Pawlik Automotive Podcast Oct 6, 2025

2012 Mercedes E350 BackUp Camera

Annotations will appear as you listen

0:00

8:21

Car

Mercedes E350

The Mercedes E350 is a comfortable and stylish car that is part of the E-Class series. It's known for being a luxury sedan with good performance and many features.

Term

command display

The command display is a screen in Mercedes cars that helps you control things like navigation and music. It's like a control center for the car's features.

Car

Cadillac Optiq

The Cadillac Optiq is a new electric car from Cadillac, a brand known for its luxury vehicles. It has cool tech features and is designed to be both stylish and environmentally friendly.

Part

fuel pump

The fuel pump is what moves gasoline from the tank to the engine. If the pressure isn't checked, it can lead to engine problems because the engine needs the right amount of fuel to run properly.

Term

fuel pressure

Fuel pressure is how hard the fuel is pushed through the system to the engine. It's important for making sure the engine gets the right amount of fuel to run well.

Term

sensors

Sensors are small devices in a car that help it understand what's happening, like how much fuel is in the system or if the engine is running well. They send this information to the car's computer.

Brand

Mercedes

Mercedes is a well-known car brand that makes luxury cars. They are famous for their quality and technology.

LIVE

Hi, it's Mark Bosterd.

I'm here with Bernie Pawlik, Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Vancouver's best auto service experience, 25 times voted best in Vancouver by their customers,

and we're talking cars.

How are you doing, Bernie?

Doing very well.

So, today's guest is a 2012 Mercedes E350.

What was going on with this vehicle?

So, this vehicle had some issues with the dash display.

It's called, and the Mercedes, they call it the command display.

It's a nice screen to the right side of your steering wheel on the dash.

It has the radio displayed, and then when you switch into reverse, the backup camera

comes on.

It has a variety of other items displayed on there.

You can set up everything on the car on that display.

What was going on is that the display would work sometimes, sometimes not.

And most commonly, it would switch off when you put the car into reverse.

And the display would come on first, the camera would come on, then the display

would go off.

And then after you go out of reverse, the display wouldn't work at all anymore.

So there's a few issues going on.

Sometimes the radio would work.

Sometimes it wouldn't.

A bunch of stuff was going on, but all seemed to be related around that display.

So the car, other than that, was still operating properly?

Yeah, perfect.

Yeah, no issues whatsoever.

So okay, this sounds pretty complicated.

How do you start to diagnose something like this?

Let's do it.

Ask you the big question.

Don't you just ask the computer and it tells you everything?

Well, that's what we tried.

We always start with that.

We plug in, we have a number of scan tools, plug it in, look for trouble codes, and there's

a lot of diagnostic help inside the scan tool, there's information, data, things we can look

at.

There was no trouble codes related to the issue, which makes it immediately complicated right

off the bat.

If it said something like, you know, camera module, rear communication issue, that would

have been helpful, but there was nothing in that area.

So based on that, there was a few items we could test and look at.

But other than that, we have a technical service that we deal with.

These are experts for experts with Mercedes, whichever car we work on, we have a service

we deal with.

Because it's impossible for independent shops to figure things out.

Same with dealerships.

I mean, they don't know everything.

They have Mercedes to deal with, but this is our tech service we deal with.

They're experts.

And basically the idea was, these are your steps you need to follow.

These are the likely causes.

And unfortunately, this tech tells me it's not particularly easy because there's nothing

you can really test.

You just got to plug and play and try things and the most common thing.

First off the bat is the camera module.

So there's a rear camera module, there's a rear camera, then there's a fiber OPTIQ cable

that connects the command display to the command unit.

So there's a whole bunch of things plus software reprogramming.

So we developed a strategy on, okay, what are we going to start with?

The first thing we started with was the camera module.

So you replace the camera module and test it again.

What happened?

Well, it seemed to work fine initially.

And then after a while, the same thing started happening again.

So from there, again, more tests, okay, what do we do next?

We figured reprogramming the vehicle computer was next.

The actual command module is the next likely item because the software sometimes will

go out of date and it won't operate properly.

So we did that as the next procedure.

And it was a bit of complexity in that in that we need to get model numbers off

the command unit, radios, assembly, you have to remove some components, got the

numbers, got everything programmed.

Again, same issue, didn't help it out at all.

So again, next steps were either, is it the cable between the command unit and the

display or is it the rear camera?

And so we figured, let's dig into the rear camera as the next item.

And that was the next item that we went to replace.

And actually in the process, we actually found an issue, which was good.

So I think you have pictures.

Yeah.

So was part of that decision that the rear camera is a little easier to access?

Yeah.

It was a little easier to access and we figured, you know, because it just made

more sense to do that than to change the display cable because it seemed to

correlate so often with switching into reverse.

But what I will say is that, you know, sometimes when we get cars like this,

the way this thing was behaving, it wasn't that it was always going into

reverse.

Sometimes the radio wouldn't work when you turn the car on.

So there definitely wasn't a clear correlation that every time you went

into reverse, the problem happened, which would have made the diagnosis

easier.

It wasn't always like that.

There's a lot of complexity in modern cars.

This car is now 13 years old, so it's not even modern, really.

And he was, this is the backside of the camera.

So on the front side, the other side, that orange piece is a connector

with a nice rubber weather seal that keeps the moisture out.

And what you can't really see in this picture because of the lens

quality we have is there was actually moisture in that connector.

So right away we're going, aha, this is a good thing to find.

There's the one end of the plug in the other end, of course, we

saw in the other picture, but on the other side of that big black thing

is where the actual camera is that faces out backwards onto the road.

So you can see there's a felt foam seal around the camera to keep

the water from even getting into that area.

But of course, as the car ages, 13 years old, moisture seeps into places

and that's what happens.

It does look, if you look close, there is a little shiny in here.

Is that water in there?

I think that's water.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure.

And I was away for a few days.

So this vehicle's repair was finished while I was away.

But apparently it was a lot more moisture in there

when the thing was originally removed and it started to evaporate over time.

But there was still some moisture in there.

So this is the old one.

You replace it with a new one.

Replace it with a new one.

How did things work?

Fine, perfect.

Yeah, problem solved.

So it would have been really frustrating.

We hate doing stuff like we got to try plugging and playing stuff

because it ends up getting an expensive game, but, you know,

frustrating, expensive and, and quite honestly, it kind of

shatters people's confidence sometimes.

You go, oh, you tried that and it's like that didn't work.

It's like, well, how good are you?

Well, you know what?

We do the best we can with what we've got.

And sometimes things are easy and sometimes they're complicated.

Sometimes my pendulum fails me to tell me where to go.

Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe we should do that for diagnosis.

So on the newer vehicles, because this is 13 years old,

say something that was two and three years old,

is there more communication with more parts now

along the line?

Or is it still the same?

There's some parts that are isolated that aren't talking to the computer.

And sending, you know, air reports.

Yeah, there is.

I mean, there's always things in the diagnostic process

that aren't monitored, so to speak.

One thing I always found interesting is like fuel pumps

were not monitored, like the pressure of a fuel pump

was often not monitored in a vehicle.

And if the vehicle had a bad fuel pump, you'd have to.

Manually check it and it's frustrating when a car stalls

and then starts running again.

You go, what happened, you know, because it's running perfectly.

Then some vehicles, I'm trying to think of the brand,

but some vehicles, they all of a sudden put a monitor on the fuel pressure

because that seemed to be an important piece of information for the computer.

But I found sometimes those sensors actually created more problems

that more problems were created by those sensors failing

than the actual components.

So it's kind of an interesting, it's I don't know, it's interesting.

It's a bad that's why we do this podcast

because it's just interesting stuff goes on every day.

You think you've seen it all and it's like, no, something new.

Back up camera can make your life a little bit difficult

when you get used to it.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And, you know, it's nice having it.

And sometimes it wouldn't be a big deal.

But what would happen, of course, is this display wouldn't come back on

after the camera shut the whole thing down.

So you go, well, I want to change my radio station.

Well, now you can't do it until you either recycle the key

or, you know, wait 10 minutes.

And it was just very glitchy.

It's not a Mercedes driving experience.

You know, you don't want that in any kind of car.

No, you want to rely on it.

We use them so much, they're almost a part of us.

So if you're having issues like this with your Mercedes

or any vehicle that you want to have repaired in Vancouver,

the people to see are at Pawlik Automotive.

You can reach them online at pawlikautomotive.com.

You can book your appointment right there.

Or you can call them to book your appointment, 604-327-7112.

They'll find out and talk to you what's going on

and get ready for your appointment.

But you have to book ahead.

They're always busy.

Pawlik Automotive in Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Thanks so much for watching and listening.

Thanks, Bernie.

Thank you, Mark.

And thanks for watching.

0:00

8:21

2012 Mercedes E350 BackUp Camera

Mercedes E350

command display

Cadillac Optiq

fuel pump

fuel pressure

sensors

Mercedes

About this episode