JWS3

I've had the E500 for only a week and already my previous car, a BMW 530, is becoming a distant memory. Wonderful car and even my wife, who is a non car person, truly loves it.
But, there are 2 issues which puzzle me. Perhaps the long(er) term owners can help. I am still slogging thru the manuals, however. War and Peace was shorter....
1) How the heck do people keep the door sills clean, especially with the stone interior? Whoever thought the fabric door sills were a good idea was probably hung over! I am very careful, but all it took all for 2 minutes for my daughters (4 & 7) to dirty them considerably. Short of banning the kids, which has a certain appeal, however impractical, what do people here do?

2) Is there any way to have the steering wheel buttons cycle through the presets, or am a missing something? All they do is seek. Makes no sense.

Thanks again in advance to all

Jim

ima55r2

Welcome to the club....you hit the nail on the head. Who knows what MB was thinking and there is nothing to do about it.

Spartan

I had the stone interior on my '05 E and once month, I use to clean up the door sills with Hertel. It did a great job on them. BTW, have you looked at you stone leather seats? Chances are you have dye transfer.

On my '06, I ordered the charcoal interior.

JWS3

Maybe I shouldn't ask......., but will anyway. Do I need to do/watch out for anything? I knew stone was light, but I do not in the least care for the other colors. Don't like black and grey is just too cold.

Thanks..

ima55r2

You might get discoloration/scuffing on the seat back...just about at your beltline if you're not careful.

Spartan

You shouldn't ask....

I had a problem with jean dye transfer and had to clean the leather once every few months. I also had brown (mine) and black (wife) dye transfer from the leather to leather.

In my old '95, I had the MB text (vinyl) and had no problems with about 180,000 miles on it. That fooled me into getting the light color but I learned my lesson.

There is nothing you can do now other then get a bottle of Hertel and a bottle of leather care from MERCEDES. Make sure you buy the Mercedes product and keep your receipts. Chances are that you may damage the leather if you are **** about keeping it clean. If you do damage it, then you can go back to Benz and point out that it was caused by the product they sold to you.

It's unfortunate that we need to arm ourselves with such mentality but there are issues that you will discover in time and you may need to address them with Mercedes or live with them. For example, I change my oil and filters twice as often as they recommend. I keep all the receipts just in case something goes wrong with the engine and they accuse me of causing it by not using the proper oil or filters.

HELL ONA HARLEY

CHARCOAL RULES......

Come on....
You had to have enough forsight to see that the stone (white) interior was going to be a biaaatch to keep clean, especially with rug rats????.... One of the demo cars at the dealer had the stone interior and it was filthy... And this one never left the showroom floor!!!! One look at that told me what color to get. Even the salesman steered me away, but he didn't have to do much talking. I have two brats myself and they do a good enough job on the charcoal. I could only imagine the havock they would perform on the stone :v . The stone interior is beautiful, but totally unpractical. That is unless you feel cleaning your carpets everytime you wash your car is the norm....

About the presets.... Forget it. The e-class does not change to "preset" radio stations via the steering wheel....

JWS3

bizarre that anyone would use fabric for a door sill. I was hoping someone was aware of an aftermarket fix or solution.
Was well aware that stome would be some work, which I don't mind. The fabric sills are a baaaad idea.

Alex Veksler

I have burgundy exterior with stone interior.
What I did is purchased burgundy vinyl and incerted a strip over each door sill (tacked in under). I also purchased burgundy color floor mats.
That does it for me as far as color coordination is concerned.

May be not "a factory" look, but I do not have to clean it even once a month.

Cheers,
Alex

uncle dan

What is Hertel cleaner? I Googled it and found very little. Can I buy it online and if so, where? The fabric door sills are driving me crazy. Interior = Bone. What was I thinking?

larryssf

Hell ona Harley is dead on as usual. While I did not know that the sills would be fabric, I did recognize the difficulty of a light color. I have Bordeaux and stone would look perfect. I don't mind the cleaning, but as I am a perfectionist it might be daily. Practicality won and charcoal was selected. It looks just fine.

Sunny in San Francisco

jim256

I have the ash interior but Woolite OxyDeep spray carpet cleaner does a great and easy job on the sills. It was recommended here a long time ago. Leatherique will resolve any leather issues you ever have.

DaCeptak0n

I have stone and my sill is tore up. I just wash it down with some soap and woolite everytime I get back home from work...

Spartan

Hertel is a STRONG stain remover. I used it just because it was something the wife has but I am sure that a trip to the supermarket will result in some equivilant.

Oh wait........

Why don't I buy some stain remover and rebottle it as "Mercedes Carpet Stain Remover Because They Are Stupid Enough To Put Cloth On a Door Sill".

I could make millions I tell ya! MILLIONS! :v

02Impressor

In reference to your radio question... Why not just preprogram the 10 most used radio stations and then cycle thru your presets? I mean, no matter where you live in the country, theres not more then 10 radio stations that fit your liking.

Dema

Does your car have child lock?

glojo

Time for me to have my smug grin When I ordered our car I also ordered the Protection pack. Now whenever a scuff mark appears, it is just a case of getting a damp cloth and wiping it off.

Is it not possible to clean the sill and then apply some after market product? There can be nothing worse than a light interior with horrible scuff marks.

Good luck,
John

A wet morning in Torquay

chairman

But checkout this link for 303 cleaner 303 interior cleaner

HELL ONA HARLEY

Yes I agree, This is simple enough to do on the comand unit itself.... But your still unable to access these "preset" stations via the steeing wheel.

McGuireV10

Over here we have 3M Scotchgard, which can be bought just about anywhere.

http://www.3m.com/us/home_leisure/sc...d/carpet.jhtml

glojo

Excellent, and has anyone tried this product? Will it give the long term protection that we would all demand, or will it have to be applied regularly (can be a pain)

Fingers crossed that it will work)

John

McGuireV10

Scotchgard is a very common product line over here. I've used it in all sorts of places -- cars, boats, jackets, certain bits of household upholstery, etc... it even makes a good water repellent for my light-duty motorcycle boots... apparently they now have a leather protectant, too. My father always treats new household carpet with it, although I never seem to remember to get around to doing that.

02Impressor

Are you sure? I think I cycle through my presets on the steering wheel (I set it to display digital speedometer and radio stations).

john doe iii

I access my pre-sets using the same method above ... i go through all of them on the steering wheel control.

DWP

I just checked how many FM stations the radio in my '03 seeks to using the steering wheel buttons. It stops at 34, or 35 if you count the audio of local television channel 6 (87.7). That's an impressive performance, since it includes several Bay Area FM stations, but it's also considerably more than the 10 presets on the head unit.

You may be on to something when you say that you can cycle through presets when you have the digital speedo and radio frequencies displayed on the MFD. I can't set up my MFD that way, so far as I can tell. When the digital speedo is displayed in the middle of the MFD, the temp and trip mileage are displayed in the lower part, not the radio frequency. Since you have an '06 E350, I have to wonder if M-B has finally found a way to sneak selection of presets from the steering wheel back into the E-Class. Can anyone else with an E350 verify that they can select presets from the steering wheel?