Hi, I've just bought a pre-owned 1999 W220 S430L

It has a telephone in the main armrest and one in the rear armrest.

Can anyone help me from the pictures attached identify exactly what system I have, and if theres a method for me to upgrade to bluetooth while keeping the use of the comand head unit and its numeric dialling pad etc and the use of the tel features in the comand system.

The process of buying an updated navigation cd has helped me determine I have a "pre-september 1999" version of comand 2.5 (non-dx). sep 99 onwards used "dx" nav cds

Anyway, if anyone can help me figure out what I need to do in order to update the old phone system shown here, please say!

 

Does anyone know if MIKBOX or ARGOS would work with this setup? thanks

 

Is this a European car? Anyway looks like it has a fixed GSM phone, why don't you get another SIM card for your car and use appropriate call forwarding. Or perhaps your operator would support two SIM cards for the same number.

I have not seen any BT support for European cars with a system older than UHI, except some after market. Does your car have a D2B bus?

 

whats the easiest way to establish if the bus is d2b based? I think it is because the comand system is cd-based, i think when they later changed to dvd based, that meant comand-aps which meant no longer d2b, someone back me up on this?!

id try and keep this working, but when i press tel on the comand system it just says "no phone" and the phones dont light up at all so im not even sure this system is properly working.

 

You are correct that your pre-2004 COMAND is for the D2B data bus. The 2003 model year had COMAND APS with a widescreen (in the U.S., anyway), but was also D2B and CD based. DVD based MOST bus COMAND APS came into use (in the U.S.) in the 2004 model year and later.

You still haven't answered Diesel Benz's question of whether yours is a European car; but since you said it was a 1999 model year, and the versions of the W220 first sold in the U.S. were designated 2000's I will presume it is a European version.

The MikBox works with the StarTac, TimePort, and V60 PSEs; yours may be an earlier analog PSE that is incompatible with the MikBox. You would have to check that. The MikBox also works ony with Motorola phones having the P2K chipset, which is apparent from his website, www.mikbox.com. While some phones using that chipset are both plug-in and Bluetooth capable (e.g., the V60 and V710), the MikBox works only as a plug-in. It is an inexpensive upgrade that allow one to take advantage of much less expensive, non-MB branded phones. The MikBox will work with GSM, CDMA, and TDMA phones. You may have to modify your linear compensator and antenna switch to cover the spectrum you need. Also, you may have to replace your bumper mounted antenna; I did not have to replace the one in my '00 S500 to cover the dual bands for the U.S. digital and analog CDMA systems, but I don't know what situation you are in. See http://www.benzworld.org/tech.html?id=317 for a detailed writeup.

I have no experience with the Argos unit - but it replaces the Portable Electronics Support (PSE) unit entirely, and allows you to use non-Mercedes branded cell phones. I have no idea of which phones it is compatible with, and I don't know about compatibility with Euro spec cars. Argos could probably tell you if you contact them.

But don't make them guess about what car they're dealing with.