SL55 AMG, SL63 AMG, SL65 AMG (R230) 2002 - 2011 (2003 US for SL55 and 2004 for the SL65)

SL55/63/65/R230 AMG: using own cell phone in mercedes

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Old Sep 8, 2003 | 03:19 PM
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using own cell phone in mercedes

The manual warns that using one's own cell phone in a Mercedes risks interfering with the car's electronics. As a practical matter is this risk really all that great? You have a client riding with you and he pulls out his cell phone - what do you do?
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Old Sep 8, 2003 | 07:36 PM
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If I recall correctly, the manual we get lists the maximum recommended output power according to frequency of a device installed in the car. I think it's more of a precautionary statement than anyting else. If you removed all the Danger! remarks from the manual, there wouldn't be much left.

A car is pretty horrible place for electronics to be, from the heat and vibration through to the electrical noise generated by the spark plugs and the networking must have been designed to be resilient to interference by using shielded twisted pairs, balanced signals, that sort of stuff.

I don't think Mercedes would put a car on market whose brakes failed just because one of the passengers was phoning ahead for pizza...
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Old Sep 9, 2003 | 07:47 PM
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It's all BS. Unless you plan on driving through any x-ray machines, I don't think you have anything to worry about. Believe it or not, there are signals traveling throughout the car at all times, from the outside. Whether or not your cell phone is making a call, the towers are sending signals down to the surface of the Earth to make any cell phone communication possible.
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Old Sep 10, 2003 | 02:44 AM
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Inverse Square Law though says the transmit signal strength from a phone is millions of times stronger than the signal received from a cell station as you drive past it, which is what the concern about mobiles cooking your brains is all about.

If the electronics was not designed to provide very good noise immunity, it would be in trouble and not just from mobile phones inside the car. There is a limit to what it can do, and if you decided to run your own FM broadcast station from inside the SL, you'd doubtess find garbage on the displays and odd things not responding. I don't think a mobile phone presents any problem at all.
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Old Sep 10, 2003 | 08:03 PM
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Originally posted by blueSL
...which is what the concern about mobiles cooking your brains is all about.



Eww..scary word choice. "Cooking."
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Old Sep 10, 2003 | 08:13 PM
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It's all about liability. That is why Mercedes lists these things.
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