Mercedes Me adapter now Free

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A £5 ELM327 for free in exchange for what? They must be selling on the data they harvest from these.
 
Just to confirm (because it doesn't show in the list of vehicles); my CLK is not compatible with the adaptor, despite being manufactured after 2002?

I'm not going to lose sleep over it, but if Mercedes were going to let me have one for free I would have had a play.
 
I’ve got it (was free with the car) but think I could live without it - and I do wonder what they do with the info they get as you can’t use it without agreeing to all their Ts and Cs. Most useful thing so far is finding out how much fuel I put in the car per month, which of course I could work out but saves me the bother :rolleyes:
 
Yes, it's as free as Gmail, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, SnapChat - and very many other things that require some form of online registration - this is because they want to know who their customers are. So it's a fair trade and your choice.

In this case they also seem to insist that you book a fitting at a dealership, so clearly they want their customers through the door so that they are exposed to (potentiality) dealer servicing, or a new/used car, etc. Not a bad idea from their perspective.

Incidentally, I bought mine online and fitted it myself, including registration and activation over the phone using the MB helpline - so there's no real need for the adapter to be fitted by an MB technician.
 
Hi,
Anyone know how much they charge to fit the Free Mercedes Me adaptor?
 
I am getting mine fitted during A service in 2 weeks
 
Been free for a good 6 months, cheers for posting though :)
 
I unplugged mine when I realised it was transmitting Bluetooth all the time. Only a matter of time before there’s a hack & lowlifes can open the doors etc.

Cars are being stolen through keyless access as we know, & this stinks of making it ten times easier.

That, & in all honestly it was absolute cr@p!

Nige
 
I unplugged mine when I realised it was transmitting Bluetooth all the time. Only a matter of time before there’s a hack & lowlifes can open the doors etc.

Cars are being stolen through keyless access as we know, & this stinks of making it ten times easier.

That, & in all honestly it was absolute cr@p!

Nige
There's no need for that... the risk is negligible.

One of the reasons that the Mercedes Me Adapter does bugger-all other than pull some data off the ECU is precisely this, i.e. that security cannot be guaranteed over a Bluetooth connection.

This is why in order to have any sort of service from Mercedes Me (not Mercedes Me Adapter) that can actually activate things on the car, you need to have the factory-fitted KOM Module with the built-in Vodafone simcard.

So there's no need to worry about the security of the Mercedes Me Adapter... it will never have any meaningful or potentially-harmful functionality anyway.

But this is also why removing it is neither here nor there... there's no risk, but there's also little real benefit.

Said that, it's a nice toy, and I do like it, I just don't expect too much of it.
 
FWIW, anyone with VWs in their household - they’re doing their own version (VW Dataplug) for free too if it’s of any interest :)
 
Thanks for the heads up.

Sorry, I will PM you personally every single time I find out something new in future.


It was on Mercedes UK homepage, in their email bulletin and on many sites such as hotukdeals.
 
There's no need for that... the risk is negligible.

One of the reasons that the Mercedes Me Adapter does bugger-all other than pull some data off the ECU is precisely this, i.e. that security cannot be guaranteed over a Bluetooth connection.

This is why in order to have any sort of service from Mercedes Me (not Mercedes Me Adapter) that can actually activate things on the car, you need to have the factory-fitted KOM Module with the built-in Vodafone simcard.

So there's no need to worry about the security of the Mercedes Me Adapter... it will never have any meaningful or potentially-harmful functionality anyway.

But this is also why removing it is neither here nor there... there's no risk, but there's also little real benefit.

Said that, it's a nice toy, and I do like it, I just don't expect too much of it.

Are you sure about that?

OBD-II Dongle Attack: Stopping a Moving Car via Bluetooth
 
...the risk is negligible...

Are you sure about that?...

Yes I am... the risk is negligible. read the article carefully.

Firstly there's 2FA on the Mercedes Me Dongle (BT PIN plus your Mercedes Me password).

Secondly the idea that you can amplify the BT range by 'x10 or x100' is - in this article - theoretical, and has not been demonstrated.

Thirdly they relied on a bug in the Bosch software that allowed sending an instruction to car's CANBUS, a bug which Bosch has now fixed, and it's not a given that the Mercedes Me software will have a similar bug.

And last, the worse case scenario if all off the above events are aligned, is that the hackers could 'stop the car' - and this again is theorised but not demonstrated.

So my view remains that the risk is negligible.
 
Whether or not the adapter can cause a security/hack issue, or the manufacturers are harvesting your data and using it for to their benefit (and the detriment of yours) is far from clear.

Given the adapters limited functionality , the potential negatives outweighed the positives for me - so I removed mine.
 
Yes I am... the risk is negligible. read the article carefully.

Firstly there's 2FA on the Mercedes Me Dongle (BT PIN plus your Mercedes Me password).

Secondly the idea that you can amplify the BT range by 'x10 or x100' is - in this article - theoretical, and has not been demonstrated.

Thirdly they relied on a bug in the Bosch software that allowed sending an instruction to car's CANBUS, a bug which Bosch has now fixed, and it's not a given that the Mercedes Me software will have a similar bug.

And last, the worse case scenario if all off the above events are aligned, is that the hackers could 'stop the car' - and this again is theorised but not demonstrated.

So my view remains that the risk is negligible.

Negligible but it is still a risk and these are only the known exploits. The functionality is limited so for me, not worth the risk. I wonder if it could affect your insurance too at some point.

I would guess that once you have connected to the bluetooth adapter, again guessing here, using a preset PIN that is the same on all adapters, the Mercedes account is not required to access the car so security is non-existent. I could be wrong but this is how others have worked.

It is free for a reason ;)
 
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Volkswagen equivalent has been free for a while (perhaps always).

I don't think they will sell on the data, but they want the data for fault and reliability prediction etc etc etc. Thats why they are happy to put the Comms Module on all new cars for the last 4 years or more.

Richard
 

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