Does the 2018 have a valet mode? I understand the 2019 and newer with Mercedes-Me has it. Thx

 

I have it on my 2018 with Mercedes me

 

Valet mode in what regard? There's no mode that limits power and speed. There used to be a speed alert feature in Mercedes me, so you could get notifications if a certain speed was exceeded, but this service got discontinued. The "valet mode" in the Mercedes app is only a geofencing feature. If the car is driven outside a chosen radius around your location then you get an alert. Lastly there's a valet button in the glove compartment, at least in some models that lets you lock the trunk, so that valet personnel can't open it. The way it works is you press the button, then lock the glove compartment with the physical key inside of the fob and hand the fob to the valet with the physical key removed so they can't get into the glove compartment and as long as the valet button is pressed, the fob doesn't open the trunk.

 

I still have it on my Mercedes me
Valet for geo fencing if vehicle leaves a certain distance.
70 mile alert if exceeded .

 

Thx all,
Somewhere I read the S63 has a valet switch in the glove compartment to limit speed. But I guess the E63 hasn't . Thanks again

 

So maybe I was actually wrong about what the valet mode does. I just put it in Google and the AI said this. Following to the sources the list of what it restricts is found in some of the owner's manuals of newer models. It's not clear if any of this applies to older models, too. Only way to find out I guess is to try it and see if things like not being able to disable ESP or not being able to activate the Sport drive programs are indeed true. I don't valet my cars, so I never really had any incentive to dig into it.

 

I intend to ship the car from Canada to Germany and the Valet mode would have been a nice insurance against overly nonchalant "dock hands" But it's going in a container, so I not think I'm too concerned, plus I installed a GPS tracker.

 

That wouldn't be a good use of valet mode. As said, it prevents access to the trunk, so customs is gonna have a field day with you if they find the trunk is inaccessible.

You want to put it in transport mode instead. That can only be done through Xentry, though. It's how the new cars from the factory arrive and then during PPI it's taken out of transport mode. It puts all those restrictions on the car. I believe transport mode only allows for very low speeds to load and offload and move the vehicle around at the port.

 

Just to add, I would talk to whoever you are using to ship the car. If they are experienced, they would know how to prep it. For starters they need to install shipping blocks in the suspension, so it doesn't bang around inside the container and get damaged when the sea gets rough.

FWIW, I sort of did the opposite of you. I did European Delivery with my C63. Picking it up in Germany and after traveling around Europe for 2 months and almost 7000 miles I dropped it off at the port in Bremerhaven. They handled all the prepping and shipping. Granted, it all happened under the supervision of Mercedes. Once state-side it arrived through the same channels as brand new vehicles. It was processed at the VPC where it got inspected for damage and restored to factory condition. I actually sustained some minor damage in Europe and they fixed it all. They also fixed the holes in the front bumper from the front license plate that was mandatory while in Europe. In addition, they recoded the vehicle. The ECU is coded differently for Europe due to the different octane fuel over there. Premium in Europe is 98 RON, whereas premium in North America is 91 AKI, which is roughly equivalent to 95 RON, so they change the engine mapping to account for that.

They also loaded the North American navigation maps as it had the European maps on it for the time I spent with it in Europe. Shippers will unlikely do the latter, so if you wanna use the navigation system in Europe you'll have to find somebody who can change the region and load the European maps. You won't be able to use Mercedes me, though, as MB won't provision a Canadian VIN in Europe, so no live traffic and such. That was the same for me. While I had European maps installed, so that the driving assistance systems that rely on map data such as the Traffic Sign Assist all worked properly, I had no life traffic and used CarPlay/Google Maps instead for the entire trip.

 

Good point superswiss about the trunk being locked. Yes I expected that about the maps. I’ll take my time finding a mapping upgrade. I mostly use Waze (interestingly it shows German police traps so they must cooperate with a German App e.g. Bitzerapp)