So I've had my car about a year and got a renewal notice in email for Mercedes-Benz Connect. But when I go to renew it shows a bunch of other features and/or options paid for until 7/26/25. So is the email wrong or are there different pieces that need to be renewed?

The email says mb Connect will expire on my vehicle on 9/25/23. I am unable to renew monthly at $15/mo. Only option is yearly for $150/yr.

Purchased / paid for until 7/26/25

Personalization
Remote Vehicle Finder
Theft Notification and Parking Damage Detection
Local Search
Valet Protect
Live Traffic Information
Stolen Vehicle Assistance
Remote Door Lock & Unlock
Car to X Communication
Online Map Update
Parking for Navigation
Remote Engine Start
Geofencing
Weather map
Vehicle Tracker
Vehicle Locator

 

Let me know if you get this figured out. All I can say is that their "connected" systems are very confusing. I bought my MY17 S550 in late 2022 and I literally got 5 different answers on the 5 phone calls I made. I was told everything from "services for your car were discontinued" to "you can sign up for me connect for 5 years at a discount" I finally settled for 3 years of me connect; I'm 6 months into it and waiting to see what happens. I've received several messages saying that service for my car expires this month, September of 2023 or next month. This clearly is a weak spot for MB and we'll have just wait to see what happens. It seems like there is a lot of confusion about the 3G MBrace, Me Connetc, and even MBUX, and which cars they are compatible with. There's a lot of confusion around 2017-2019 S Class connected tech because different cars were fitted with different hardware based on the date of production, and the EU models ran 1 year ahead of US models in the S-class.

 

I have the newer connect set up on my car and last year I noticed I could ala cart pick only the options I wanted like Remote Start and Location. Now it is a package and you only have one option that includes everything. Guessing it is MB trying to cash in and simplify sku's.

 

Prior to MY21 the first 3 years should have been included with the purchase of the car. They changed this to one year starting with MY21. So yours being a 2020, your services would expire in 2023. Some services are basically complimentary, so they are showing later expiration dates. I personally haven't seen an issue with it. The services expired correctly after 3 years from activation. I have one service that somehow got activated only 2 months later, so it has a slightly later expiration date. I renewed last year a la carte pretty much everything except Remote Start. I just renewed again at the beginning of this month, but as stated above it's now a single annual package, which is actually cheaper than renewing a la carte last year, so I saved some money this time around and even got Remote Start back. All this only applies to MY19 and later for vehicles with Mercedes me connect.

Prior to MY19 it's a different story. The end of life mBrace has been partly shutdown and if you still have a 3G modem then you are further affected by the 3G cellular networks having been shut down.

 

I'm planning to got a MY18 S-class pretty soon and get ridn of my MY17. The W222 V2 is far more than a facelift than what I previously thought, or what was easy to decipher. And that is the model year that is kind of caught in the middle. It should work with the same options as 2019-2020, but who knows. And when I've called the dealer and MB about it I also get tons of different answers about which system it uses.

 

The 2018 while being a facelift and having an updated Infotainment system still uses the old mBrace. You are correct it's kinda stuck in the middle. The W213 had the same issue. Mercedes me connect was released in 2019, so models such as the W222 and W213 were further updated in 2019 to support Mercedes me connect. It added things like OTA updates for maps for example which mBrace based vehicles don't have. Mercedes me connect is an entirely new platform with new features and services and its own mobile app. There are also new providers behind it. The mBrace vehicles for example lost live traffic, because TomTom exited the deal they had with Mercedes. Older models used SiriusXM for live traffic, then they went to TomTom with the NTG 5.5 COMAND system, but then as said, the TomTom live traffic service got discontinued. Mercedes me connect was initially using TomTom, but they migrated it to HERE Live Traffic and now it looks like for MBUX they are replacing it with Google Traffic, but either way 2019+ vehicles continue to have live traffic, while cars such as the 2018 W222 can no longer get it.

 

I notice that the STOLEN VEHICLE TRACKING option seems to be for 1 year from date of vehicle purchase. All others expire in 2025, which should be 3 years. I don't see an option to ONLY renew that vehicle tracking option.

I am going to try to call Mercedes-Benz to talk to a real person. I'm surprised the only option is for 12 months renewal. And it's confusing how MB Connect expires but not all of those other options.

 

No, 2018+ S-Class cars use "Mercedes Me", not Mbrace. And certain S-Classes built in 2017 also use Me connect, my car is one of them. In my opinion, it's practically impossible to figure it out, except by registering the car. I was told NO by MBrce, MeConnect, and MBUX when I tried to register my car. 9 months later I signed up for MeConnect. It makes no sense, which is why my only definitive statememnt is that you won't know for sure until you register the car.

 

Not sure who you talked to or what they told you, but Mercedes me and mBrace are the same thing. mBrace is the old name. There are only two platforms Mercedes Me for vehicles 2018 or older and Mercedes me connect for vehicles 2019 and newer. There are no 2017 vehicles that use Mercedes me connect. Didn't exist in 2017.

Mercedes me: https://www.mbusa.com/mercedesme/index
Mercedes me connect: https://www.mbusa.com/en/mercedes-me-connect

 

I'll leave you with this. My car is a 2017 S-class and I use MeConnect. NONE of the online literature says that is what's supposed to happen, and I was told this was the right platform for my car on 2 different occasions, the first time I passed, the second time I went for it, and it's what I'm using now. Again, my singular point is that it is confusing, and you can't be sure until you register your vehicle. I speak from actual S-class experience.

 

Interesting. Wondering if they've started to migrate older cars. So do you have working OTA map updates and live traffic?

 

I bought a CPO GLS450 in November 2022. Vehicle was placed in service 2/18/20 with three years of free MercedesMe Connect services. In February I renewed all except map updates, which I had just performed. So I am good until 2/18/24. However, last month I started receiving emails that my trial period was up on 9/25/23, coincidentally the same date as in the OP's post.
Received another of the emails last week, so I called. Felt like I was calling the IRS as I held for about ten minutes, then received message that due to call volume I needed to call back later. When I did get thru, it was confirmed that I was good until February 2024, and had no explanation as to why I was receiving the 9/25/23 emails.

 

Facelift 2018 is only compatible with Mercedes Me, period. It is way more expensive and has limited functionalities (i.e.: It has no live access to all the car data "no back to back data transfer to some features") and is also not able to do OTA map updates. Preface-lift are even worse.
Facelift 2019 and 2020 are compatible with "Mercedes Me Connect". Note the addition of connect. This is a life back to back communication, more access to car data information including tire pressure and other stuff, and more reliable plus OTA map updates. It is also cheaper than Mercedes Me on the 2018 facelift which is still managed by the older data management company (informal extension/upgrade of Mbrace to Mercedes Me). 2019 and 2020 in summary have better "Mercedes Me Connect" support, yet cheaper, not counting OTA updates.

This comes from someone who owned a 2015 W222, owned a 2018 W222 too, and also test drove and had loaners of 2019 W222 to play with and read enough on the subject.

If you call Mercedes Me managed by Mbrace team, or Mercedes Me Connect, I swear they will NOT even know the difference or functionality difference for 2018 (Its s a confusing year for the Mercedes connectivity service). They will still sign you up for something, but u will have much different functionalities between pre-facelift, facelift 2018, and then facelift 2019+. You can get whatever app or so registered, but functions beyond just door lock/unlock or engine on, becomes a function of the car model year.

 

What's the long term outlook for these services? Is there reason to think the technologies/vendors behind these services will continue for any known period of time? I see in another thread that one of the predecessor services was based on 3G and is no longer supported. Who knows how long 4G will be around?

What about people who keep a car for several years, what expectations should they have with the ever-changing world of technology and Mercedes' apparent minimal commitment to these services?

 

Well, technology evolves and technically any of the current services could be terminated at any point. The EULA spells this out clearly, but that's the nature of technology. What Mercedes me connect has going for it is that it is a much broader effort than the initial mBrace. mBrace is basically a V1 product, and V1 products are generally not here to stay. They test the waters and get the feet wet and get quickly replaced. Most of the services for Mercedes me connect are provided by a company called HERE, which Mercedes together with BMW and Audi majority own. HERE is the former Navteq company, which has been around for a while and is one of the major digital map and location service providers. It was bought by Nokia which turned it into HERE and then sold it to the current consortium made up of Mercedes, BMW, Audi and some smaller investors. The company is key to the future for automakers. It's one of the major providers of high resolution maps for self driving.

Mercedes has entered a partnership with Google recently and has started to integrate some Google services into MBUX. The first one is Google Places. Google is not immune to shutting down services. They have done so with the Google Earth API in the past for example and Audis older than 2018 lost the satellite overlay as a result. Audi didn't bother to update them to the new API, but that's a moot point now, because the majority of the affected vehicles lost their services altogether due to the 3G shutdown.

Which brings me to your point about 4G LTE. 4G LTE is going to be around for at least another 10 years, likely longer. As opposed to 3G, 5G and the next 6G network are evolutions of 4G LTE, so they are backwards compatible. Much like today's latest Wi-Fi 6 standard still supports everything back to 802.11b, or Ethernet which supports everything back to 10Base-T or the latest USB 4 standard that still works with any old USB 1 device. 3G was again never really designed to evolve, where as LTE was. LTE stands for Long Term Evolution btw. We are now at the point where it is the basis for future faster networks that are still backwards compatible.