[masmole]

yeah, mine says that too... likely a small mistake on MB's part by cutting-and-pasting from perhaps an SL's feature set which has does have a pop-up roll bar. I'm quite certain that the R171 doesn't have additional "pop-up" type rollbars over our existing fixed roll bars. Now that I looked, right below that feature they list brake-assist as well. What?!? It has brake assist? I thought the R171 had conventional ABS non-electronic-wizardry brakes with no brake assist garbage which plagued the E-Class in terms of weirdness and feel. The new SLK's brakes certainly don't feel like they have such brake-assist nonsense and even some of the media have mentioned this. Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[masmole]

jono_m - 2/12/2005 4:32 PM

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought BAS was different to the brake-by-wire system (Sensotronic) in the E and SL classes. I've even got it in my C-class, and I believe it is still a mechanical connection between pedal and brakes. When it detects emergency braking, it applies maximum braking force (even if the driver inadvertantly lessens pedal pressure)resulting in shorter stopping distances.

Is that so? My mistake then, I thought brake-assist was the same thing as sensotronic and that it was the "brake-force distribution" feature that didn't mess with feel. All I know is that I test-drove a pre-owned '03 E55 prior to taking delivery of an '05 and found the brakes weird and difficult to modulate around town and braking hard from speed coming into a turn. It just didn't feel natural, I didn't like it one bit. For the record, this was not the only reason I cancelled on the car, it had other issues.