Mercedes E-Class S213 (Estate) - Quality Issues

[jjlucas76]

I have taken ownership of a new 2017 Mercedes E-Class 220D at the end of March. The £50,200 car has been
fantastic...for the first 1000 miles.

The Good:

Consumption average around 46mpg

Air suspensions are fantastic.

Driving quality is excellent both in Sport+ mode for fun and Comfort for ..well comfort.

The Driving Assistance is a really nice feature to use during motorway driving and you can cover longer journeys with less stress and fatigue.

LiveTraffic is terrific, you really get from A to B faster with less traffic.

The Bad:

-Car boot door not always opens or closes as it should.

-Media player sucks so much that I just turn it to radio. Looking for a song is really a tedious task.

-Central Console keys are layout for the European version, so all most important buttons are hidden on the wrong side.

-You are a beta tester for the Driving Assistance, so always keep an eye to sudden accelerations or sudden disengagement of the auto pilot

-Speed limit signs are at times missed or not in sync with the actual Navigation data.

-Internet radio takes 5 minutes to buffer and keeps re-buffering often, even in Central London.

The ugly:

A tension bar must have come off inside the sunroof system and now when driving, the car feels like a plumber's van with loose metal pipes at the back.:fail

The widescreen(optional 495GBP) behind the steering wheel shows blinking icons with screen artifacts.

To use some online services you need to buy Vodafone 4G data plan.

If you buy Vodafone 4G data plan, you only get 3G data connection, so forget about doing some serious work from the car or entertain the family as it is too slow to even open the BBC website.
On top of that mercedes.me will offer new services in June, such Tidal Music Service and In-Car Office
Great fun to experience these 2 new services with such a slow internet speed in the car.

I manage to use the Parking Pilot only once as it is really hard to get the car to find a space and have the time to park by itself.
The only time that the car managed to find a space the Parking Pilot scuffed one of the alloy while performing a simple parking manoeuvre. The cameras/sensors seems not to communicate that well with the park pilot.

:fail

The car has lost its intelligent light system, ILS. As the notification system puts it: The Intelligent Light System is inoperable.
Basically the car only switch to beam or high beam only the right front light.
That's really frustrating as I can't even legally drive the car at night.

I really want to like the car as it is great:

I can manage to use my mobile for 4G data, I can cope with my wife complaining about the boot's door not opening or closing, I can even babysit the Driving Assistance and not have the digital key working for my phone after paying £250 for it.

But the fact that the car's core components are literally crumbling after 1700 miles, that's really unacceptable.

Last week I booked the car in for tomorrow to check the sun-roof and widescreen issue, but as the ILS failed just today apparently I need to book another appointment, with the only slot available in 4 weeks time.

I got told to speak to the service manager and see if they can fit in the repair of the ILS as well.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[markjay]

Welcome to the forum.

Most of what you describe (with the exception of the rattle from the pano roof) is down to cars becoming very sophisticated on the electronics side, and not always successfully - be it due to poor ergonomics, poor implementation, or software glitches - most likely the latter will be sorted by software updates.

Car these days become more and more like computers... and car makers don't really know (yet) how to make computers or develop and implement software.

If the overall quality and mechanical reliability are important to you, stick with Mercs. If it's the electronic gizmos you are after... Tesla is your car

Hope (most of) the issues get sorted by the dealer.

 

[masher_uk]

If it were me, I'd be inclined to drop it at the dealer, demand an equivalent courtesy car and have them call you when they've fixed everything on your snag list...

 

[MercA]

My response

I have taken ownership of a new 2017 Mercedes E-Class 220D at the end of March. The £50,200 car has been
fantastic...for the first 1000 miles.

The Good:

Consumption average around 46mpg -> Agree

Air suspensions are fantastic. - Not sure, no Air suspension

Driving quality is excellent both in Sport+ mode for fun and Comfort for ..well comfort. -> not seen any difference

The Driving Assistance is a really nice feature to use during motorway driving and you can cover longer journeys with less stress and fatigue. -> Agree

LiveTraffic is terrific, you really get from A to B faster with less traffic. -> not seen any difference

The Bad:

-Car boot door not always opens or closes as it should.-> Noticed this one, 'kick' opening not always works

-Media player sucks so much that I just turn it to radio. Looking for a song is really a tedious task.-> Placed 150 MP3 songs in a memory stick all seems to be working excellent. Planning to copy MP4 version now as it will play Video when car is not moving - for kids

-Central Console keys are layout for the European version, so all most important buttons are hidden on the wrong side. -> Yes Typical issue when made for LHS, not just Merc

-You are a beta tester for the Driving Assistance, so always keep an eye to sudden accelerations or sudden disengagement of the auto pilot -> yes yes, couple of near accidents already.

-Speed limit signs are at times missed or not in sync with the actual Navigation data.-> yes, some times it even takes sign from side roads

-Internet radio takes 5 minutes to buffer and keeps re-buffering often, even in Central London. -> tested once, it was OK

The ugly:

A tension bar must have come off inside the sunroof system and now when driving, the car feels like a plumber's van with loose metal pipes at the back.:fail -> Ohh dear, not seen this

The widescreen(optional 495GBP) behind the steering wheel shows blinking icons with screen artifacts. -> dear dear, not seen this

To use some online services you need to buy Vodafone 4G data plan. -> major issue, root cause of most of Comm issues

If you buy Vodafone 4G data plan, you only get 3G data connection, so forget about doing some serious work from the car or entertain the family as it is too slow to even open the BBC website.
On top of that mercedes.me will offer new services in June, such Tidal Music Service and In-Car Office
Great fun to experience these 2 new services with such a slow internet speed in the car. -> Major issue, we need to somehow force Merc for a resolution on this.

I manage to use the Parking Pilot only once as it is really hard to get the car to find a space and have the time to park by itself.
The only time that the car managed to find a space the Parking Pilot scuffed one of the alloy while performing a simple parking manoeuvre. The cameras/sensors seems not to communicate that well with the park pilot.

-> yes, not that good in finding space, but when it did - it did a good job!!

:fail

The car has lost its intelligent light system, ILS. As the notification system puts it: The Intelligent Light System is inoperable.
Basically the car only switch to beam or high beam only the right front light.
That's really frustrating as I can't even legally drive the car at night.

Ohh yet to drive in Night :-(

I really want to like the car as it is great:

I can manage to use my mobile for 4G data, I can cope with my wife complaining about the boot's door not opening or closing, I can even babysit the Driving Assistance and not have the digital key working for my phone after paying £250 for it.

I am told Digital key is only for Germany now, not sure WHY they took £250

But the fact that the car's core components are literally crumbling after 1700 miles, that's really unacceptable.

Last week I booked the car in for tomorrow to check the sun-roof and widescreen issue, but as the ILS failed just today apparently I need to book another appointment, with the only slot available in 4 weeks time.

I got told to speak to the service manager and see if they can fit in the repair of the ILS as well.

I'll keep you posted.

 

[MercA]

Mine is more than 1 month old now, 6 weeks - can I still do that..??

 

[guhvies]

Mine is more than 1 month old now, 6 weeks - can I still do that..??

Of course you can. Be firm and polite. Explain that the issues you face are not allowing you to use the car as advertised and sold. They need to be fixed and you need a car to drive while they are being fixed. They may fob you off tho...

 

[280merc]

Re Internet in car from Vodafone. I spoke to them this morning as the only thing I can find that works is the Internet radio which is rather pointless as it has DAB. The main purpose is so passengers can log on and use the Internet on THEIR devices. Damned expensive, may be useful in Europe on holiday with the kids as there are no roaming charges.