vic viper

How do your Black Ash panels look?
After driving a few hundered W213.s I have noticed that they all look different. and no, I am not talking about the grain, but the surface finish, they are either "Glossy" or "Matte"


The glossy variants have a higher color contrast while the grain almost dissapears and is not as visible on the matte ones.
The glossy trims are almost always fitted to the doors while the matte is more common as the dash part above the glovebox, however I have seen them mixed on the dash


As a perfectionist this bothers me, how do your panels look?

vic viper

Matte


Gloss

c4004matic

That was true on my C400 too, the doors were definitely glossier than the console. The brown version on my 213 matches perfectly, even the grain seems to match throughout the entire front "swath". Since my 43 is a 2017 my console is piano black, of course.

Rainers

I've discovered that they get glossy when people clean your car and they have some kind of protective coating on the wipe down cloth. Luckily I was able to stop the process and restore the finish by using a cleaner

vic viper

This is present on brand new cars so it is not related to external cleaning only.

c4004matic

Correct, its not a cleaning issue at all, they are simply a different finish.

RB15

My new E class coupe has the black ash open pore wood on the door panels, centre console, and along the dash, i can confirm mine are of a more glossy finish that definitely creates a nice contrast in the grain.

I'm in the UK if that makes any difference.

thanks

Cao Black

Six months old, always garaged...mine look pretty evenly matched.

RB15

Yes mine are evenly matched too, but definitely look different and more glossy than yours, i think both look great and i like the fact that mine don't attract much dust, or at least canouflage alot if it compared to a piano black finish.

Cheers

c4004matic

BTW I took a good close look at my brown open pore wood and guess what, it all matches perfectly... way too perfect. Infact the door panels are EXACTLY the same, a natural impossibility. Though they are real wood, the grain patterns are 100% FAKE!
Naughty, Naughty

vic viper

Actually that isnt impossible, when making these panels they use ultra thin veneer sheets cut from the same tree,
when using two sheets that has been cut next to each other you will get an almost exact mirror replica.

c4004matic

That is the issue, given the thickness of the veneer it would be impossible. You can get a very thin veneer on a smooth piece of wood that lies within coats of lacquer, however, for the "open pore" panel the veneer has to be a lot thicker. Making an exactly matching panel is essentially impossible. My guess is that the whole thing is wood with manufactured surface grain. Not entirely fake but not entirely real either. I wonder if anyone has first hand knowledge of how its done. I have seen videos of how Rolls hand matches their wood paneling, but again, those are glossy smooth panels, and as you have pointed of they are amazingly thin. Furthermore, those panels match the adjacent panel on a dashboard for example, not a panel on the other side of the car. Ill take some good pics to show what I mean.
Again, I'm not dinging Benz, the product does look very good, however, the marketing is a little deceptive. I'm also pretty certain that other car companies' "open pore" wood is exactly the same thing and probably all sourced from the same maker given that there are essentially no in-house "coach builders" anymore.

vic viper

Do you have a picture of your door trims? IMO it seems like a bit of a longshot to first make a genuine wood panel and then remanufacture the grain, if that were the case there would also be other vehicles with the exact same grain pattern.


I am pretty confident that the black and brown ash panels are genuine altough I am not 100%.

c4004matic

I have proven myself wrong!!!!! I took a loupe to the panels and they are indeed not exactly identical. They are little holes and other panel level
differences that become obvious at 4x. Exceedingly good work!!!!!