam Assist"(page 142) or "Adaptive Highbeam Assist
PLUS" function is activated

The Adaptive Highbeam Assist is just a fancy name for the auto high beam feature. You need to make sure that the light control knob is on Auto to the bottom left of your steering wheel and that the stalk is set on high beams. You'll see an icon at night indicating that the Adaptive Highbeam Assist is on. Refer to pg 142 to get clearer pictures of everything.

Enjoy.

AppleFan1

The Adaptive Highbeam Assist Plus info is on pages 112-113 in the Owner's Manual and not on page 142.

TomS

I never use the adaptive high beams in town but the camera pops up with the red box around peds all the time if they are on the sidewalk of a dark road. It happened 3 times Tuesday night.

aypues

Anyone see this video yet? Full self driving hack on s550

meldour

Pretty cool. I wish he showed the actual item he created.

Diesel Benz

Which item are you referring to? The hack is hanging from the steering wheel, pretty visible.

Cptdenny

Way cool. Gives me some ideas.

meldour

lol i see it now. First time I watched on my iphone and with the small display couldnt clearly see that it just consisted of a can with some electrical tape.

MTrauman

LOL! Just don't get in an accident with that can hanging on your steering wheel. Can one say NEGLIGENCE on the part of the driver with the can taped to the steering wheel.

AppleFan1

Wow! That's amazing. So, this works because there's just enough force on the steering wheel to "fool" the Distronic Plus that your hands are on the steering wheel and you have fully autonimous driving out on the interstates. Brilliant! However, I'm not trying it.

Cptdenny

The Benz that drives itself:
http://fxn.ws/1scFdrt

TomS

My testing shows that the trick is for the car to detect movement of the wheel by the driver. So when the wheel is moved by the car, the counter force applied back from the can to the wheel moves the wheel slightly. This sets up a feedback loop. The galvanic response of the can or one's hand have nothing to do with it ( as some of the video's comments suggested). As we who have this know, simply being in contact with the wheel is not enough. You have to move it. Based on that, a plastic water bottle in one of those bottle hangars would work too but you have to have the water. Note this is a similar phenomenon to water dampers to minimize sway in tall buildings.

TomS

What gives. That link is an infomercial for oil.

Cptdenny

I guess the link got hijacked by an advertiser, sorry.

TomS

No worries.

stationkeeper

Just got a '16 S550 and I have a question about the DAP. I have no issues with distronic w/driver assist on the interstate, it works great. Question I have is my commute takes me over a couple of bridges that will be rocking along at 60mph but an occasional wreck will dead stop traffic for miles. Usually I don't have cruise control on while on the bridges...once I am dead stopped in traffic, how do you activate the stop/go assistant?

Jklapp

see BeanTrader's response above in this thread to wit: "your car will not move until you either pull the distronic lever toward you or you step on the gas pedal" I think its the best part of the feature how it works in heavy traffic.

italiano

Does anyone know or has experienced Distronic Cruise on 15 & compared it to a 16? I try to use mine quite a but a lot of times it wants to turn into the median or over to the right shoulder and the braking isn't very smooth or extremely last second. its like it wasn't paying attention and then realized it had to stop. Sometimes is goes left to right in the lane like a drunk driver or something. The new 16 loaner I had was much better behaved it stayed straight on the same roads and braked much smoother. Also the auto start/stop was smoother as well. After driving this brand new 16 I've been thinking my 15 is just not as nice. Has there been updates to the system? After driving the 16, it makes me think there has been. The other crazy thing is sometimes it will brake really hard when theres a divided median or turn into it and I'm like why the heck did it do that.

italiano

I guess the system is really mean for either rush hour stop and go traffic or the highway. I try to use the system every time I drive but most times I want to be in control. Today it got about 3ft or less next to a minivan in the left lane, I was in the middle and then went off the the right between the right and middle lanes people around were probably thing what the heck is the person doing. It also likes to follow cars and people like to go all over the place too. This person in front of me swerved left into the left lane and then swerved back into the middle lane and the car did the same thing. I was like what is going on and I took over as she cut over to the far right lane. I like technology and I want to learn the quirks on this thing but there's no way I'm trusting it 100%. I still think the 16 had better programming than mine.