For the door shades, there are only 3 parts required for each side door....the new door panel itself, the roller blind inside the panel, and the clip it attaches to above the door. It shouldn't be too hard... I'm thinking of doing this mod myself!

 

Thanks for the info, levind! BTW, do you know if the required side-panel depends on the leather-color you have in the vehicle or is it just the part directly below the window-glass itself (above the leather-inlay of the door) without any leather-attachments? I'm just curious...

Thank you in advance!

 

Unless it was mis-represented before, what I know is that the door panels are dependant on the interior finish and is specially built to have the slot for the manual retractable shade.

I had looked into this after I had bought my car and the stealership's service department wanted something close to $3K to get this retro for me (just the 2 sides). They had claimed that the rear was impossible.

 

It certainly has to depend on the interior color somehow, but it would be interesting to know if it depends on the leather color as well. There is at least one case where you will get the same interior color although the leather is different (designo Graphite: Charcoal interior, Graphite leather and designo Mocha Black: Charcoal interior, too, but Sand leather).

I guess the shade rolls up just below the window, so it would be interesting to know if they would only have to replace the part of the panel located directly below the window (between window and wood, above the leather-insert) or the whole non-metall panel. Any ideas??

BTW, if your dealer really asked for 3K for the side-shades only, he's in fact a STEALER...I guess he just told you the rear-retro was impossible because he wasn't interested or capable of doing something else besides selling a new car or performing an oilchange. As I said before, the dealer I called wanted to explain to me that there was no pano-roof option on the E-Class. I would have a bad feeling about such a dealer. Next time, he might try to explain that the Mercedes-Logo would be white and blue showing the letters B-M-W, meaning "Blame My Wife".......(((-;

 

The door panels are independent of the leather and wood trim. All those pieces transfer over to the new panel with the slit in it. If someone has access to a dealership part's dept., I can supply some "test" part numbers so we can all get an idea of price.

 

Ah, thanks levind, now I got it! They take out the leather and wood, attach it to the new panel and mount it. Let me see, that means there should be 3 different panels for the US, depending on the interior color. Do they also have to detach the armrest and the pockets located below?

Good idea about the part-#s! Would be great if an independent dealer/member of this board would have access to give as a reliable price so that nobody gets ripped at the dealer...

 

I was trying to order the sunblinds from my dealer, and I am wondering why there is a discrepancy in prices quoted here, Mercedes web site, and from my dealer.

Users here quote $116 for rear window sunblind, web site says $84 and my dealer quoted me $124. In addition, side windows were quoted here as $85, MB web site says $148 (for both?), and my dealer quoted me $108 for each.

If anyone knows a good place to order these from, I would greatly appreciate it!

 

The reason for the price discrepency... (this was explained in the last week, except without the web pricing)

Web pricing is when ordered with the car. Comes from the dealership sales department. Dunno why it is cheaper than when ordering parts, but it just is.

List price for parts, often quoted here. What you should be able to get the parts for. What MBUSA sets as "list price". What does that mean. Not sure. List price is also the price the parts department charges the sales department for additional accessories fitted to a car at delivery.

Price you get quoted at the parts counter. If you are a walk up customer, the part department for many dealerships will sell you parts at PRICE6, which is list price + added markup. Why do they need to make more? I don't know, there is markup already in the list price. Sometimes the markup isn't very much, like on Navigation DVDs. It's like 4-5%. I guess the dealerships want to recover some of the cost that it takes to have a parts guy do research for you.

Not all US dealerships work this way, but most do. Some places sell at list. Some parts guys sell at list to people they like. I dunno.

-s-

 

Thanks, scorchie, for the explanation, and sorry for missing post explaining it before. I guess I've always been used to the list price being the maximum that one would pay -- unless it's hard-to-get and dealer adds an aftermarket value to it.

 

I finally decided to spend the money and get the OEM electric rear window shade installed. The dealer did it and everything was OEM. The job (even the rear hat shelf wiring harness) looks as if it was installed at the factory. It took a while for the dealer to find the exact parts they needed and some had to be shipped from Germany. In the end, I have what I wanted and missed from my 300E.

If anyone is interested, I have a permanent rear window shade for the W211 that I can sell to you real cheap. I liked it, but I prefer to be able to lower it when I feel like it. So now I have it and it is just sitting around. I also have a hat shelf and a console switch cluster.

Also, if someone wants the parts list for this retrofit, I can post it. The total cost for the retrofit was about $1,700. I know, kind of steep, but if you want it, you want it.

Steve

 

I faced the same dilemna, but only with regard to the side window shades as I was able to get the rear sunshade as a separate option. Mercedes parts department does sell a set of side shades for about $150 but they don't hide into the door.l

 

I have received 3 PMs asking for further detail on this retrofit! I am sure glad I am not alone on this one. I was going to post the date last night but I have been on other projects. I apologize for the delay, but I will have this done by Monday.

Steve

 

$1700 is quite a bit more than I would have expected... we sometimes include travel in our prices and I believe a W211 with or without folding seats would still be a bit less for a roller blind retrofit! I am not sure but I think the price varies a bit on whether you have folding seats or not, and it definitely varies for a designo car.

-s-

 

Ok, it is time to go hit the ski slopes, but I figured I should scan this and post it so I don’t have to remember to do this later.

Things to be aware of: The part numbers used for my retrofit are obviously those needed to retrofit ONLY my car and others that are identically equipped. Therefore, part numbers for the rear hat-shelf will be different depending on interior color, rear trunk access, HK sound system (I think) and other things that I have no idea about. The part number for the switches in the dash will also be different depending on if you have heated/ventilated seats and other options. This is just a guide, so don’t get upset if the parts ordered don’t fit or match your car.

In the second scan, the reprogramming of the central gateway was cut off by accident, so remember that if you choose to do this yourself you will still need to do this.

Also, the cable harness was the part that they needed to make the installation undetectable. Because of this harness, there was no need to splice into anything. Everything was done very neatly.

As per Scorchie’s comment about the price being high, I am sure that I could have gotten it cheaper, but no one knew any specifics about this retrofit and the job I had done was so good that I now find it was very much worth it. Mike H, the mechanic, is the boss of the whole shop and is also the only Maybach certified mechanic in Colorado. He is the only one who is allowed to work on my car and always does a brilliant job. Since he never did this, he had to do a lot of research. Since the rear hat-shelf had to come from Germany, they still let me keep an ML loaner for the whole time. This was very nice of them (in spite of the fact that the brand new ML leaked ATF all over my garage floor!). So I paid a relatively high price for this option, but somebody had to actually get it done and eliminated the speculation of it being possible or not, once and for all.


Someone has to bite the bullet,

Steve A.

 

I thought I eliminated speculation about it earlier in this thread where I posted about how we have done this quite a few times...

On the wiring harness, you NEED the wiring harness not to make it invisible, but to make it work. There is no need for splicing of wires or anything, the wiring harness plugs between the rear SAM and the roller blind, and includes a space for mounting a relay.

Besides the parcel shelf and switch module, you do need the wiring harness, a relay, and a few bolts (some of these were listed on the invoice, some where not). You do not need the extra "covering" as that comes out of the original part. Total time for installation usually runs us under two hours (if people want to take away my rental car during that time they are welcome to do so).

-s-

 

scorchie,
I've seen on previous posts that you travel. Are you scheduled to be in Texas anytime soon? I want to have this installed on my car.

 

Well, I really did not know that you travel to specific places to do just one job. But from now on I will keep this in mind. The only thing that I still want to upgrade (but not in a totally bad way) is to get headlight washer jet thingies. I imagine I will need a new front bumper that has the little lids among other things like a bigger reservoir. . .

However, if you have done this retrofit and you would want to combine your trip to Colorado and do some snowboarding in Vail, I can possibly hook you up with something.

If you know about this retrofit, please PM me with some specifics so I can decide if it is worth it. For that matter, if you know the pricing details on a TPMS upgrade (I know you posted a parts list) I would possibly be interested in that too.

Steve

 

My car is mb w211 e280 cdi 2008. It run by diesel puel. Doen’t have many option: headlamp washer, rear sunshade auto, tmps. I want to intalls factory option rear sunshade for my car. Can you guide me on how to install the device?

 

You can read more about what this guy did installing the rear sunshade.