BananaAsReward

Hello all, I cannot figured out what this setting changes (Parking Space in Camera Image in R) and am having a hard time finding information on it. Any info helps thanks

superswiss

I believe it detects parking spaces as soon as you put the car in R, then you can select it in the camera and it gives you dynamic visualization to park in a specific spot, or you can let the car park itself.

rw594

Hmm, does anyone actually use this assisted parking function? Is it any good?

I've tried clicking on the 'P' that shows up during reserve, on a few occasions - but everytime, no self-parking action followed.

crabman

Let's say you're going to parallel park: Do a slow roll in parking mode past the spot you have in mind, stop when it highlights the space you want, tap the spot, tap the hard button underneath the screen, it will put itself in reverse and park itself quite well although a little bit slower than I would like. The screen will prompt you if you forget the process, or at least the US version does. You can actually do it several ways; another I've found is to stop in about the right spot for a parallel, put it in reverse, it should highlight the spot, hit the hard button. I find I mostly park myself because while not particularly skilled, I'm faster, and I don't like waiting. I works pretty well though, I was surprised.

Here is a video showing different parking scenarios.

rw594

Ahhhh, so you actually have to press that physical button below the central screen to engage auto-parking. Thanks, I'll try it when I get the chance!

Gotta say though, the parking scenarios in MB's demonstration video are... really underwelming. I was hoping to see some more challenging scenarios, where manually parking could prove challenging, for even experienced drivers. Like these ones below:

crabman

Nothing very advanced but it can wiggle into tight spots; that's the benefit of doing the parallel on a roll, it will pick spots I have my doubts about getting into. One thing you can see in the video that plays out in the real world is that it can use the rear wheels to pull the car over into the center when backing into perpendicular parking. This is where you would hit the car on the inside of the turn because the space between rows is too narrow to allow the front of the car to come around. It doesn't happen though because the rear wheel pushes the back of the car over, it's freaky when it does it.

superswiss

With the rear wheel steering the parking assist starts to make some sense, because you can't control the rear wheels like that yourself when parking, so it can probably get into tighter spots than the driver could. The whole procedure is still kinda slow, though. Try to do this in the city with other drivers behind you breathing down your neck. It's just too slow unless you have the road or parking lot to yourself like in the video above.

crabman

Yeah, it's nearly unbelievable until you see it with your own eyes. Not sure how much of a difference there is between the 10 and 4 but with the 10 it's a radical change in terms of what you can get away with. Even pulling front first into a spot in tightly spaced rows you can often park in one motion instead of stopping and backing to get the rear aligned with the parking spot as you do in normal full size cars because the rear steer drives the back around as you pull in. I think even though you're doing driving the car knows you're pulling into a spot and gives you a strong counter. However it works, it's downright miraculous in the lots.

Another thing you can do is tell it to get you out of a spot. You know, you paralleled and someone else pulled in front or back afterward and left you almost no room to get out. You can tell the car to pull out and it will turn the wheels the same direction and back so both front and back are moving away from the curb, then they'll both turn outboard and pull it further out from the curb. It can do this several times until it gets to where you can turn out. As long as you don't get shot holding up traffic, it's great! O_o

rw594

Good to know that they actually integrated rear steering into the parking assist

I've always struggled with parallels myself, in tight city centres, often requiring multiple maneuvers to get into position; so I'm not too concerned about annoying fellow road users - I'm already doing that anyways

crabman

I'm an average parker myself, not bad, not good, average. I think if you play with it you may be surprised. As you'll recall I'm a Porsche fanboy and IMO Porsche makes almost everything work better than MB does, the wipers, lights, climate, so on, for the most part they do it better. But the rear wheel in the lots; they're not close to doing what this car does. Somebody spent some time with the parking system here; you may not see the fancy stuff that makes a cool video but in the day to day it can do what no human can because no one has control of the rear wheels and they've leveraged that. No matter how much someone tells you they are Joe Parallel Park, they can't match what this car can do. If you're patient. And unafraid of gunfire.

But you're not in the US so maybe you don't have crazies everywhere who believe a billionaire that had 5 servants as an infant and has never washed a dish in his life knows how the ordinary men live and cares about their concerns. *facepalm*

rw594

You don't need to be a Porsche fanboy to notice how badly-executed the wipers / lights / climate are in this car they are unequivocally trash.

The wipers start squeaking as soon as there's a speck of dirt on the winscreen; the ILS algorithm is way too conservative and leave large patches of upcoming road completely dark (on highway speed I cannot see past 50m ahead of me); the auto climate never seems to get the ambient temprature right, regardless if it's summer or winter....

And yes, things are different here in mainland China. People don't seem to complain about their MBs quite as much - despite MB treating them like third-class citizens, offering them seriously under-equipped cars whilst charging them astronomical prices. Oh, and did I mention we have the worst aftersale service policies in pretty much the entire world? MB buy-backs are unheard of in China, and dealers get away with obvious quality issues like harsh-downshifts, without consequence.

Is this passive acceptance the result of under-education? Lack of legal literacy? Or are they just too enamoured with MB's brand image and marketing to call out their actually lacklustre offering? I might never know.

Sleeper Benz

Please keep making lots of affordable aftermarket MB parts for us I'll take a new W223 AMG style grill insert and an extra set of W223 front 4-Matic air struts

A year + in and we haven't tried the park assist yet, but we'll give it a try.

rw594

AMG grill for W223？Sure, but that is child's play. We have that grill for even W213！

W205C43PFL

You guys got the ILS+ with the automatically turning off certain LEDs to prevent blinding road users like in Europe. MBUSA market did not, now it kind of does but the amount of light is extremely limited, your headlights also don't have that ugly amber marker that is part of the US regulations. You can use the Mercedes Me app to lower windows, open/close sunroof, MBUSA probably disabled it because they consider it as a safety issue when it probably isn't.

MBUSA cars also have ugly bumperettes on coupe models you guys don't. You guys get the luxury grille on W206, W213 and most likely W214 too. Mention luxury grille and MBUSA will laugh at us. You guys get wagons, we only get sedans or SUVs or SUVs... Did I mention SUVs? I didn't? My bad, we only get SUVs. (That said, we do get E-Class all-terrain but we don't get C-Class wagon, A-class hatchback, etc.)

You guys also get way more options when it comes to plug in hybrid for those who want to try electric but don't want to be fully committed to EVs yet. Speaking of EVs, no EQA or EQC... not sure what happened there.

Across many MB models in general, you guys get more interior colour options I believe. I think you guys also have a key sharing feature in Mercedes Me too, MBUSA for whatever reason did not offer it.
There is also these: https://mbworld.org/forums/eqe-v295-...se-market.html

Those are just to name a few of many more things you guys get that we don't.

W205C43PFL

That fits the W213 way more than amg line.

rw594

Yeah I really hate those orange side markers too. Spoils a car's otherwise clean look.

But aside from that, no, the Chinese market doesn't get more options than US customers - at least not for W223. Color options are limited to black, black/cream, black/orange. No reds, no greys, no full cream, no white, all of which can be had in the US I think?

Also the only engine choice for W223 in China is the inline 6 - in the forms of S400, S450 and S500. No V8s here. And those inline 6 engines are also significantly tuned down in the Chinese market, with much less power and acceleration than their counterparts in other areas of the world.

Then there's the price... W223s here start at USD 146,000 for the base, barebones variant S400, ending at USD 287,000 for the properly equipped S500. I'm pretty confident this is waaaaaaaay higher than US pricing. MB China also locks 'essential' options like exclusive Nappa leather behind the top trim level S500 - which is overpriced and no sensible person should ever buy - so 99% of S classes in China are running around with poor quality, coarse leather interiors, the likes of which you'd expect in a VW, not a MB flagship vehicle.

People who've seen my other posts on this forum, will know that I bought an imported Mexican W223, not the Chinese domestic version, despite my geographical location. And I assure you, I had very good reasons

Diesel Benz

Off topic but since you mentioned the above, this is not apples-to-apples comparison in the sense that you local price must include local VAT plus local car import tax (figures would be interesting). Usually the same tax goes for private import. Are you a member of the party or how come you were able to avoid that tax/customs duty for a car imported from Mexico?

We have free trade between Western countries but local tax affects equally cars imported by individuals as businesses (fair trade). If people are not happy with the car tax policy, just vote differently at next elections.

W205C43PFL

Since you talked about seats, that reminded me, a few threads back (last generation S-Class so W222) someone posted cloth seat W222 but that was Germany so the home country of Mercedes get even lower spec as base and less standard.

rw594

Nah, taxes and duty alone do not fully account for the astronomical increase with MB's China prices. It is only a small part of the equation. Price discrimination is the true culprit here. MB knows they can, and indeed they do, get away with pricing them higher.

For the record, I did pay taxes on my purchase : ) it was 66% combined, for my 3.0 litre S450. But even after these taxes, it was still a bargain compared with buying from domestic dealership. I got options that Chinese W223 owners simply do not have access to, and saved a few dozen grand $ too.

Diesel Benz

In that case why blame MB and not local MB buyers. Why is not everyone buying abroad? Or why are not some companies organising grey import?

A company would be fool if they would sell their product at $10 if everyone is happy to pay $15. I'm afraid we haven't seen the whole story here.

Diesel Benz

Very true. The base specced cars in Germany have lower options than cars elsewhere. This does not mean cars in Germany would typically have less options, I'd say they are typically well equipped but the buyer has more freedom to choose and can have a quite poorly specced car if he/she so wishes.

rw594

Ok, I know this is all new to you US folks, and a bit hard to absort. So let me try to explain.

Most buyers do not buy their MBs through importers, because importers are not the 'official channel'. The importing process is completely legal and sanctified by the Chinese government, but most consumers still pivot toward the official dealers, simply because it is 'easier'.

Really, this is like buying your veggies through a supermarket, versus a farmer's market. The veggies themselves come from the same source - in our case, all W223s are from Sindelfingan - they are just better packaged and easier (not to mention more pleasant) to access through the dealers.

No knowledge is required when you buy at the supermarket: the consumer picks up what he likes, throws them into a trolley, and check out at the counter. Process is streamlined and guided, without questions or confusion. Same with MB dealerships. You waltz in, point out the model you want, and the clerk does all the paperwork for you. You just sit there, wait a while, and pay. Done deal.

Things are different at farmer's markets / importers: you need to really know your veggies / car models to get the best deals, and often times haggling is expected. It is not as elegant and stress-free - but connoiseurs will know, this is really the way to go. You get better quality veggies / better-equipped cars, at much lower prices.

So just as how most people are buying their veggies through supermarket these days, imported cars will always be the minority, in spite of their excellent value and superior option availability.

rw594

It's different. In Germany you are allowed to spec your W223 almost any way you want. There's hardly any option-bundling - you can freely add functions you need, and leave out the ones you don't. In China, almost all of the 'nicer' options are locked behind the highest trim level, which is way over-priced. So consumers who buy through official MB dealerships are forced into accepting inferior, barebone cars that lack the options they want, unless they shell up for the absolute top trim, which is a stupid thing to do, given how unreasonably expensive it is. This is not freedom, this is anti-consumerism.

And yes, I know MBUSA is infamous for their option-bundling as well. But things are even worse with MB China. Much worse.

Joseph_Elery

I had mine built and bought it here in Germany, the system here is modular but there's still bundles. So, it's not as modular as you would think. I ran into some of it, there were options that I like but I have to get the bundle in order to have it. However compared to other countries it may seem like we get better configuration options here. You may have more freedom here but it cost more.

rw594

German customers paying more than us Chinese suckers? I don't think so... But still, on their behalf, I applaud your valarous attempt at saving Chinese consumer dignity