I stopped by a dealer today to drive an e550. I asked about the designo program, and was first told it was not available. When I pushed, the salesperson, agreed to look further. Low and behold, you can order a designo paint, but no interior, which really flummoxed him, as just moments earlier he had informed me that you were required to order both paint and leather from the Designo program, and that you were not permitted to order one without the other.

I would just like to know for certain if I can just order the nappa leather interior, with a standard Iridium Silver exterior?

Any other info would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
M

 

Supposedly in February Designo interior options will be available.

What will be offered or if you will be able to order just the
Designo Nappa leather, I do not know.

Guess we'll wait & see.

 

I've been trying to figure these things out for the past couple of weeks. It's pretty hard to find out anything, and I've been getting conflicting answers from different dealerships.

For starters, I assume you're in the U.S. Designo is damn-near fully available in Europe, and in Canada there are many more options that U.S., at least at the moment.

Here's what I'm able to discern so far.

I'm fairly sure you're right that at the moment you can only order Designo exterior, not interior.

MB_FanAddict and I have been looking into this, and we've heard from two different sources that interior Designo options will likely be available in February 2011.

What we don't know is what specific options will be available, whether you will only be able to order Designo in some set of pre-configured "packages" or "editions", or if you'll be able to mix-and-match interior and exterior options.

Now, here's some good news: It's my understanding (i.e., I'm told this by one source, but only one source, though so far that source has been pretty good) that short of some exterior color options, the W212 has never had a true Designo program. The S and CL had full Designo programs starting in MY2010, where you could mix-and-match interior / exterior / trim options, etc. Prior to MY2010, you could only order S/CL Designo in various pre-configured Editions, which isn't really ideal.

Now, what I'd suggest, is that you keep pressing your dealership on this, *without* giving him any of this info, at least at first. It's very useful to have different independent answers to these questions, particularly since nobody seems to quite know what they're talking about.

For me, here's what I'm still trying to figure out:

(1) Does Feb 2011 for E-class Designo program *really* mean Feb 2011, or will it get pushed back?
(2) The options I would want are (X23, W69, Y83, Y80, Y95) -- will they all be available or just some of them?
(3) In particular, some people claim that Y80 won't be available in US due to safety concerns?!? This doesn't make sense to me though. But if it's not available for whatever reason, perhaps U09 (MB-tex dash / door trim) would be?
(4) Can you mix-and-match these options individually, or only order them as part of some package, e.g., "Designo Cashmere Edition"?
(5) Is there pricing information available for any of the above options?
(6) Does Feb 2011 mean that you can't order until Feb 2011? Or can you order before, and it just won't start being built until Feb 2011?
(7) Does any of this change if I were to do European Delivery, i.e., could I start putting German / UK options on the car?

Anyway, best of luck. Again, keep pressing and see what you can find out. Would very much appreciate you sharing whatever you're able to find! :-)

 

There is no restriction that requires you to take both a designo paint and a designo leather. You can do one or the other, or both.

designo X-Codes (upholstery) for the W/S212 will be available beginning with first decade February production.

 

I really appreciate the input guys! I travel quite a bit so I will stop in a few other dealers in the next couple of weeks. I'll try and get more information, and report back here.

So if it is Feb. production, when would you expect to be able to place the order? I would imagine soon, no?

Keep the good info coming!
M

 

Great. Please keep us posted with anything you might find out.

 

pb12 (or any others for that matter): Any updates here?