152 miles service engine light came on

After enjoying the car for less than 4 days after delivery, got this message on the dash: "Service Required, do not change gears, visit the dealer". I had driven just over 150 miles. Needless to say I am disappointed to have to go back to the dealer and leave the car there till Monday so they can get a B class trained person to do a diagnostic. 1 b class trained service advisor and 1 trained tech. No one on the ground at this point knowledgable about the product. I got a Lot if attention from management, they knew I was pissed, but I feel at dealership level they are ill equipped for the product at this stage top to bottom

An odd message perhaps lifted from their ICE vehicles since an EV has no gears that can be changed... I'm going to assume that meant to stay in whatever drive mode you were in... Were you underway at the time of the message? Bummer, regardless. I hope this isn't representative of the reliability that we can expect from the B and is just an isolated case...

Dsummers said:

"Service Required, do not change gears, visit the dealer".

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Indeed I was driving at the time message came on. Vehicle drove fine from there to the dealership. I noticed nothing in the overall performance in the half hour of driving post alert. In order to get out if the car you must obviously open the door and that automatically shifts the vehicle from D to P. At that point the message went off the dash screen. Thankfully I had taken pictures of the message on my phone. I expect same as you suspect, just a pain to deal with in a 4 day old car.

I'm sure a DTC was stored that they can retrieve... Did you happen to see if you can put the car back in to D and move after exiting or turning it off and back on?

Dsummers said:

Indeed I was driving at the time message came on. Vehicle drove fine from there to the dealership. I noticed nothing in the overall performance in the half hour of driving post alert. In order to get out if the car you must obviously open the door and that automatically shifts the vehicle from D to P. At that point the message went off the dash screen. Thankfully I had taken pictures of the message on my phone. I expect same as you suspect, just a pain to deal with in a 4 day old car.

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I did not. But I watched the hover of dealership people do it. Car started and message was gone. They gave me a loaner and expect to do an analysis on the system Monday. I expect a software glitch. There was no degradation in the e-cel capacity indicator and from my studying of the manual that seems to be where actual process issue would show up with continued driving if there were an issue of function.

Sorry to hear that!
Keep us posted as to what MB does to resolve it...

Update. Monday 7/28 came an went without resolution to the issue. MB asked my permission to keep it so they could drive it around Tuesday 7/29. Apparently they were able " to recreate the alarm condition" by driving it around. The called in a regional technician as no solution has yet been found. The car has now been in the shop longer than I had it in my possession. Absolutely MB not ready for this car to be on the street. I am a longtime MB customer, and I am very disappointed by their lack of product knowledge and tech training.

I'm sorry to hear that! But for what it is worth, the exact same scenario haunted the Leaf when it first came out... Neither the dealers nor Nissan were ready for it for at least the first 6 months...

Dsummers said:

Absolutely MB not ready for this car to be on the street. I am a longtime MB customer, and I am very disappointed by their lack of product knowledge and tech training.

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And BMW has been having similar troubles with the i3.

I am glad that I do not have to decide between the LEAF and the MBCED next year!

Software issue sent to Germany for reprogramming patch. Germany was aware of this already and programmers are working on it. Car is being given back to me today, with instructions to ignore this specific message, and when the software patch is available I will be called to return to the dealership for the update to be installed. I guess that is good news, though returning again to the dealership in the near future is less than desirable.

Too bad they didn't also incorporate Tesla's over-the-air update capability...

Dsummers said:

Software issue sent to Germany for reprogramming patch. Germany was aware of this already and programmers are working on it. Car is being given back to me today, with instructions to ignore this specific message, and when the software patch is available I will be called to return to the dealership for the update to be installed. I guess that is good news, though returning again to the dealership in the near future is less than desirable.

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Dsummers said:

....Absolutely MB not ready for this car to be on the street. I am a longtime MB customer, and I am very disappointed by their lack of product knowledge and tech training.

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Unfortunately this was also true for the LEAF, Ford Focus EV, and the Chevy Volt when they first came out. We're talking about technology that is totally foreign to pretty much all automotive technicians and salesmen. Remember Electric cars haven't been on the road in reasonable numbers, where more than one mechanic would see them, since the early 1900's. It will take time for manufacturers to get their people up to speed.

My Nissan dealer still has LEAFs sitting in the lot charged to 100% (which we all know is terrible for battery capacity). Whenever I remind them (pretty much every time I visit), I am talking to a different salesman. Last year when the Service Reps showed me my annual battery report (which was 5-stars) and I show him that my cells are obviously deteriorating via LEAFSpy, the guy was aghast. The service technicians finally know as much as I do, but it took two years for them to get there.

Of course, Nissan bears a good portion of the blame for this when they eliminated the 80% charge option in 2014 in order to game the EPA range numbers...

padamson1 said:

My Nissan dealer still has LEAFs sitting in the lot charged to 100% (which we all know is terrible for battery capacity).

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Well, probably last update on this for a while. When I went to pick up car I made them write on service ticket, which they did the following: " the issue is not resolved, customer is advised to disregard this drivetrain message and drive normally until notified of the software update. Mercedes benz says vehicle is safe to drive." After reading it back before I signed it I told the guy this is crazy and I am not sure I feel safe with a software glitch with no resolve. They will keep the car in their service department until it is fixed. No telling when that will be.

Dsummers said:

Well, probably last update on this for a while. When I went to pick up car I made them write on service ticket, which they did the following: " the issue is not resolved, customer is advised to disregard this drivetrain message and drive normally until notified of the software update. Mercedes benz says vehicle is safe to drive." After reading it back before I signed it I told the guy this is crazy and I am not sure I feel safe with a software glitch with no resolve. They will keep the car in their service department until it is fixed. No telling when that will be.

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So what do I sign when I pick up my self driving car? Software glitches like this show why the whole "cars will be driving themselves in the next year or two" quotes are more than a little off.

Not only is the technology not ready for prime time but the American Judicial System has no way of handling accidents involving automated cars: Car rear-ends another car, the driver says the SW turned off, the SW logs say that the driver turned it off. Was it the driver or the software? A new lawsuit expression is created, "He says vs it says", who wins?.

Food for thought...probably shouldn't reply on this side topic as it should have its own thread.

I'll believe the software over the driver every time!

padamson1 said:

Car rear-ends another car, the driver says the SW turned off, the SW logs say that the driver turned it off. Was it the driver or the software?

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Dsummers said:

Well, probably last update on this for a while. When I went to pick up car I made them write on service ticket, which they did the following: " the issue is not resolved, customer is advised to disregard this drivetrain message and drive normally until notified of the software update. Mercedes benz says vehicle is safe to drive." After reading it back before I signed it I told the guy this is crazy and I am not sure I feel safe with a software glitch with no resolve. They will keep the car in their service department until it is fixed. No telling when that will be.

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What are you driving in the meantime? Did they give you a free-of-charge loaner?

I am driving a dealership loaner for free (not the gas) until this is resolved. I can say both the dealership, and now consequently MBUSA from a customer service standpoint have treated me ok. It has been escalated to a corporate customer service project manager and so far their documentation of the issue and communication has been good. As to where this is all going to lead I have no idea, and I will just patiently let it play out before I come to an ultimate conclusion and/or voice my personal opinion about the product and how this is handled end to end by MB.

I just received the same message this morning. Thankfully I read your posts and knew that I could ignore it for now. I'll be contacting my dealer shortly. If you don't mind me asking, which service department have you been dealing with? I'm leasing mine from Rusnak in Arcadia, CA.

Thanks,
Steve L.

CAlstar in glendale. I am not sure I would ignore it, is a complete pain but I fear not documenting the issue with MB in such a new car could be problematic for you if problems persist in the future. I may be taking a cautious tact, but when they tell me they have to write new code, it worries me when a computer controls most of the functions. Good luck and sorry this exciting new product is having issues. I personally don't expect to return to the MB dealer after new drive off until first scheduled maintenance. Has been my lifelong experience with MB and I expect nothing less.