The 1980’s silver colored plastic “star” center caps have given way to chrome caps with either silver or black backgrounds fr the chromed star. These are available for as little as $10.00/set on eBay. delivered. However, I found that they have a big problem. When you install them, the tabs break off, rendering them unusable. This happened to me TWICE on different eras of MB wheels. Well, you get what you pay for…but with a little work, you can make these work as well as the “real” OEM caps at a fraction of the price (in terms of actual appearance quality, I think that these are very good).

The plastic of the 1980’s caps on my 560SL was very different than the plastic that must be used on caps that will have vacuum deposited chrome. It is stronger but it is more brittle. My theory is that the Chinese modeled the new plastic caps based upon the old ones, the tabs stick out more than they should and will break when installed..

So, how did I “fix” this? I have a surface mount rework station (for soldering) with a heat gun on it. Using a narrow nozzle for 250 degree C heat (probaly more than really needed), I heated the base of the tab just enough to get it soft and bend it nearly parallel with the outer diameter of the cap (it can stick out a LITTLE more). It iis a good idea to remove the wire spring first. Bend the too much and the cap is loose in the rtim? Bend the tabs back out a bit. You have to do this 12 times on a set of these. Unless you hit one amazing pothole that will destroy your wheel anyway, they will stay in once installed.

You might be able to duplicate these results with a shop heat gun but I caution to get only tthe areas shown hot. Perhaps aluminum foil shielding would work here. Maybe a butane cigarette lighter would work with proper aluminum foil shielding.

Even if you bought a $10 mini heat gun on eBay as opposed to a surface mount rework station you would be wildly money ahead on these caps compared to OEM with this modification.

As usual, information only, don’t burn yourself, not responsible if you do - so. don’t, YMMV, etc.






Caps



Tangs Stick Out Too Far



Fixed



SMD Rework Heat Gun



Well...I like it. Also note chrome door handles (ABS, from eBay). Pretty tricky to install but good.

 

Yep, i buy mine off amazon. About the same price too. They last about two years before wear starts showing up. Who cares when its an easy $10 fix.

also have MB logo tire stem caps for roughly the same amount. Lots of little and cheap things you buy for the car this way. I never did the illuminated front logo though. Found it was just too bright for my taste. Wife’s car has it as genuine MB and is far more subtle.

 

2 of my center caps were broken when i got my car last year. For around $40 USD I got a set of floating caps from aliexpress. I requested that the LED's on the floating caps be disabled so it doesnt light up when im moving. Its been a year so far and I have had no issues with them yet. They still float like day 1.

Plug and play with no issues regarding not fitting tabs.

 

I intend to put a potentiometer in line with the star lighting and adjust it to suit my taste, and then replace that with a permanent fixed resistor. I agree, too much is too much!