Mercedes and Bluetooth

Mercedes is actually several notches behind Chrysler, let alone BMW, GM et al in wiring its cars for Bluetooth, an impending legal requirement for hands free cell phone use in cars in states like California. Hence this is not a minor problem. I try not to initiate calls from the car for safety reasons but I get many emergency calls, so this is not a vanity issue for me. It is beyond bizarre for a company that wants to market cars in the price classes Mercedes positions itself in that its cars are not in the year 2007 pre-wired for bluetooth and that the Bluetooth "option" is at least a two to three step process that inevitably involves purchasing a bluetooth module separately from a Mercedes subsidiary rather than having the device invisibly prewired into the car at the factory like it should be. At most this would cost a couple of hundred dollars per car, cars that are already prewired for the Mercedes version of Onstar. Lest anyone think German/Mercedes engineering is world class they should spec out bluetooth in a Mercedes. Mercedes must have hired unemployed Yugo engineers for their version of bluetooth. It is not hard to guess that I am hacked because the car spent the day at the dealer only to find: no power wired to the blue tooth module, hence it is useless, and it is Friday and I do not have the time to endlessly hassle with this for another week. It could be worse: at least Mercedes does not force an Iwheel into every car.

Reply to
babaloo
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I don't see room for such complaints as long as there is a solution one can buy.

Of course it would be nice if we would have for free everybody's favourite option in the car. Obviously we do have different preferences, then it is better that MB offers options, in Europe it is a lot better (US buyers can be blamed about the US feature pack approach).

Now I can get anything I want and don't have to pay for a feature I don't want.

The W204 implementation shows that there is room for improvement, and MB is on the way.

Reply to
Me

Frankly, bluetooth should be a standard fit worldwide, it's a fundamental safety feature and increasingly, hands free is a legal requirement in many countries.

It's as fundamental as airbags and anti lock brakes.

That aside, Mercedes have fundamental problems with the electorincs in their vehicles. When soemthing goes wrong I find the dealer simply unable to fix it.

Mechanics are no longer mechanics, they are fitters trained in the art of replacing modules, but no requirement to find out what's actually wrong.

I don;t think this is restriced to Mercedes, pretty much all modern motor manufacturers bar the exotica.

Reply to
Alan M

"Alan M btinternet.com>" Frankly, bluetooth should be a standard fit worldwide, it's a fundamental

I don't disagree with the above, not heavily at least. But why are we here, just at the start of this thread there was a request that we should get everything and free. Electronics are often for convenience but also often making a feature less expensive. Another issue is emissions, we would not be able to reach existing requirements without electronics. On the other hand, most of the reliability issues are on convenience where safety is less of an issue, then cost tends to force implementations unreliable. Finally, on MB this reliability mainly concerns a few models that were built during the previous CEO of DC, it has turned remarcably better and in a very short time now.

There always is a chance to go for a W123, but not many accept the lack of convenience functions, the power, the engine efficiency etc. etc.

Reply to
Anonymous

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