Fitness for purpose

[Robertb]

I have a Mercedes CLS with blind spot monitors. The radar units are turning out to be consumables; it has had two sets in 10 years, and I've just had another failure. Needless to say, they last over a year so are outside of any warranty but are plainly not fit for the purpose they are designed for.

I'd not mind but they are over £600 a side. I'd like to just turn the system off, but I can't as it says its inoperative so I can't access the function to switch it off as I normally could, so I'm left with the lights in the mirrors permanently on which is distracting and dangerous as it makes the mirrors hard to look at in rain. The option cannot be 'coded out' either, as far as I know.

Do I have any recourse to Mercedes under some sort of consumer rights?

[ADJimbo]

Robertb said:

I have a Mercedes CLS with blind spot monitors. The radar units are turning out to be consumables; it has had two sets in 10 years, and I've just had another failure. Needless to say, they last over a year so are outside of any warranty but are plainly not fit for the purpose they are designed for.

I'd not mind but they are over £600 a side. I'd like to just turn the system off, but I can't as it says its inoperative so I can't access the function to switch it off as I normally could, so I'm left with the lights in the mirrors permanently on which is distracting and dangerous as it makes the mirrors hard to look at in rain. The option cannot be 'coded out' either, as far as I know.

Do I have any recourse to Mercedes under some sort of consumer rights?

From memory, Mercedes Benz UK Genuine Parts hold a two year warranty if that makes any difference to your problem?

In terms of consumer rights, you d have very little recourse other than the warranty above - if it is two years that is. My pragmatic suggestion would be to raise the issue with Olivier Reppert ([e-mail]) who is their UK CEO, and see if its picked up by someone on his UK Executive Team in the hope of gaining some traction and goodwill from them.

Edited by ADJimbo on Thursday 4th December 12:38

[southendpier]

that sounds annoying - unplug power to the lights?

[Robertb]

Embarrassingly it seems to have fixed itself since this morning. Fingers crossed it was a glitch on this occasion!

[spookly]

Have you looked at whether you can code it out with a decent OBD tool?

[119]

A lot of Merc stuff and VW nowadays is hard coded into the/an EEPROM i believe, so may not be that straight forward.

[Cyberprog]

I wonder if you could build an adruino module that just pretends to be the module itself.

Bonus points there is you can sell it to other folk!

[Richard-D]

Cyberprog said:

I wonder if you could build an adruino module that just pretends to be the module itself.

Bonus points there is you can sell it to other folk!

Quite possibly a good solution. This is an area I like fiddling with myself.

The thing that jumps to mind is how the feedback is handled from the sensor modules. If they send a canbus message that is read by the BCM (or similar) it would be very difficult. If any stage of the feedback is a straight voltage then it would be simple of course.

It'd be interesting to see a layout and wiring diagram for the system to see if there's a good place to break in/fool it.

[Robertb]

Actually I have found a means of coding them out (for the next time they conk out). I dont understand it, but a specialist who has Xentry might:
https://forums.mbclub.co.uk/threads/removing-distr...
I've got two of the old radar units. I'd hoped someone could fix the electronics but I've not found anyone online who could help. If someone could offer a good service they'd clean up as these things fail all the time.

I imagine its water ingress through the connector which finishes them off, though in the last instance hopefully a glitch caused by me replacing the main 12v battery a day before.

[Cyberprog]

Richard-D said:

Quite possibly a good solution. This is an area I like fiddling with myself.

The thing that jumps to mind is how the feedback is handled from the sensor modules. If they send a canbus message that is read by the BCM (or similar) it would be very difficult. If any stage of the feedback is a straight voltage then it would be simple of course.

It'd be interesting to see a layout and wiring diagram for the system to see if there's a good place to break in/fool it.

I mean, an arduino should be capable of sending a message back on the canbus - https://www.instructables.com/Yes-We-CAN-BUS-With-...

[Richard-D]

Cyberprog said:

Richard-D said:

Quite possibly a good solution. This is an area I like fiddling with myself.

The thing that jumps to mind is how the feedback is handled from the sensor modules. If they send a canbus message that is read by the BCM (or similar) it would be very difficult. If any stage of the feedback is a straight voltage then it would be simple of course.

It'd be interesting to see a layout and wiring diagram for the system to see if there's a good place to break in/fool it.

I mean, an arduino should be capable of sending a message back on the canbus - https://www.instructables.com/Yes-We-CAN-BUS-With-...

I didn't say it wasn't, I said it was difficult. So you've set up the arduino to send canbus messages, what message do you need to send?

[Steve-B]

Have you just considered ignoring next failure, putting a small area of silver paint over the mirror lights and being done with this expensive saga? I know that's a but heavy handed but if the car runs and you don't have some dashboard blinding light why not?

[username_checksout]

Richard-D said:

.....I like fiddling with myself.

Phnarr.

[Richard-D]

Lol, Don't we all?