Richard

Hi

In the UK (presumably because we pay so much), all buyers of AMG cars get a day of "AMG training" included.

(Also, M-class buyers get an off road day - which is a great time to try out the ML off road (Im in Surrey, so we only buy 4wd for the school run)

My "invite" which is a nice book about 1.5 times the size (in all directions) of the SL brochure , limited edition, telling me about the day, and telling me to phone and book.

Any one else in the UK got theirs or booked in on theirs in the near future ? I'll try and book the same day ..

Cheers
Richard

ps. Anyone know where the Mira test track is ??

morebhp

I did this a few months back - a great day out. The power of ESP will blow your mind.

Mira is just of the M69 or M42 near Twycross/ Market Bosworth - about 15 miles West os Leicester.

Have fun

London Lad

Hi Richard,

I got the list of dates today. I'm not sure when / if I will be going as I've got so many problems with the car / dealer at the moment that I've just about had it up to here with Mercedes.


Graham.

Richard

Graham, why dont you pick another dealer ? Or tell your dealer to get MB UK down to fix the car - MB UK have a "super techie" who found the problem on my car ...

Its going to be something simple ;-)

R

London Lad

It's becoming a long story but the dealer won't call the MB tech as they claim they don’t need to, but they haven’t got a clue, just keep resetting the fault memory.


I think I’ll end up taking it to Milton Keynes


Graham.

Richard

Graham, when it happens again, get them to do a printout of all the faults. Then scan it / email it to me, and i'll ask a friendly mb tech that I know ...

R

London Lad

Hi Richard,

This is the list of fault warnings that come up.

When the read with the star tester all the faults and more are in memory but never 'current'

Parking aid defective warning lights
Tyre pressure monitor defective warning
Display faulty warning
Bulb defective warning
ABS defective warning
ESP defective warning
BAS defective warning ?
Service brake defective warning
SBS defective warning
SBS failed, emergency brake system active warning
Check engine light
Also the gearbox went into emergency mode for a few minutes.

The warnings appear in groups but not always all together. They appear regardless of whether the key or keyless go is in use. Sometimes they appear on start-up and sometimes while running. All the warnings are intermittent and all clear on their own sometimes after a few minutes, sometimes after a number of hours or the next day.

I'll get a print out next time but communications with the dealer at present are about the same as the USA / Iraq situation.


Graham.

morebhp

London Lad - sorry to hear about your problems with the car/MB.

Don't let it spoil the AMG day - get along and have fun - It should be therapeutic - remember you will be let loose thrashing MB's cars!!

It's got to make you feel better!

Hope it's fixed soon.

London Lad

A little progress!

The dealer has, at last, spoken to the MB tech.

He said that the problem is most likely the tyre pressure monitoring module.

The car goes in tomorrow and the dealer, following instructions from the tech, will disable the module and delete it from the system.

Then we will see if the problem goes away!

Sorry I seem to have hijacked this thread, has anyone booked their AMG day yet?

Graham.

blueSL

I don't like the sound of "most likely". Sounds like a wild stab in the dark to me. More worrying is that diagnostics are not allowing the failing component to be pin-pointed immediately and then there's a little matter of the Mercedes dealer attitude which seems to be just as we have come to expect.

I dread to think what this sort of stuff means in terms of repair costs outside warranty. If you look at lap-top computers, they are pretty much unrepairable outside warranty. The price you pay gives you X years use, after that, you're living on borrowed time because the cost of fixing them is too great, never mind the march of technology, so if they go wrong, you junk them.

With a car as complex as the SL, what hope is there for a buyer 5, 8, 10 years down the road when they see a bunch of faults like this? The diagnostic capabilities are now largely frozen in time by the design and software built into the car. As Richard says, the cause of these problems will probably turn out to be something simple, but with all the control units working together, a single failure is dragging down the whole system.

morebhp

Early adopters of technology are always the guinea pigs - I guess in 5, 8, 10 years the techs will be armed with past data and experience which will allow fast diagnosis and rectification - won't make it much cheaper though!

London Lad

Richard, More, Blue,

Thanks for your input. The car has gone in today so we will see.

On a more possitive note, my new steering wheel has arrived!

blueSL

Crikey!

London Lad

It's Berry red and not pink as it looks on my PC!!

Graham.

blueSL

That's a relief, I thought perhaps you were further emphasising the view expressed on Top Gear that the SL55 is a gay icon...

SL Boy

Wow - that will look impressive on the car - I said in an earlier post I was happy with my black wheel. Now I'm not so sure.

SL Boy

Havent had invite yet and just spoke to my dealer who said MB UK have all my details but to call him in a couple of months if I havent heard anything. Are there any details on your invite that might help me short circuit this.

SL Boy

BlueSL - this is very worrying. Throwing away a laptop after a couple of years is one thing but the thought of owning an unsaleable SL55 (or one of zero value if no-one can repair it) after say 10 years is frightening. Might be a subject worth asking the tecchies at the MB UK Technical Day on March 1.

London Lad

UK Tech day ?

Tell me more?

Graham.

morebhp

I posted a phone number and contact name for Nicky at MB Event on an earlier thread. Sorry I do not have the details to hand but you should be able to get them from a past thread.

They should also be on the pack and book send through.

Cheers


Paul

blueSL

SL Boy, I know I'm a bit of a doom-monger, but if you look at the list of problems Graham is having, the chances are there's a single failure somewhere which is dragging everything else down with it. The idea of multiple control units all talking to each other on a network is fine until one of them mis-behaves and spoils the party for everyone.

I worked on a still-born project 12 years ago to put LCD displays on the edges of shelves in supermarkets to display pricing information, linked to the store's computer using a segmented network. With 15000 of these things in a typical supermarket, they were always going wrong and some of the failure modes dragged down the whole network segment, which made problem diagnosis very difficult - in effect, it was like a giant set of christmas tree lights. The store manager threw the system out when we were only able to tell him that "We know some of the labels are displaying incorrect information but we do not know which ones..."

Electronics in cars is a tough environment with temperature extremes, vibration, corrosion, grounding problems and electrical noise. The most important thing to do, even before you think about what this is all to do is to provide layers of diagnostics to allow automatic fault-finding to a field replacable component level.

Here we have their lead techie giving a calculated guess as to what the problem might be, but the technology is failing us unless they can plug in a computer, go for a coffee and come back to see a message saying "replace unit XYZ". Without that, you have examples of replacing working components - sometimes more than once, which is a sign of real desparation - in a random wild goose chase until the problem goes away. And did it just sort itself out because you re-seated a connector? While all our cars are safely under warranty, that's not our problem but 5, 8, 10 years down the road, how do you explain to a customer who has bought secondhand that there's a failure which has taken them 20 hours to find and fix (at £150/hour as it will cost in 2013) plus parts plus tax, total £3800. Hell the customer thinks, I only paid £10000 for the whole car.

The Tech Day is a show put on by Mercedes for the MB UK Club anoraks each year, it's a good day. I raised this issue last year and it's clear they're still finding their way. As you can tell, I'm like a dog with a bone on this issue...

SL Boy

BlueSL - thanks for your response. Will be interesting to see how (if) they have moved this issue on in the last year. I'm booked in for the Tech Day (I presume you are too) so look forward to meeting you there.

Richard

Hi, Im being stupid - I cant find any reference to the tech day - how do I get to go on it ?

blueSL

SL Boy - yes, see you there, perhaps we should develop a secret MbWorld hand-shake, dib dib dib, dab dab dab and all that scouting stuff...

Richard, it was publicised in the January issue of the club magazine, but it's always over-subscribed. The lady to be in touch with is Rosemarie Maslin, contact details on the inside front cover.

London Lad

C.A.N. data bus update!

The car went in on Wednesday, they read the fault log and sent it to the MB tec at Milton Keynes.

Armed with the log and my detailed description of the faults the MB tec confirmed that he still suspected the tyre pressure monitoring ECU.

Following the tec's instructions, the dealer removed the ECU and disabled it in the C.A.N. set-up.

They seem confident as they have ordered a replacement and the car is booked in on the 24th.

No fault warnings have been displayed since Wednesday but it is a bit early to be sure yet.

What bugs me is that to get this far the car has been in 3 times, I had to ring Milton Keynes, I had to force the dealer to ask for help from MB and we are still really guessing.

I also hate the dealer messing about with the software. I went to Bremen to collect the car to stop the dealer getting his hands on it in the first place.

I think I feel the need for a star diagnostics machine?????

Anyway we mustn’t let little things like the car not working properly spoil our fun! My AMG mats arrived today.


Graham.