I decided to replace my worn out blue steering wheel for a black leather one. I will also need to replace the blue-colored airbag for a black one. Today I found the newer style pre-facelift airbag with chrome star, at a MB parts specialist. Looks way better already. Now on the lookout for that new black leather wheel...

 

The Chrome Star airbag came on the S-Class for that time period and look a lot better. I have one for sale if anyone is interested.

 

No in my case it came from a late W210 pre-facelift model. I've seen both 1999-2000 pre-facelift W210's and W202's (C-class) with this chrome-star airbag overhere. Anyway I took it off for now until I find a matching black steering wheel of my liking, it looks very un-original until it'll be all black...

 

I didn't see that you are in the Netherlands. The market in the North America is different. I have seen them on a few C-Class W202s as well like you said. I see that you have the instrument cluster that comes in the C-Class as well. There should be a black steering wheel available from someone that has installed a leather and wood wheel. Or you could get a leather and wood one as well. It is strange to see the blue dash. Over here all I have seen in the E-Class is brown or black.

 

All 4-cylinder pre-facelift W210 models have the C-class style instrument cluster (without the larger info display at the bottom of the speedometer), mine also has a blue cloth interior, and manual A/C. All off these unknown in the US...

 

How about a re-dye/paint of the wheel instead?

 

Yes my MB specialist suggested a company like Dr.Vinyl for that. They could also do my shiftknob but I dunno...will that look nice and stay black for years? I want to keep this car for at least4 or 5 more years and if a repaint wears off in like 2 years I might as well buy a new wheel....

 

Is the worn black on your exisitng wheel original or was painted over the blue?

Hard to say whether it would last, depends on whether its a good job I guess, but eventually you will have to re-touch it...I've had the driver's seat re-painted once and its held up for the last 3 years, so dunno

Another alternative is to re-wrap it in black leather, that should be more lasting and better to touch (can even do it in Alcantara and thumb rests for a real pimp look!) - I'm sure its a better alternative to wasting a good (old) steering wheel and probably cheaper.

If you must get a replacement, why not contact MbenzNL? He's in your turf (he's based near the Belgian/German(?) border from memory, not sure if that's near you at all ). He upgrades pre-facelift steering wheels to the multi-function ones very often, I'm sure he has leads for unwanted pre-facelift steering wheels or might have a few himself.....I personally picked up an late model R129/R170 wood/leather steering wheel upgrade when I visited him in NL a few years back Let me know if you need his contacts

Come to think of it, I have a black Advantgarde steering wheel and gear knob sitting in my lounge room doing nothing...but shipping would be an issue.