Two issues here. Self parking - cars are no longer allowed to steer unless they can sense that you’re touching the steering wheel. New E Class and S Class have a pressure sensing layer under the steering wheel leather which navigates this issue.
Removal of parking pilot system happened between summer and autumn last year from model year changes
Second issue is the activate lane keeping assist in some models, which is having to be turned off prior to delivery of new vehicles. From April 1st there’s a registration embargo on these cars until the recall is undertaken. It is predominantly on vehicles in the compact car range that don’t have the driving assistance package. As far as I’m aware it’s because there’s no audible warning with that system, only visual and steering vibration. With the driving assistance pack you get audible warning along with blind spot assist, so vehicles with that option should be unaffected
Both are a result of new UN worldwide legislation and I’m guessing won’t be turned on again until all vehicles in the range receive updated steering and lane keeping systems
This is interesting, thank you. However, the explanation does not make entire sense to me. When the self-parking system is in operation it requires hands to be off the wheel and, if the wheels is grasped, the system is interrupted. This is the case with other manufacturer's implementations (e.g. BMW) that are still being sold. So there may be an issue about the MB force sensing system reliably detecting when the driver intervenes by grasping the wheel, but it is not immediately obvious. On a point of detail, I think the newer sensing system is capacitance rather than pressure sensing based.
My wife's recently delivered BMW 3 series with the driving assistance package does not provide any audible warnings in similar circumstances, so I doubt that there is any legislative requirement for them. My reading of the UN regulation is that it is not as specific as that about how systems should be designed. It does require a safety case to be produced and, as I have said before, this is where I suspect MB is having difficulties which other manufacturers are not encountering. But what they are is anybody's guess in the absence of a clear explanation from MB.
Have you seen any indication that MB might be intending to disable any of these systems on older cars as a "quality enhancement"?