Distronic radar thefts

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Would you also chase MB if for example someone stole the catalytic converter, which is quite prevalent these days?
MB and other manufacturers, have very deep pockets and are very good at obfuscation, delay and appeal. Very unlikely to do anything that may set a legal precedence.
 
Would you also chase MB if for example someone stole the catalytic converter, which is quite prevalent these days?
MB and other manufacturers, have very deep pockets and are very good at obfuscation, delay and appeal. Very unlikely to do anything that may set a legal precedence.

If mb vehicles were deemed to be vulnerable to this type of theft (as they are with the radars) then yes of course you would.

And, in fact Toyota vehicles whom are vulnerable recognise this so they offer (so they say) Catloc's at cost price to the customer. If you dont believe me go to your local garage and ask them how many replacement cat converter's they've knocked out that month on Toyota... you'll be surprised. Its in the dozens in London at each garage

Thanks for your example ;)
 
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And, in fact Toyota vehicles whom are vulnerable recognise this so they offer (so they say) Catloc's at cost price to the customer.
So, no compensation, no admission of poor design. The customer has to buy a new CAT and a device to deter another theft.
In your case, you would buy another radar unit and some sort of securing device to deter another theft?
 
So, no compensation, no admission of poor design. The customer has to buy a new CAT and a device to deter another theft.
In your case, you would buy another radar unit and some sort of securing device to deter another theft?

I'm not saying Toyota's resolution is acceptable.

I think if Toyota were to fully compensate for every device or even further than what they already do, they would suffer a serious financial blow. One that could lead to becoming unsustainable. ...but its something isn't it.
 
Thanks for your input, most of which quite amusing.. I didn’t expect to open up a political debate about immigration and the stereotypes of the quintessential Englishman! i am sorry to hear about your tools.

First off, i think you are missing the point here. The problem is, is that mb or whomever boffin in the lab poorly designed the grill for a badge which has a very expensive component sat behind it. The bade can be very easily prized off within seconds. Not only that.. the cost of a repair job here is in excess of £1,300 including over £500 labour. Two parties benefit here the thief and the garage/mb. Mb are happily churning out replacements without even seemingly addressing the root cause. (The garage inform me they’ve had another two incidents this week) Now I know there are going to be loyalists here bound to the brand that is mb and what they represent, but this matter, along with many others, some of which highlighted here should really be addressed by mb and their franchised centre’s.

Now as i explained earlier my main qualm isnt the cost for repair.. im not poor nor I am tight and I recognise the fact that if you have nice things in life you need to be prepared to pay for its upkeep. You cannot compare this incident for one second to the cost of perishables like tyres and wipers etc

As someone hit the nail on the head earlier, there is a huge gap between mb washing their hands of it and taking any sort of liability.. It is negligence by design and (likely, eventually) mb/ r&d / manufacturers should accept some sort of blame. Yes for sure, just move it further back behind the grill/plates for a start.

But its OK, im going to spend tens of thousands s on a secure garage and eventually then move to the forest where no one can find me.. or better still me and the car will move to Saudi Arabia! ;)
Your argument is preposterous and comes across with a hyperactive sense of entitlement. A classic hand wringing liberal war cry, I cant possibly be a fault and its the corporations and something must be done at everyone else's expense.

You bought a car with distronic which nobody compelled you to do, failed to research the fact distronic units have been stolen, and now want someone else to blame for your own poor choices.

Any reason why you didn't buy a Toyota perhaps?

My car had optional Carbon mirror caps, these are £900 each and are readily stolen. I took them off and put body colour ones on. Problem solved. Search this forum and you will find many threads from members in our nations shithole cities whom have had mirror glasses stolen, which they in turn have to be replaced at personal expense. Anything off a car can be stolen or damaged, where do you draw the line?

Please explain using your circularly reasoned, kafkaesque, witch trial logic why the Manufacturers are liable for the problems of society again?

Bicycles get stolen all the time, especially electric bikes which are expensive. Is that the manufacturers fault? If your Bosch E Bike is stolen by someone cutting the lock should Bosch give you a new one because its there fault they made a desirable and easily stolen product, or does the lock manufacturer give you a new bike because the lock product was inferior? Can't possibly be societies fault after all. Maybe if bikes were licensed, registered and insured that might stop the problem......

People are twats, I think you will find that's what insurance is for. And thats why my expensive secure garage in the country means I pay very little in insurance premiums.
 
Your argument is preposterous and comes across with a hyperactive sense of entitlement. A classic hand wringing liberal war cry, I cant possibly be a fault and its the corporations and something must be done at everyone else's expense.

You bought a car with distronic which nobody compelled you to do, failed to research the fact distronic units have been stolen, and now want someone else to blame for your own poor choices.

Any reason why you didn't buy a Toyota perhaps?

My car had optional Carbon mirror caps, these are £900 each and are readily stolen. I took them off and put body colour ones on. Problem solved. Search this forum and you will find many threads from members in our nations shithole cities whom have had mirror glasses stolen, which they in turn have to be replaced at personal expense. Anything off a car can be stolen or damaged, where do you draw the line?

Please explain using your circularly reasoned, kafkaesque, witch trial logic why the Manufacturers are liable for the problems of society again?

Bicycles get stolen all the time, especially electric bikes which are expensive. Is that the manufacturers fault? If your Bosch E Bike is stolen by someone cutting the lock should Bosch give you a new one because its there fault they made a desirable and easily stolen product, or does the lock manufacturer give you a new bike because the lock product was inferior? Can't possibly be societies fault after all. Maybe if bikes were licensed, registered and insured that might stop the problem......

People are twats, I think you will find that's what insurance is for. And thats why my expensive secure garage in the country means I pay very little in insurance premiums.
ah there it is, well its alright for some then isnt it, lucky you having a garage in the country.. work and family life means I have to live (and very much enjoy doing so,) in a 'shithole city'

I had no idea what a Distronic sensor was prior to acquiring my vehicle nor did I purchase the vehicle on that basis, so to live with the notion of 'you knew what you were getting yourself into' is totally absurd. On that note, there has been very little, if not no evidence at all in the media highlighting this problem, so how is one to know? Happy for you to show me evidence...

With the Catalytic's I think its common knowledge now which vehicles are most prone to the theft, so as a society (police/neighbourhood updates etc) its a known problem whereas with the radar's its not. War Cry well yes indeed, that is what I intend to do mate, and there is no sense of entitlement here. I'm just a porper pleb from the city with no access to a lovely garage in the country!
 
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The bade can be very easily prized off within seconds. Not only that.. the cost of a repair job here is in excess of £1,300 including over £500 labour.

Any one spot the contradiction in that....is MB really charging £500 for a few seconds work to reinstall a new badge sensor?
 
Any one spot the contradiction in that....is MB really charging £500 for a few seconds work to reinstall a new badge sensor?
Quite.

Which would suggest said items are not 'readily or easily stolen' if it takes that long to put it back on. Prising, the use of force to remove something, especially which is secured from the back suggests its been designed to remain secure in the event of pedestrian impact and not cause further injury (EU pedestrian safety rules).

Even at London main dealer prices labour of £200 inc. vat per hour and very likely a 2.5 hour job to do (WIS job times).

Speaking of prising, is this Ford's problem or societies problem when scumbags do this:

peel-and-steal2.jpg
 
Any one spot the contradiction in that....is MB really charging £500 for a few seconds work to reinstall a new badge sensor?
Contradiction with what? I think some people don't understand what's involved here. Its not just a case of popping a badge back on. The work requires removal of bumper, new housing, new wing grill, new badge, new radar, and finally re-collaboration of the Distronic system computer programming, which often, they say, requires waiting upon a specialist to arrive to carry out the work! its a huge fiasco and one that could easily be avoided by better design. And yes, its around 500 with which i have a written mb quote
 
There's too many incidents of container loads of cars & parts found leaving UK ports for Eastern Europe/Africa and beyond for it to be considered an English thing.
Idly searching tinterweb for some NLA parts I was "surprised" to see on a Lithuanian site a number of distronic stars (some with a broken tab) and sets of distronic gear including wiring.
 
So MB introduced theft-proof measures such as coding for headlights, or removal of vulnerable parts via special tool.....then the end user complains neither they or Joe Smiths garage can't work on their car.
 
Makes a change to reading about catalytic convertors being cut out whilst the car/suv is parked up.
Unfortunately the scumbag thieves will nick anything of value from your car if there is a market for the item.
Stealing alloy wheels seems to be a thing of the past.
Agree with you about the stealing ally wheels for sure!
 
Agree with you about the stealing ally wheels for sure!
There was a black series CLK pictured on bricks only the other day after the rear wheels were stolen.
 
So MB introduced theft-proof measures such as coding for headlights, or removal of vulnerable parts via special tool.....then the end user complains neither they or Joe Smiths garage can't work on their car.

Well the cynicism of the public is perhaps related to parts pricing.

How much do manufacturers charge for that headlight, or door mirror assembly, or radar sensor, or whatever.

The coding is as likely to be about protecting those margins than the customer. The customer would be better protected by lower prices.
 
This thread has got me thinking, and if we hold a manufacturer responsible for parts that are very easily removable, then where would they stand regarding windscreen wipers?

Oh and what about Mercedes-Benz branded dust caps?

The windscreen wipers and dust caps are exceedingly easy to 'borrow' but who do we blame? The car manufacturer, the windscreen wiper manufacturer for making these items easy to remove?

Do we also hold Mercedes-Benz responsible for those folk that steal those items?

I am getting an E-class with all the bells and whistles, including that bonnet mounted three-pronged star, another item that our charming yuff like to steal, I had not even thought about this Distronic thingie.

I hate to say this but if I had a really expensive car, I might not want to park it in the street. Apologies to those that have no option to do this but should they accept the fact that their car might be a target for the opportunistic thieve or 'trophy hunter'
 
Thanks, interesting to hear people’s thoughts on this, I disagree with the notion that mb are not liable to take any action regarding this matter. At the very least it’s negligence by design/manufacture therefore, (traditionally) not something that what result in a recall as on the surface mb would argue safety is not put at risk.. but they should be, at the very least be compensating customers. That said, one could argue you are putting the safety of your customers at risk as after the radar is removed the customer is subsequently losing two key safety aspects of the vehicle; the automatic collision/braking system as well as the adaptive cruise control.

Someone used the analogy of your smart phone being lost then asking Apple to pay for it. I would totally disagree with that idea. I would liken this case more to the Apple fiasco of slowing down iphones and battery life becoming compromised- in which case Apple then accepted liability (somewhat) compensated customers. Another example is Toyota offering catlock’s at a reduced price for those victim to a cat converted theft, where seemingly toyota vehicles are vulnerable to. I think people would have a different mindset if this happened to you. Mb cost for this work is over £1,300 (yeah, got your attention!). All for a measly badge being prized off which takes a thief under ten seconds to carry out. The parts are ridiculously expensive. Hmm who benefits from that.

I seriously urge anyone with the distronic radar kit to protect / apply adhesive as soon as possible. This is like mb placing pop on nut covers on their alloys and not having any lock nuts underneath. now would that be an acceptable design? I think not, you would have alot of alloy wheel thefts. Not good enough to say you live in a city so this is what you would expect, a certain Mr Khan said that and we all know how well that statement went down.
Extremely disappointed and surprised how negligent mb have been here

Thanks, interesting to hear people’s thoughts on this, I disagree with the notion that mb are not liable to take any action regarding this matter. At the very least it’s negligence by design/manufacture therefore, (traditionally) not something that what result in a recall as on the surface mb would argue safety is not put at risk.. but they should be, at the very least be compensating customers. That said, one could argue you are putting the safety of your customers at risk as after the radar is removed the customer is subsequently losing two key safety aspects of the vehicle; the automatic collision/braking system as well as the adaptive cruise control.

Someone used the analogy of your smart phone being lost then asking Apple to pay for it. I would totally disagree with that idea. I would liken this case more to the Apple fiasco of slowing down iphones and battery life becoming compromised- in which case Apple then accepted liability (somewhat) compensated customers. Another example is Toyota offering catlock’s at a reduced price for those victim to a cat converted theft, where seemingly toyota vehicles are vulnerable to. I think people would have a different mindset if this happened to you. Mb cost for this work is over £1,300 (yeah, got your attention!). All for a measly badge being prized off which takes a thief under ten seconds to carry out. The parts are ridiculously expensive. Hmm who benefits from that.

I seriously urge anyone with the distronic radar kit to protect / apply adhesive as soon as possible. This is like mb placing pop on nut covers on their alloys and not having any lock nuts underneath. now would that be an acceptable design? I think not, you would have alot of alloy wheel thefts. Not good enough to say you live in a city so this is what you would expect, a certain Mr Khan said that and we all know how well that statement went down.
Extremely disappointed and surprised how negligent mb have been

Gunner8525 I feel your pain!

The same has happened to me and I’m now faced with a £1000 bill. I agree its a design/security failure - and MB should make access to the sensor more difficult for the thieves.

The radar sensor is £440 on ‘ back order’ with MB and they have no ETA of when they will get a delivery & £153 for the Star. With no stock at MB your forced to either source from a scrap yard or buy off eBay which is keeping the market going in stolen distronic sensors. As a final cherry on the cake MB want approx £350 - £400 to re calibrate it.

Mercedes are lovely cars however not sure I can go through the aggro again - if they ain’t trying to nick it out right off the drive they are now stealing anything they can off it and MB make it far too easy for the thieves.

Good Luck if it happens to anyone on here!

I hope your fixed the issue
 
I think your arguments and views around this are rubbish.

Thieves are opportunistic and will take whatever sells for good money. Could be a mobile phone from your hand or your wallet.

Would you blame the wallet company?
 
Just read through this read as its resurfaced.
I am still peeing my pants from utter shite posted, theft liability, racist comments, tarnishing with the same brush.

1) A thief steals fron your home as the window is not thief proof - you cant sue builder.
2) In all modern society there is an element of people who don't want to work yet want the best. Its the person not the country pf people/

There is some hilarious drivel on this thread..
 

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