Retrofit parking sensor & rear camera
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2015 Mercedes C300
Retrofit parking sensor & rear camera
2015 Mercedes C300 - Hi, I like to retrofit parking sensors and rear camera to my 2015 Mercedes C300. To those that have done one or both of these retrofits, do you recommend it? Is the result worth it? And do you recommend an authorized Mercedes shop to do this or anyone can? Thank you in advance for your input !
Last edited by ddea; May 25, 2018 at 05:02 PM. Reason: to finish my question
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Joined: Nov 2018
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Mercedes-Benz C220d
Hi ddea,
I have, with help, retrofitted parktronic (PTS) on my 2016 C220d (W205) and personally I'm very happy that did it. But that said it is not for everyone and in most cases it properly be cheaper to find C-class with the options you want.
But before you decide if you still want to do the retrofit here is a couple of things to consider.
Firstly to retrofit parktronic you are going to need to replacements for both front and rear bumpers as your current bumper wouldn't have the necessary "holders" for the six sensors you need install in each bumper. If you buy completely new bumpers they also need to be painted.
Secondly to retrofit parktronic you will need to order a special cable which can't be bought at your local dealership. The cable connects substitutes the missing connections from the bumpers and rear headliner LEDs with the PTS control unit. There is properly a couple of different suppliers out there, but I used the German based company called KABELDAVIKO.
Thirdly you will once all the cabling is done need to take your car to your local dealership to have them recode your car computer to include the new control unit and integrated in into the other systems of the car softwarewise. I don't know of any other way of recoding the car.
Other than those three potentially large hurdles I would say is possible to do.
Before I decided on doing retrofit I got an offer from a dealership of approx. 4200 USD for the parts and they expected 20-25 hours of labor (about 100 USD per hour). To this you should add price of painting the bumpers, the price estimate for me was 500 USD per bumper. Pricewise your local prices may vary from mine as I live in Europe.
I ended up not using the dealership's offer and instead found the parts else where, but you have to be damn sure you get the right parts, and got help from mechanic to install them. At some point I would love to do a more blog post style post of how I did the retrofit on a "budget", but for now the time only permits me to write about some of the hurdles.
With respect to the rear camera I know that itself present some hurdles to overcome. The biggest as fare as I can tell is that you properly will need to replace your rear SAM, as the camera connects into that. This of course depends on the other options already in your car. Hence as fare as I know you don't need worry about having to install cables at the length of the car like you have to with PTS.
//ebomx
I have, with help, retrofitted parktronic (PTS) on my 2016 C220d (W205) and personally I'm very happy that did it. But that said it is not for everyone and in most cases it properly be cheaper to find C-class with the options you want.
But before you decide if you still want to do the retrofit here is a couple of things to consider.
Firstly to retrofit parktronic you are going to need to replacements for both front and rear bumpers as your current bumper wouldn't have the necessary "holders" for the six sensors you need install in each bumper. If you buy completely new bumpers they also need to be painted.
Secondly to retrofit parktronic you will need to order a special cable which can't be bought at your local dealership. The cable connects substitutes the missing connections from the bumpers and rear headliner LEDs with the PTS control unit. There is properly a couple of different suppliers out there, but I used the German based company called KABELDAVIKO.
Thirdly you will once all the cabling is done need to take your car to your local dealership to have them recode your car computer to include the new control unit and integrated in into the other systems of the car softwarewise. I don't know of any other way of recoding the car.
Other than those three potentially large hurdles I would say is possible to do.
Before I decided on doing retrofit I got an offer from a dealership of approx. 4200 USD for the parts and they expected 20-25 hours of labor (about 100 USD per hour). To this you should add price of painting the bumpers, the price estimate for me was 500 USD per bumper. Pricewise your local prices may vary from mine as I live in Europe.
I ended up not using the dealership's offer and instead found the parts else where, but you have to be damn sure you get the right parts, and got help from mechanic to install them. At some point I would love to do a more blog post style post of how I did the retrofit on a "budget", but for now the time only permits me to write about some of the hurdles.
With respect to the rear camera I know that itself present some hurdles to overcome. The biggest as fare as I can tell is that you properly will need to replace your rear SAM, as the camera connects into that. This of course depends on the other options already in your car. Hence as fare as I know you don't need worry about having to install cables at the length of the car like you have to with PTS.
//ebomx
