So I’ve had my 63 3 days now and have put 800 miles on it. When doing all this driving I noticed every now and then the autonomous features would start to go haywire. I would get all these messages saying the autonomous features were inoperable. I took the car in today and the service advisor is saying it’s related to my valentine. I find that kind of hard to believe but wanted to check with y’all to see if any of y’all have had similar issues.

 

So my car has had the same issue - randomly when driving my lane keep assist, blind spot assist, brake assist etc would become inoperable. Restarting the car usually fixed it. The dealership where I purchased the car from told me similar to what your service advisor said - that radar signals from other devices can cause issues with the cars autonomous features. I was doubtful so I took it to Mercedes Benz Manhattan. They told me it is due to a malfunctioning rear radar on my car. The part was on back order so the dealership had to order it from Germany and wont be here till early December. I am hoping it will fix my problem (even today I hit the same error).

 

I have the acoustic comfort package so I have only 2 places to mount my V1, low near the dashboard, centered, and at the top of the windshield to the right of the rear view mirror. I have mine mounted at the top of the windshield and have no issues. I use the autonomous function often.

Try cruising around without the V1 and see what happens.

 

Years ago we had an issue in the satellite industry where radar detectors were causing interference into the receivers at earth stations.

the problem turned out to be that the detectors, which are simply specialized radio receivers, were emitting high levels of radio frequency energy in the receiving band of the satellite systems. To save money, the radar detectors eliminated circuitry th limit the amount of energy leaking out the front of the detectors and being amplified by the antenna on the detectors.

They had been able to do this because the FCC had no standards or limits on emissions from receivers operating above 900 MHz.

As a result of complaints by the satellite industry, the FCC put limits in place and the radar detector mfrs were no longer able to import or sell new detectors that didn’t meet the limits. I don’t recall of the to of my head what the emission limits were and if there was an upper limit to the affected frequencies. But I have a copy of the order and will look it up.

Either the detectors are emitting too much unwanted energy in the frequency band used by the vehicle’s radar, or the vehicle radar’s receiver doesn’t have sufficient filtering to stop out of band energy from causing issues.

My money is on the radar detector as being the culprit. I would like to think that there is a safety of life factor being considered in the design of the vehicle radar and that its receivers are designed to a higher standard.

One would think that the use of, and compatibility with, (police) radar detectors in vehicles would have been one of the design considerations involved in the development of the vehicle radar system.

I’m interested in the issue as I’m considering getting a detector for my cross country drive to California when my car makes it to the states. Have been looking at reviews and there is a Uniden model that is highly rated.

 

One of the selling points of the Valentine 1 was that it didn’t emit/leak any radio frequencies...at least this was the case when detectors were illegal in many areas and police would use the VG2 radar detector detector to pick up emissions from inferior detectors. So I’d think the V1 would be the least likely detector to interfere with onboard systems (assuming the remote possibility these service techs are correct instead of lazy).

 

I used to live in Virginia and was ticketed twice for having a radar detector. They didn't use a detector detector to find me, but rather spotted the unit (older Escort model circa 1985) on my dash. Fine was $45 each time as I recall. A unit that doesn't spew a lot of emissions would certainly be a plus WRT the detector detector issue - as well as generally being less likely to interfere with other systems.

A copy of the FCC's order can be found here for those interested (not many I imagine): https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/6513285012.pdf

They found that radar detectors of the period (around 2003) were emitting levels more than 200 times the allow limits in Part 15 of the FCC's rules.

However, in the order, because the only parties that had been complaining were satellite operators who were being interfered with in the 11.7-12.2 GHz band, the FCC only applied new limits in the above band.

Vehicle radars, which operate in the 24 GHz and 77 GHz bands didn't get any specific protection from the radar detectors.

It will be interesting to monitor this topic and see if others are reporting issues. Assuming I do actually get a new detector I might take it to one of our labs and run some tests just out of curiosity to see what kind of spewage is coming out of them these days.

If enough people are seeing issues with radar detectors interfering with vehicle radars, it would be fun to file some complaints with the FCC and start a proceeding to get them to impose limits on the emissions from detectors in the bands used by vehicle radars.

 

good to hear v1 works inthat top spot. Have escort wire installed to try to put max 360c up there somehow. Supposedly v1 won’t work with escort direct hardwire. Wish I knew this before dealer hardwire.

 

What was the solve here? I had the same issue happen once, but it hasn't happened since. Dealer said sensor might have been dirty...hopeful, but skeptical.

I have hardwired ALP/Net Radar.

 

I almost wonder if it is something to do with the sensor dirty or something else other than the detector. I've tried three different detectors in my car, two escorts and a older Beltronics and have not had any issues. As was said I'd try driving the car with no detector on and see if the issues still occur, check your sensors to make sure they are not dirty (the mercedes round logo in front of the grill) and if not dirty a trip to the dealer service dept would be warranted.

 

I think my issue was that I wasn’t placing the radar in the designated areas when I moved it to the spot to the right of the mirror I haven’t had issues since