I have finally submitted the required NHTSA complaint regarding the digital dash in our 2019 Dutch Star.
The issue I am filing is in regards to the brightness while driving. Freightliner needs to offer the ability to dim the dash even further than it is now, and to change the background to a night friendly color scheme (aka: Dark Mode).
I do not know if this issue exists on Spartan digital dashes.
I encourage anyone else that has this problem to file the complaint on the NHTSA website
https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/VehicleComplaint/
In addition, you should send an email to Newmar and Freightliner documenting your case. It is my hope that we can work together as a community to bring an important change to this very dangerous display.
I have tried the 2 stop film cover, and this does help. A spare jacket or blanket helps too. Neither of these options are acceptable.
Freightliner Email: fcccservice@daimler.com
Once you have submitted your complaint to NHTSA, you will receive a issue number for tracking purposes. If we can get several of these in this week, it will trigger a faster investigation process.
For the purpose of the report, I used my last drive at night to document. It happens every time, but the report is going to ask for a single incident.
I have received a call from both Freightliner and Newmar.
Neither has heard of this problem before. Freightliner went as far as to say the only feedback they have had are compliments on how bright it is.
At this time neither company is going to take any action due to not hearing any other complaints.
If you have a problem with your dash being too bright at night, please do something about it. Don’t just ignore the problem.
At the very least, you need to call both Newmar and Freightliner and log a complaint. I would also suggest you log a NHTSA complaint as well. This is the kind of thing that numbers matter. Until we get enough complaints in the system, no one is going to pay attention.
Once you have emailed Newmar & Freightliner, please post back to this thread so that we can keep track.
I just got a response from freightliner to my email that I sent yesterday. I’m attaching it below. it appears that we may be getting somewhere very very slowly.
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*Thank you for your email concerning your dash back lighting. If you have confirmed that the dimmer is all the way down then this is all we can do at this time. I will engage the appropriate persons here at FCCC to look into this concern and will respond with feedback.*
Sincerely,
Joe Patterson
FCCC Representative
Yesterday I spent the day at my Freightliner dealership. I was there primarily to get my 6 month service performed, but wanted them to look at the dash brightness and see what information they were able to gather.
The tech knew what I was talking about right away, as other owners had complained to him about it. He called “corporate” and was told that this case is already logged under the vin, but no solution has been found so far, with no ETA.
It has been a while since this topic was first posted. I have personally seen how Freightliner fixed the issue in 2020, but that dash has so many changes in it that the software will have to be back ported to the 2019/2018. I don’t hold my breath on this ever happening. The software engineers are only going to do this if the NTSB forces them to act.
I have been driving with a tshirt over the dash, and using my GPS to tell how fast I am going along with Bluefire to tell how my engine is performing…basically rendering the dash useless.
Recently someone reached out to me with a product he developed. It is a simple screen cut to size to snap into the dash of our 2019 Freightliner.
I am very impressed with both the ease of installation and the dramatic difference it makes.
It is easy to remove, but I plan on just leaving it installed 100% of the time.
You can buy the product directly from the inventor: http://www.dimit.bigcartel.com
This is a great solution — I just wish I had thought of it first!