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How do I keep active brake assist off permanently? I turn it off and then it turns itself back on the next time I am in the car. This is extremely dangerous! Thanks in advance
You can't turn it off permanently. It's a safety system and as such like ESP defaults to On every time the engine is restarted. You can only temporarily turn it off for the current driving sessions such as for a track session, either via the instructions found in your owner's manual or by turning off ESP completely.
What are the issues you are having? At least in my C63S I only occasionally get the acoustic warning, but it never slammed on the brakes if there wasn't a legitimate reason. It's not something I would personally turn off on public roads because it has a much shorter reaction time than I do, and has probably saved my bacon at least once when I had to slam on the brakes and noticed that it reacted much faster than I did.
I have had two issues recently. I was driving on a 2 lane highway. There were two 18 wheelers; one in the left lane and another in the right lane. The one in the left lane would not move over. I went to pass it on the right. The car recognized the slower truck in front of me and right as I was about to switch back to the left lane in front of the truck I was passing, it slammed on my brakes. Last night I was driving in NYC. I tried to shift lanes as there was a stopped car ahead. The car saw the stopped car and again, slammed my brakes as I was in the middle of shifting lanes. I was very lucky I wasn't hit from behind both times. Sometimes I forget to turn the nanny off; It is not as easy as 1 button. You have to go into the settings to turn it off. I know how to turn it off, I just want to turn it off permanently.
I have had two issues recently. I was driving on a 2 lane highway. There were two 18 wheelers; one in the left lane and another in the right lane. The one in the left lane would not move over. I went to pass it on the right. The car recognized the slower truck in front of me and right as I was about to switch back to the left lane in front of the truck I was passing, it slammed on my brakes. Last night I was driving in NYC. I tried to shift lanes as there was a stopped car ahead. The car saw the stopped car and again, slammed my brakes as I was in the middle of shifting lanes. I was very lucky I wasn't hit from behind both times. Sometimes I forget to turn the nanny off; It is not as easy as 1 button. You have to go into the settings to turn it off. I know how to turn it off, I just want to turn it off permanently.
I have to say that never happened to me. The brake assist stays out of my way if I'm deliberately on the throttle and steering around obstacles. It's programmed to recognize these maneuvers if you do them deliberately. Were you easing off the throttle and/or hesitating when you passed the truck on the right? I do this regularly to get around daydreamers in the left lane. If I'm cutting it close then I get an acoustic warning bing, but never the brake slam, because I'm on the throttle and actively steering. It recognizes this as an evasive maneuver and doesn't slam on the brakes. Turning it off regularly may actually work against you, because these systems have a brake in period during which it calibrates to your driving. Your system may have never calibrated properly. The only place it has interfered with me so far is on the track when coming in hot into a corner and the car ahead is braking earlier than I am. Then it bings and/or starts braking before I do. This experience has been consistent with all the AMGs I drove all the way up to the GT BS.
EDIT: On second thought, I have the full driver assistance package, which adds stereo cameras to the windshield instead of just a single camera. The driver assistance package enhances the safety systems and reduces false positives, because of the additional sensors and cameras. If you don't have the driver assistance package, then I can understand if you have false positives more often. The basic system has its issues, because it can't judge distance via the single camera and it's also missing the forward facing radar sensor, so it only has a single camera to detect obstacles, but to see distance you need two cameras for stereo vision.
Last edited by superswiss; 09-12-2023 at 12:08 PM.
I have had the car perform this braking action on me a few times when I've been doing some aggressive driving and approaching a car in my lane at a fairly high closing speed and about to make the lane change into a hole in traffic that was tight and closing. The car has fired off the presafe noise thing and yanked back on the seatbelts while at the same time hitting the brakes hard. Jabbing the throttle hard does make it release the brakes, but it can be quite exciting in a bad way.
Luckily in each case I avoided any mishap, but it was unsettling each time it happened.
The other thing that the car does that I found annoying is when it auto adopts a 35 mph speed limit from a frontage road next to the interstate when you are doing 80 in traffic. The only place that this happened regularly was in Texas when I was driving through as the arrangement of their frontage roads next to the interstate seemed just close enough for the car to pick up the sign. Once I turned off the automatic rate adoption feature the problem went away.
Also, just to add the safety systems work much better if the car is equipped with the driver assistance system, because it adds stereo cameras and the front facing radar sensor. W/o it, the active brake assist only has the single front facing camera to go on and that is not enough in tight situations, because a single camera can't see 3D and doesn't know how close you are to the other car. Not sure if OP has the full system or only the basic standard system.
Confirming that I have the full dystronic driver assistance feature set and pretty much every option on the car but the carbon fibre engine cover and rear seat temperature controls.
It's forced me to adjust my driving habits somewhat and let some of those juicy lane change opportunities pass. Probably not a bad thing in the long run.
My car does have the driver assistance package. I didn't realize stomping on the throttle would stop the braking...good to know!
Yes, all the safety systems can be overridden with throttle and steering input. I'd recommend you leave it on for a while and let it properly calibrate and get used to the system and how to override it. I know it can be panic inducing at first. I've also noticed that if I get the acoustic warning and then immediately let off the throttle, it also won't slam on the brakes, because it detected that I reacted to the alert. So, either letting off the throttle or getting on the throttle and providing steering input makes the system detect that you are actively avoiding the obstacle and therefore doesn't slam on the brakes.
Also, you can configure if you want it to engage Early, Medium or Late. I've got mine on the Medium (default) setting. You can try Early or Late to see if it makes a difference. It's not clear from the description, but this setting generally only affects the warning before it slams on the brake. So if you set it to Early, you get the warning earlier and have time to react before it slams on the brakes. If set to Late, then you don't have much time to react before it slams on the brakes.
My 2017 MY E400 wagon slammed on the brakes for absolutely no reason this evening. Driving under an overpass like a normal human doing nothing stupid whatsoever. Incredibly dangerous. I cannot believe there is no way to disable this system outside of going through the menu options with each car start.
I put mine to "late" and it has annoyed me far less then the default setting of "medium".
I also had to turn the lane assist off. There are spots with certain manholes and potholes it wouldn't let me steer around - braking and forcing me into the potholes was not cool. Yes it did it over and over again even with me fighting the wheel. Finally I just turned the system off.
Try Late, it maybe better for you.
They went a little too far with the nannies IMHO. On my 212 it was near perfect. It would BEEP BEEP but never slam on the brakes wrecking a maneuver. Whereas the 213 seemed to always scare the **** out of me until I put it on "late" and turned the lane assist off.
My 2017 MY E400 wagon slammed on the brakes for absolutely no reason this evening. Driving under an overpass like a normal human doing nothing stupid whatsoever. Incredibly dangerous. I cannot believe there is no way to disable this system outside of going through the menu options with each car start.
Can also be partially deactivated by coding. One of our newer mods, the braking for example
I am guessing that if there is an insurance claim, and they check the programming to see if any coding modifications were inputted, the claim would be denied. I would also postulate that the larger the claim the more adamant the insurance company would be in denying any payouts.
I have very direct comparisons between the E63 and older generation MBs - I alternate weekly between driving my 21 E63 and my 14 CLS550 and the nannies are definitely more annoying in the E63. My CLS has the older version of Distronic and will slam on the brakes when it is warranted and it is effective in my opinion. The E63 gets the beep alarm much more quickly and gets into nanny mode in so many situations where my CLS will react more calmly. At this point I just become more conservative with lane changes in the E63 than with the CLS. This late setting function change is my next option - will report back when I get around to it. Would be nice if the E63 had a less intrusive nanny mode for sure ....
My wife "loves" it when the nanny yanks the seatbelts tight during an ever-so-gentle passing maneuver. She doesn't respond well if I tell her it's the nanny's fault, not mine.
I turned off almost everything right after I got my car. Either turned off Active this & that, or disabled it completely.
I have Active Brake Assist turned on (as Late) and it still beeps too often occasionally, but it has saved my *** once (via auto-braking) in my 2020 E53 on the highway, so I believe in it. This is something you SHOULD keep on.
I have Blind Spot Assist on, because, why not, although I THINK i turned off the "Active" (auto-braking) portion. I also have Traffic Sign Assist on (but not "Active"), because it's handy to know how much speeding I'm doing on a per-street basis lol.
Active Steering, Active Lane Keeping, etc, completely off.
I'm not suiggesting you do this; do it according to your tastes and how comfortable you are with it.
Last edited by LMinn; 07-09-2024 at 07:24 AM.
Reason: Bolding for emphasis
Twice now it has decided to do a panic stop. Both times I was driving approx 30 mph on a 2 lane with no vehicles in front and, fortunately, no one behind me. If someone was behind me I'd would probably been rear ended.
I really like my E63S. One thing about it though I don't like is the times it decides it knows better than I do and tries to kill me.
I am guessing that if there is an insurance claim, and they check the programming to see if any coding modifications were inputted, the claim would be denied. I would also postulate that the larger the claim the more adamant the insurance company would be in denying any payouts.
Not really because in the first place, it's a feature than can be ON or OFF. so no obligation for on it.
Second, the coding we do on that BenzNinja mod is disabling a part that MB allows to change
These security related features are totally locked, nearly impossible to change if MB decided not to allow certain changes
We have attempt overrides just for fun and everything freaks out
Believe it or not, until now still no succes removing the "hands on steering-wheel' thing
But not giving up as that has been asked by so many
i am not sure what i have mine set to BUT i do know when it is time for a car wash as i start getting sensor warning when coming to a stop for close objects yet nothing is there. One time it did active brake on me.. washed the car and no issues.
09-10-2023, 11:10 AM
