E class DAB quality

[NHS DAVE]

Hi Guys

Just got a 2013 220cdi and the DAB radio is really quite poor for holding reception. The wife has a Volvo which in the same area holds the signal when the merc looses it. Anybody any suggestions or experience of this that have resolved this?

appreciate any suggestions

thanks

Dave

 

[sonic]

Check your antenna amp there have been loads fail, pops up on this site quite regularly.
Do a search on this site.

 

[NHS DAVE]

Cheers will do

 

[Botus]

https://forums.mercedesclub.org.uk/index.php?threads/dab-radio-software-update.185024/#post-1864660

 

[NHS DAVE]

Hi chap thanks for this. Based in Yorkshire so these guys are a bit far.

anybody recommend a workshop in leeds / york area?

 

[Botus]

sorry no idea who can do this work up there..... few independents buy legit gear to allow them to flash software. Trouble is its almost a daily necessity on all modern cars.

Most new cars of any brand leave the factory part baked. One of the areas that has nothing to do with safety or drivability is the "radio". With so many sales now riding on the toy features of this part of the car, they keep rolling out more and more complexity. The trouble is its outside their area of expertise and tech costs money. So we tend to see budget stuff blinged up to look expensive with randomware operating software.

It gets the money coming in and they aim to fix sometime in the car's life if its easy the owner moans a lot during its warranty period. What's becoming more prevalent is the cost cutting is ending up with equipment that can't be fixed with software.... Often they realise this and just move on to a minor 18 month facelift replacing the hardware and owners get left behind.

That said a DAB change in broadcast set up for the UK in Jan 2016 meant many Merc DAB systems need to be updated to cope - but most owners never get anything updated and dealers never bother to do this during servicing. Many also had antenna issues that don't cope with our weak signals.

check what you should get on DAB here

https://getdigitalradio.com/post-code-checker/

 

[FiveAlive]

That said a DAB change in broadcast set up for the UK in Jan 2016 meant many Merc DAB systems need to be updated to cope

I guess you're referring to the addition of DAB+. Exisiting DAB radios without DAB+ support can still receive the DAB stations but not the DAB+ ones. My 2011 car has DAB but to get DAB+ would require the DAB module to be replaced - it isn't just a software update. However, from what I've seen on forums previously, the upgraded Mercedes DAB/DAB+ module for my car seems to have poorer reception than the older DAB-only version, so I have never bothered with the upgrade. The link you provided shows which stations are DAB and which are DAB+, and fortunately I'm not missing out on anything I care about.

 

[Botus]

I guess you're referring to the addition of DAB+.

not sure on timeline, might have been a reshuffle then big change over bringing both...

the issue on many E class cars was if you live in a strong signal areas the radio could suddenly find more than 99 DAB channels and the tuner lost the will to live and just threw its teddies, displaying an error with no stations at all.... By Aug Mercedes had a software update / patch to re do its channel numbering and in many areas the tuner started to work again after the software update and it could find something. Plenty don't know about that bug as they have too few stations to bring the bug in to play. I bet less than 7% of Mercedes that need that fix ever got it.

Can't say if the later tuners were better or not, but its highly unlikely they were worse.... one of the main reasons later kit tends to cope is purely down to improvements in tuner sensitivity. This then allows broadcasters to drop signal bandwidth per station and squeeze yet more channels of garbage in the same space.

 

[Jkh112]

My 2014 e class had terrible DAB reception when I purchased it 3 years ago.
Under the warranty I managed to get the software updated (no improvement) and then the dab aerial booster replaced with a later version. DAB reception is now very good and I also now get DAB+.