TMC issue on a W222 COMAND pre-facelift

[Diesel Benz]

The European TMC provider says there is an issue with some Mercedes navigation units, my NTG5 (*2?) appears to be one.

COMAND seems to save TMC messages, some messages are never cleared which is really stupid. I now have dozens of expired messages saved. Some are really disturbing like our main motorway being closed on two different sections according to an expired TMC message. Makes dynamic navigation routes useless.

Resetting the head unit from the vehicle menu makes no difference. The road is still blocked after reset even before TMC actually restarts and reads (other) messages via RDS on FM radio. This proves messages being stored. Easy to compare to other cars (even other W222 cars) that RDS on air is not causing the issue.

I did not try resetting by COMAND fuse, I assume it would be useless because the W222 COMAND is anyway powered by circuit 30G, meaning it loses power once the car enters sleep state.

The local dealer has no idea, the only thing they could do is try to update COMAND SW. This might help, I assume it involves a "deep reset" but I'm not going to have it done at my own cost.

Star diagnosis seems to have some COMAND reset options but I did not dare to try because there was no documentation on the level of the reset. I don't want to lose activation PINs or similar. Experienced guidance on this would be very welcome.

Anyone else observed the same issue on a W222 or some other MB? I don't know if it involves only models that use TMC from RDS radio or also the more recent ones that use internet connectivity for traffic messages.

 

[gr1nch]

Diesel Benz, I haven't yet noticed any stale TMC messages on my W222, but if they start or my dealer says anything relevant, I'll let you know on this thread.

Sent from my G3112 using Tapatalk

 

[Diesel Benz]

gr1nch, I think your car is newer, I wonder if it reads traffic info via RDS on FM radio or does it use internet connectivity? I don't know if the issue can occur for both variants.

The issues seems to appear quite randomly and a bit hard to find another car with the same problem, not to mention someone whose car has been fixed by the dealer.

 

[markjay]

..The local dealer has no idea, the only thing they could do is try to update COMAND SW. This might help, I assume it involves a "deep reset" but I'm not going to have it done at my own cost....

Updating the COMAND software seems like a sensible move, though if the car is out of warranty then I don't see how you can avoid paying for it (even if it proves to be a 'manufacturing defect').

But try getting this done by a specialist e.g. Comand UK as opposed to a main dealer.

If the car is still under warranty, then try another dealer... they should update the firmware free-of-charge if it is done as part of a diagnostics process when dealing with an identifiable issue.