Considering the GL350 and have 2 young kids in car seats. Any issues with the rear window shades? Thoughts on getting this option vs tinting the windows?

 

My kid loves the rear shade. I think the best part about it is you can open the window to let the wind in without closing the shade. I think for the cost it was worth it, and if you want to go darker, you can always tint.

 

my thoughts on the shades from the factory:

Pros:

(1) better than any kind of stick on thing you could buy from babies r us
(2) provide decent coverage over the window
(3) $380 is not a terrible price from the factory

Cons:

(1) strange side to side design makes it difficult for parents to open/close from the front seat. before with our cayenne my husband could reach back and close it from the passenger seat because it was the more normal up/down sunshade

(2) side to side design also imposes this big black block that houses it and takes up window room, which increases your blind spot next to the pillar and looks a little weird. sometimes i wonder how the hell you are supposed to clean the glass in that area between the black housing and the glass

(3) there are these little tabs attached to the top that are very fragile and one of mine have already snapped off. i see the point in having those to keep people from pulling the shade away from the window, but again, this would have been eliminated had they had regular shades recessed in the door panel and roll up to a hook!

(4) there are these finishing strips at the bottom of the shade that are glued on there to give it a finished look, but my son tugged on the shade just a bit in the first month to play around with it and the glue unraveled so i just peeled that strip away and it looks fine. in any case, this is another point against very odd and not practical design


OVERALL - i would rather pay the $380 for factory installed shades than any after market thing you could stick on from the baby supply store! but i just don't understand mercedes poor execution when they have recessed it in the door in other models and like every other manufacturer.


thankfully the rear privacy glass is already tinted and very dark so i don't need the shades that often. but during trips where one child is on "the sun side" for a long time, the shades do come in handy to avoid complaints that the sun is hot and blinding!

 

Its better than nothing, mine came as part of one of the packages. There is a 1ish inch gap on top and 1ish inch on the bottom which lets sun through so not entirely effective.

 

is that an option on the 2014? i don't recall that being an option on the 2013. can someone take a picture of it?

 

yes it looks like you can actually build it as an option for 2014. for MY2014 they have changed a few things categorized as special order (as well as their individual costs) and it doesn't look like the rear sunshades are special order anymore.

in 2013 it was a special order item that cost $380, on top of the flat fee SPC order fee of $250.

here is a pic of mine. you can see the black housing the shade rolls up into. i have not compared it side by side with a GL that doesn't have the shade, but i think it's safe to say that it would be nice if it was recessed and hidden away in the door panel rather than in this housing. there is a gap between the back of the housing and the glass that i think i'd have to use a rag on a chopstick or spatula to clean if it ever got dirty ...

based on this design, it seems like the dealer should be able to install it afer the fact but i think they would charge you a lot more than $380.




nevertheless, they do a decent job. the gap at the top doesn't bother me. my kids are in car seats and that open gap of window is high enough that it doesn't seem to allow the sun into their faces.

 

awesome. thanks for the picture. looks great.

 

It does look,pretty ugly compared to the more traditional design. It almost seems like to design it this way was completely counterintuitive.

 

wamochi - Thanks for the picture of the sun shades. If you had an extra moment would it be possible to take more pictures of the storage compartment where the shade slides into? If so it would be great to see a picture from the outside of the vehicle w/ the window down, shade retracted and also a picture from the inside w/ the door closed to see how they look in the interior. I'm trying to get a feel for how far it sticks out from the door frame........ I assume a new ML build would have the same version & I have these in my Oct. build currently. Cheers!

Found this online:

 

here are some photos.

it's not as bad as it looks/sounds. the housing plastic is the same plastic they use on the "frame" of the window, so it just looks like an extension of that. i don't think it looks out of place per se, it is just odd to me to use a side to side design w/ fat housing rather than the traditional 100%-hidden-in-door-panel style

in any case, you can see there is a gap between the housing and glass. my son had a #2 pencil back there and i put that in between to show you how impractical it would be to try to clean the inside of the glass behind the housing ... that pencil goes all the way back to the frame, so you are talking about approx 3" of glass that cannot be cleaned. (theoretically nothing should get back there either unless you really try, but sometimes the grime builds up on the inside windows just from humidity and rolling up/down.)

 

for comparison purposes, i found this pic of a GL550 without the shades:

 

oh and here are the defects i mentioned earlier.

first one is the decorative strip starting to fray and will eventually have to be ripped off. the adhesive they use to lay the strip is exactly that - adhesive and not like woven in somehow. i already tore off the bottom strip and it looks totally fine without it.


second one is this "tab" that holds the shade along the track line so you can't pull it "away" from the window towards the passenger. that tab is tiny and rubbery and very weak and that one broke within one week of use. you can re-insert the shade tab into the hanging tab, but it's not secure and just falls out again. i haven't tried super glue yet because i don't want to mess it up more, and it's really not a necessary component to use the shade.

 

I have it, but was disappointed it didn't go from bottom to top! Whatever, as ill be up front; however, my 4 year old will probably break it in short order...

 

wamochi - That's a huge help, thank you very much.

I assume the ML will have a similar set-up but the ML's window isn't as square as the GL's, it has a curve at the top so curious how that's going to work.

I notice you have a sunroof not pano, I'm thinking the same thing for my vehicle, do you not like the pano?

 

I was very tempted to order the window shades until I saw another GL on the dealer lot that had one. To me it seems Mercedes put very little thought into this design especially when it comes to kids. As we sat inside the car to see how the shades operated, my son was already pulling on the latch to unhook it. And the fit and finish just didn't seem on par with the rest of the car. I really liked the ones found on the Audi Q7 which pulls from the bottom up and integrates nicely into the doors.

 

you're welcome, glad to help

i love pano roof; in fact we had it on our 08 E63 and it looked so badass

unfortunately for the GL, the lack of third row sunshade was a deal breaker for us because our kids would hate it. in our 2011 GL we had it closed with the semi-sheer shade closed ALL THE TIME and they were still annoyed with the glare and extra heat.

if i recall correctly , the 2nd row pano roof automatic shade on the new GL is semi-sheer as well, right? (the front row cover is solid and opaque.) so i know they'd be complaining about the extra light and heat from the 2nd row even in the closed position. they would probably love it at night and seeing the sky, but with young kids we rarely drive at night with them.

in any case, i was beyond thrilled when i discovered that the non-pano roof GL's now exclude the 3rd row shade entirely. i was worried it would be like our X164 and have the 3rd row regardless. what can i say - i'm like the chauffeur and the GL is their blacked out limo

 

I like the way the pano looks on the exterior too. That's my exact concern as well w my kids, that they will be uncomfortable with the extra glare. It bothers me so couldn't blame them. The ML pano has the same semi-sheer material on both pieces of glass, I think the front 2 pieces of glass on the new GL is the same material, don't believe the front panel has an opaque sunroof type sun-shade. So even more of a good reason for your choice.

HaHaHa!! I know what you mean about being a chauffeur and the kids having a blacked out limo. I know the minute we go to take the first long road trip in the brand new SUV & my kids got on their iPhones or iPads if I had the pano I would just be waiting for the comments about how it's too hot or too much glare. And then would come THE 'I told you so' look from my wife. She's really against having the pano, we looked at both roofs together and the first thing she says is "I don't want glass above the kids". I'm sure it's safe but couldn't be as safe as without it.

I am a huge fan of alcantara headliners though too, they're pricey & unnecessary but think they add so much luxury (that no one else will notice but me) & rather have it on the interior sunroof cover & rest of headliner then the sheer fabric, which I don't give MB high marks for it doesn't look up to snuff, "high & tight", the quality is off and it kinda hangs funny like sideways curtains.

Btw: I spoke to my SA today & sent him your pics, he's confirming if the ML has the same rear shades, believe it probably does. Guess I'll remove them. Thanks again for your help.

 

yes you are right about the first row shade! i realized just now after looking that my non-pano GL's have had the solid plastic covered shade in the front row that physically slide into a lowered ceiling area in the 2nd row. so mine have been opaque. however, if you have the pano roof system, then doing the physical one-piece plastic shade is not feasible so they have to go with roller shades on all three rows because a single plastic slider has nowhere to go ...

it's too bad they don't make the rolling shade material opaque. the sheer lets in quite a bit of light actually. that would definitely bother me if i was driving a long distance during the daytime.

+1 on the alcantara. we got the black headliner and black wood and black leather so it's pretty sporty and limo like inside, but a black alcantara would have been a nice touch for the special-order black headliner. we had it on the E and cayenne so i miss those little touches. i did add the AMG sport pedals though so that made me feel a little better now all i need are the AMG door lock pins ..

 

I bet they modify the sheer material. My dads Q5 has a pano & the material is better, although still not opaque enough for me but it fits tighter, if you push on it, it feels like a window screen vs the Merc which hangs loose.. Another thing I noticed & this might be with just the light colored headliner but when there's water spots on the pano glass it reflects onto the sheer material making the material looked stained. I also noticed that the edges of material don't always sit properly into the headliner channels where it goes back & forth, twice I've seen where the edges of the material were riding outside of the headliner.

Yep on the alcantara. Plus LOVE the way the DINAMICA /alcantara headliner ties into the alcantara on the sides of the AMG performance steering wheel (although slightly different material). It looks great on the A-pillars, etc.

The door pins are nice, I need to look into the best place to buy the factory pins for an ML63, let me know if you find them online. Speaking of doors, I believe I read a post from you speaking about soft close doors. I ordered this option but slightly concerned whether I will like them or not & I'm not changing my build again. Think they're a good idea as long as the kids are shown how they work... How do you like them? I've never had them, are they hard to get use to? Wondering if they help make for an even quieter (from road noise) cabin.

 

i like the soft close feature a lot. it's the first car we've ever had with it, and i feel like the GL is now up there in the same class as the flagship S sedan. things like auto folding mirrors and the soft close doors are certainly not necessary but make you feel like ok, this car has a lot of stuff for the money! the soft close was included as part of a package on ours and is (unfortunately) now a $500+ standalone option i believe. if i had to pay for it, i think i would now because we've been spoiled by it

i will say that the doors on the X166 feel heavier and less "tinny" than the previous X164, so i noticed right away after taking delivery that the doors close much more easily than in the X164, where i was constantly reopening and closing doors that didn't close the first time. part of that is the air-tightness of the cabin (which is a good thing), but i swear it was more than 50% of the time i was doing that for either myself or the kids. now with the soft close, i don't feel like i need to slam the doors and if it doesn't close on the first try, no problem - the door sucks itself back in. the kids think the feature is pretty neat too it's also a trip for adults - a friend of mine saw me closing the door lightly and it didn't catch and she walks up the door and says oh i'll get that. as she reached for the handle, the door sucked itself in and she said "wow, what CAN'T this car do on its own? "

from a noise standpoint, the X166 now has dual pane glass and is significantly quieter inside in all respects. if you start the engine with your door or window open, it's actually a much louder engine than the X164. but you'd never know that if your door was closed. so i can't really give the credit of cabin quietness to the soft close over the new glass. the new glass is really great and another feature the GL now gets from the S. not sure about the ML and if they get the dual pane ?

 

unfortunately the laminated glass does not extend to the second and third row or the pano roof.

 

Love it. Very discrete and good value at $250 CDN.

 

My Pano roof includes a snap in shade for the rear section. It was built 10/11. I'd have to look again, but I think it looks like the window shade material. It's on a frame that snaps into the roof panel.

 

You have a shade for the third row glass on the pano roof?

 

Yes, and it looks like it could fit cars shipped wout it. BUT IMHO, it defeats the whole a Pano purpose. It can be removed, but the you have to store/stow it. It does NOT slide. It's shade material on a frame. Pics on photo thread.