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Thread update, Mercedes called me today to tell me that the technicians from Bucharest are on vacation and will be back on the 11th, and they will give me an answer on the 12th. I will wait
Last edited by user 36463637; Jul 8, 2024 at 01:42 PM.
Also imagine the case, you buy a car in a country where Mercedes Me is not available, then you move to a country where it is, shouldn't it be activated automatically or will you be left in that country without the functions it should have?
You will be left without the function as the car may not even have the necessary hardware installed if Mercedes me wasn't available in the country where the car was originally sold. Specifically, the HERMES/RAMSES communication modules may not be installed. You can argue this point until we turn green, but Mercedes doesn't really support moving from one country to another. This is partly because each country has its own regulations, but also they want you to buy another car for the market you are moving to. There are third-party companies that offer coding services to change the region and activate things on the car's end, but when it comes to Mercedes me, the servers will simply refuse the connection based on the car's VIN. So even these coding companies can't make Mercedes me work in other markets. The MB servers look at the VIN and only provision the car if it's in the right country. It's not like a smartphone where you can just pop in a local SIM card and have service even though you bought the phone in another country. But even then, the phone needs to be a world phone and support the local frequency bands. When it comes to cellular communication, not every country uses the same frequency bands, so the hardware has to support the bands that are used in a specific country.
Hopefully they get you sorted out with the transmission at least, and I do fully understand what you are saying about the warranty. However, the warranty is completely voluntary and every manufacturer has broad leeway to refuse warranty work. There are no laws really that can compel a company to provide a warranty. These warranties are all specifically called limited warranties. The only laws that give consumers real power are the aforementioned lemon laws that we have here in the USA. The USA has its flaws, but we have some good consumer rights here. For example our warranty is 4 years and not just 2 years, although it's limited to 50,000 miles, so whichever comes first, and even outside of cars, we can return pretty much any product that we bought if we don't like it. Just take it back to the store and they'll give you a refund. It's a bit more complicated with cars, so that's why there's a specific law for it.
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 8, 2024 at 04:16 PM.
You will be left without the function as the car may not even have the necessary hardware installed if Mercedes me wasn't available in the country where the car was originally sold. Specifically, the HERMES/RAMSES communication modules may not be installed. You can argue this point until we turn green, but Mercedes doesn't really support moving from one country to another. This is partly because each country has its own regulations, but also they want you to buy another car for the market you are moving to. There are third-party companies that offer coding services to change the region and activate things on the car's end, but when it comes to Mercedes me, the servers will simply refuse the connection based on the car's VIN. So even these coding companies can't make Mercedes me work in other markets. The MB servers look at the VIN and only provision the car if it's in the right country. It's not like a smartphone where you can just pop in a local SIM card and have service even though you bought the phone in another country. But even then, the phone needs to be a world phone and support the local frequency bands. When it comes to cellular communication, not every country uses the same frequency bands, so the hardware has to support the bands that are used in a specific country.
Hopefully they get you sorted out with the transmission at least, and I do fully understand what you are saying about the warranty. However, the warranty is completely voluntary and every manufacturer has broad leeway to refuse warranty work. There are no laws really that can compel a company to provide a warranty. These warranties are all specifically called limited warranties. The only laws that give consumers real power are the aforementioned lemon laws that we have here in the USA. The USA has its flaws, but we have some good consumer rights here. For example our warranty is 4 years and not just 2 years, although it's limited to 50,000 miles, so whichever comes first, and even outside of cars, we can return pretty much any product that we bought if we don't like it. Just take it back to the store and they'll give you a refund. It's a bit more complicated with cars, so that's why there's a specific law for it.
Mercedes confirmed to me it has the hermes module installed, only need to make changes and change some things from software by the technicians of Mercedes Bucharest.
Warranties on new vehicles in Europe are not optional and they are obliged to fix the car if it is detected that it is a factory problem or anything wrong with the car and the reason was not you, such as not doing maintenance on time or other things.
I just checked and I don't have the option to turn the car alarm on/off like I've seen other people in the same car have on yt videos.
This is my version of MBUX, can anyone with the same car tell me if it's updated? When I took it to Mercedes they told me they had updated it, is true?
2019 SL450, 2019 E450 Luxury Trim Wagon, 2024 BMW I7 xDrive60
I feel for the OP. Obviously, with the car being sold used and moving around to various countries, the situation is exacerbated. However, the R232’s and other new models have just been a bundle of problems and nobody should have to deal with such a mess. Mercedes-Benz should step up to the plate and do WHATEVER IT TAKES, to fix defective vehicles—wherever they are—and in a very timely manner. I see MB offering special editions, building condominiums and doing a lot of superfluous things, while customers suffer with defective vehicles. MB needs to get their priorities straight and they need to do it NOW! This is just NUTS!
I feel for the OP. Obviously, with the car being sold used and moving around to various countries, the situation is exacerbated. However, the R232’s and other new models have just been a bundle of problems and nobody should have to deal with such a mess. Mercedes-Benz should step up to the plate and do WHATEVER IT TAKES, to fix defective vehicles—wherever they are—and in a very timely manner. I see MB offering special editions, building condominiums and doing a lot of superfluous things, while customers suffer with defective vehicles. MB needs to get their priorities straight and they need to do it NOW! This is just NUTS!
I think the issue here is that while MB/AMG Germany is the entity that releases the fixes, it's the regional distributors and the local dealership network that ultimately handles the customer relationship. MB USA seems to finally address these issues with a series of recalls/campaigns and a $4000 voucher for all affected owners. OP's case is a bit more complicated. MB Romania would be the one to make Romanian customers whole, but his car was not sold through MB Romania. I'm still not clear where it was originally sold. All I understand is that he bought it used through a broker in Germany, so was this car originally sold in Germany or yet in another country. Ultimately, MB Romania should take care of him, since that's where he lives, but I'm guessing the situation is murky and not sure if MB Romania etc. are doing what MB USA is now doing for the affected owners. MB USA is obviously under pressure to stem the flood of lemon law buybacks, so it's in their financial interest to resolve issues before a customer files a lemon law case, but w/o a similar lemon law in Romania, MB Romania isn't really under any pressure to take care of second hand owners.
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 9, 2024 at 12:22 PM.
2019 SL450, 2019 E450 Luxury Trim Wagon, 2024 BMW I7 xDrive60
Originally Posted by superswiss
……….MB Romania isn't really under any pressure to take care of second hand owners.
But they SHOULD BE! The factory should be knocking heads to get these customers satisfied, regardless of where they reside. They need to take a few steps backwards, survey the mess and clean it up, before they do anything else. For 232 owners going through hell with their cars, it must absolutely fry them to see MB offering that special edition R232, before taking care of the issues at hand first.
I have recorded some videos in various situations, always with the engine more or less cold and in comfort mode. I did not make long journeys to make videos with the engine hot and in sport mode, the situation gets much worse, but I will try to do it these days so you can see the problem.
I have not been able to record situations at traffic lights for obvious reasons either... But to get out sometimes, I need to accelerate until I reach > 1500 rpm until the car starts to move.
My English is not very good but I hope it is understood, thanks to all of you who are reading this thread and I hope this problem is solved soon
That's an interesting video, but I'm not seeing an issue. Much of what you are showing and describing is actually normal with the MCT transmission. The engine always makes a little power when in gear. A bit more when the engine is cold. Then when you take the foot off the brake, it takes a moment before the car starts moving. That's because as said at the beginning of this thread, the MCT transmission has a clutch and not a torque converter. So it takes a moment for the clutch to start biting when you take the foot off the brake. The transmission will slowly start to engage the clutch to simulate the typical creep you get in a torque converter automatic transmission once you take the foot off the brake. This is something you will have to get used to and is the nature of a clutch vs torque converter.
I would recommend if possible to go to a local dealership and drive some other AMG 63 models. Go drive a C63, E63 or GT63 and see if what you are experiencing in your car is different from those other cars. There might be some fine tuning in the your SL 63 that isn't quite right, but some of the fundamental characteristics of the MCT transmissions may be incorrectly perceived as issues here. Have you driven an AMG before with the MCT transmission? Regular Mercedes-Benz models and even the 43 and 53 AMGs have torque converters, so they feel/drive very differently.
Last edited by superswiss; Jul 9, 2024 at 01:48 PM.
That's an interesting video, but I'm not seeing an issue. Much of what you are showing and describing is actually normal with the MCT transmission. The engine always makes a little power when in gear. A bit more when the engine is cold. Then when you take the foot off the brake, it takes a moment before the car starts moving. That's because as said at the beginning of this thread, the MCT transmission has a clutch and not a torque converter. So it takes a moment for the clutch to start biting when you take the foot off the brake. The transmission will slowly start to engage the clutch to simulate the typical creep you get in a torque converter automatic transmission once you take the foot off the brake. This is something you will have to get used to and is the nature of a clutch vs torque converter.
I would recommend if possible to go to a local dealership and drive some other AMG 63 models. Go drive a C63, E63 or GT63 and see if what you are experiencing in your car is different from those other cars. There might be some fine tuning in the your SL 63 that isn't quite right, but some of the fundamental characteristics of the MCT transmissions may be incorrectly perceived as issues here. Have you driven an AMG before with the MCT transmission? Regular Mercedes-Benz models and even the 43 and 53 AMGs have torque converters, so they feel/drive very differently.
You can't hear it in the video, but the car is applying force to the brakes, and the brakes squeal because the car wants to move forward. And yes, I did a test drive of an SL 63 before buying it and it was great, even the people from Mercedes tested my car and confirmed the fault.
Last edited by user 36463637; Jul 9, 2024 at 02:09 PM.
You can't hear it in the video, but the car is applying force to the brakes, and the brakes squeal because the car wants to move forward. And yes, I did a test drive of an SL 63 before buying it and it was great, even the people from Mercedes tested my car and confirmed the fault.
Just to point it out, but the people from Mercedes also told you that your car has a torque converter, right? I would take anything they say with a grain of salt. Just saying, but whoever you've been talking to doesn't seem to know what they are talking about. Somebody above pointed out this could be an issue with your throttle pedal incorrectly sending a signal to the ECU making it think your are pressing it. It more and more starts to sound like that might be the issue and Mercedes is looking in the wrong place. Again, since they don't even seem to know that this car doesn't have a torque converter, you need to find somebody who actually knows what they are doing.
Just to point it out, but the people from Mercedes also told you that your car has a torque converter, right? I would take anything they say with a grain of salt. Just saying, but whoever you've been talking to doesn't seem to know what they are talking about. Somebody above pointed out this could be an issue with your throttle pedal incorrectly sending a signal to the ECU making it think your are pressing it. It more and more starts to sound like that might be the issue and Mercedes is looking in the wrong place. Again, since they don't even seem to know that this car doesn't have a torque converter, you need to find somebody who actually knows what they are doing.
I have a claim already made and today I was calling Mercedes from other locations to see if they can solve the problem, they said they would call me and they didn't call me xdd Let's hope they call tomorrow xd
The problems continue, the Mercedes dealer did not fix the problem saying that they "await a response from Mercedes Bucuresti". And it's been 2 weeks since I left the car with them and they just told me to take the car home today from their workshops because they don't know how long it will take to receive a response to replace the part that "in theory is damaged". In 2 weeks they did nothing, they had my car there in the garage full of dust.
Does anyone know how I can take legal action against Mercedes for all this?
salut. Si eu am un SL in service de o luna si jumatete. Nu am apucat sa conduc masina nici macar o luna de cand am luat o. 43 amg. Mi s oprit pur si simplu in mers dupa ce au aparut multiple erori. Habar nu au ce are. Nu primesc nici un raspuns, ma gandesc sa ii dau in judecata. Si masina mea are garantie. Eu am observat ca erorile pleaca de la blind spot assist inoperative si altele legate de radar. Dupa se face pom de craciun apar toate erorile, check engine ramane aprins si tot asa. Am luat masina de 3 ori din service cu problema ca fiind rezolvata dupa mai multe update uri. Am dus o mereu inapoi a 2 a zi. Daca vrei suna ma sa vorbim mai multe despre aceasta problema comuna. 0740154276
Last edited by sebi6916; Jul 10, 2024 at 01:49 PM.
The myriad reliability problems with the R232 ( although some owners are in denial) are not helping sales. YTD SL sales are of 60%!!!! I wonder if the cabal in charge of ruining the MB reputation are proud??
The myriad reliability problems with the R232 ( although some owners are in denial) are not helping sales. YTD SL sales are of 60%!!!! I wonder if the cabal in charge of ruining the MB reputation are proud??
I would imagine that most folks who buy $200K+ cars, make $4K in a couple of hours. So, MB gives them back a couple of hours of their life, when many have spent days, weeks and months dealing with these defective cars. $4K on a C Class might be about right. On an R232, it is just about a slap in the face, in my opinion.
I would imagine that most folks who buy $200K+ cars, make $4K in a couple of hours. So, MB gives them back a couple of hours of their life, when many have spent days, weeks and months dealing with these defective cars. $4K on a C Class might be about right. On an R232, it is just about a slap in the face, in my opinion.
I finally got a call from AutoKlass (Mercedes dealer in Romania) to help me solve my problem. I will be delivering the car to them on the 17th for a check-up. They told me that there are also problems with the communications module and it could even be a bad cable.
I finally got a call from AutoKlass (Mercedes dealer in Romania) to help me solve my problem. I will be delivering the car to them on the 17th for a check-up. They told me that there are also problems with the communications module and it could even be a bad cable.
Hopefully they fixes it this time so you can enjoy the vehicle!
2025 BMW Z4 M40i (Manual); 2025 Lexus NXH Luxury; 2021 Porsche Macan S; 2023 Audi Q5
Originally Posted by Mike P
The myriad reliability problems with the R232 ( although some owners are in denial) are not helping sales. YTD SL sales are of 60%!!!! I wonder if the cabal in charge of ruining the MB reputation are proud??
I'm not in denial, just enjoying a nearly trouble-free experience with my '22 SL55
I think all automakers stuffing new technology and ADAS into their cars are experiencing many software issues. That doesn't excuse it, but helps to explain it. When compared to other cars of its ilk, I'm not sure the SL has significantly more issues. I'm sure some of the YTD sales dropoff is a function of it now being a year old model, but that number is troubling and may be due in part to the reputation this car has achieved for electrical problems. The insane depreciation will merely force me to keep the car longer.
I would imagine that most folks who buy $200K+ cars, make $4K in a couple of hours. So, MB gives them back a couple of hours of their life, when many have spent days, weeks and months dealing with these defective cars. $4K on a C Class might be about right. On an R232, it is just about a slap in the face, in my opinion.
Not to mention some of the incidents reported here regarding safety and the car's behavior in dangerous situations, particularly on highways. MB really needs to overhaul their executive team.
2019 SL450, 2019 E450 Luxury Trim Wagon, 2024 BMW I7 xDrive60
Originally Posted by places
Not to mention some of the incidents reported here regarding safety and the car's behavior in dangerous situations, particularly on highways. MB really needs to overhaul their executive team.
Well said. It is so depressing to think how quickly & deeply things went south at MB. My personal belief is that the CCP Virus fiasco was handled very poorly by MB management, to the point where important decisions ended up being made by people who shouldn’t have been making them, resulting in corners being cut and significant issues getting swept under the rug. I believe that the virus prompted many senior executives & other key people to retire earlier than they were planning on and that a huge pool of long term, very talented and experienced employees left the company. One of the results was that new models were launched without enough testing and proper sorting of the vehicles. That’s just my opinion. I honestly think that 2020 was a turning point.
Oil consumption is OK as well, I filled up one liter of oil at around 3000 km and the indicator still shows around half of it after 5000 km.
Engine is powerful, car is fast, no issues here.
Opening the car is sometimes (rare) tricky because the handle comes out but I cannot open the car. Weird.
Battery issues are still present, when I sit in the car with the engine turned off and I talk on the phone for 10-15 minutes, the battery warning comes on.
I will have my car get more software updates (if available) once it is at the dealership end of August.
The reason why it is at the dealership? Well, it seems that a stone chip damaged the paint in the lower part (plastic) of the front and when I wash the car, the water gets through that stone chip hole and the paint shows a small bubble. Funny.
Not sure how this is possible, this means that paint didn't really stick to the plastic it was painted on but my dealer will check it out. He and I believe that this is a painting issue from the factory. Let's hope it is nothing serious.
Otherwise, what can I say? I love this car. Seriously. It still has some issues I don't like but I can live with them. I still believe Mercedes AMG should have made the SL sportier (or at least offer a sportier setup as an option) but it is not a slow car, not even in curves, by no means. I drive in the Race mode all the time (and I mean ALL the time) and it still feels too comfy, the throttle response is not what I expected. Yes, there is a turbo lag, a pretty serious one. My mono-turbo Z4 M40i doesn't have this lag.
Overall, I think that A LOT of issues come down to a proper software setup but I guess this is where Mercedes AMG doesn't shine at...unfortunately.
Today, I tried the sport+ mode in the city, and I have to say that it is VERY VERY DANGEROUS. When I approached a traffic light, I saw that the car was not stopping and I had to press the brake to the MAXIMUM and the car did not stop abruptly, but began to stop little by little... I am not going to drive the car again until they fix it, I was very scared today.
Today, I tried the sport+ mode in the city, and I have to say that it is VERY VERY DANGEROUS. When I approached a traffic light, I saw that the car was not stopping and I had to press the brake to the MAXIMUM and the car did not stop abruptly, but began to stop little by little... I am not going to drive the car again until they fix it, I was very scared today.
Mercedes SLR McLaren 722 S Is Extremely Rare Example Modified by McLaren
Slideshow: A one-of-one U.S.-spec Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren Roadster became even rarer after a factory-backed transformation at McLaren's headquarters.
