2017 E43 AMG (imported from Japan) wagon
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Joined: Dec 2025
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From: Sydney, Australia
2017 E43 AMG Wagon (import from Japan)
2017 E43 AMG (imported from Japan) wagon
Hi all,
I've just signed for (and paid for) a new (to me) 2017 E43 AMG wagon. We didn't get the E43 wagons in Australia (we get very few wagons here any more), hence importing from Japan.
I've owned a bunch of cars - Nissan, Suzuki, Subaru (several), Volkswagen, Kia, Audi (and have driven a few hundred others), including having a motorsport background (crew and officialling mostly, no competitive driving but plenty of track days against the clock). Never thought I'd own a Merc, I was actually looking for an Audi S6 Avant from Japan, but they just weren't coming up, and then someone said "look at the E43...". I'm glad they did!
Looking forward to learning what this thing can do!
I've just signed for (and paid for) a new (to me) 2017 E43 AMG wagon. We didn't get the E43 wagons in Australia (we get very few wagons here any more), hence importing from Japan.
I've owned a bunch of cars - Nissan, Suzuki, Subaru (several), Volkswagen, Kia, Audi (and have driven a few hundred others), including having a motorsport background (crew and officialling mostly, no competitive driving but plenty of track days against the clock). Never thought I'd own a Merc, I was actually looking for an Audi S6 Avant from Japan, but they just weren't coming up, and then someone said "look at the E43...". I'm glad they did!
Looking forward to learning what this thing can do!
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Dec 2025
Posts: 20
Likes: 6
From: Sydney, Australia
2017 E43 AMG Wagon (import from Japan)
I was hoping to have the car yesterday, but the trucking company had other ideas.
Hopefully this week.
Still umming and ahhing about first changes. I know one of the wheels needs attention (bad curbing), then probably partial PPF and full ceramic coating. I don't want to change performance (go, stop or turn) until I get used to the car in its stock setup. And I do want to get a good immobiliser in.
At some stage, I'll probably go for a tune, but that can wait for a bit.
Hopefully this week.
Still umming and ahhing about first changes. I know one of the wheels needs attention (bad curbing), then probably partial PPF and full ceramic coating. I don't want to change performance (go, stop or turn) until I get used to the car in its stock setup. And I do want to get a good immobiliser in.
At some stage, I'll probably go for a tune, but that can wait for a bit.
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Dec 2025
Posts: 20
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From: Sydney, Australia
2017 E43 AMG Wagon (import from Japan)
Some thoughts thus far.
- It's big - barely fits in my garage, and it's going to be fun to get in and out with some of the angles I have to deal with. Yes, it's 2T (car plus fuel/fluids plus driver and passenger/s), to drive it, it doesn't feel big in terms of footprint (I live in a country where large sedans and wagons were the top sellers for 30 years, and SUVs and dual cab utes/trucks have been the best selling cars for the last ~10 years) but the weight can be felt in the handling (which is still pretty damned good, though the electric steering is... meh). Part of the reason I went for an E-class (and was cross-shopping with an Audi S6 Avant) is that myself and both my kids are over 6' tall (and my wife is 5'10"), we don't all fit comfortably in our A4 and would not have fitted in a BMW 3-series Estate, Audi S4/RS4 Avant or C-class Estate.
- It's fast. Getting 2T+ to 100km/h in < 5s is crazy - it wasn't until the 1990s that the fasted 10 cars of the decade were all faster than this). I get that coming down from a V8 E63 would be challenging (I haven't driven one, they must be insane) would be painful, but this is comfortably faster than the next fastest car I've owned - Kia Stinger GT and it's bigger, has AWD (we only got the Stinger in RWD here) and I can literally sleep in the back of this with the seats down.
- It rides better than I expected on 20" wheels. But the combination of staggered and 20" wheels means tyres are $$$. Considering 18" or 19" squared setup options when the current tyres expire (Bridgestone RE003s, I do not expect them to last long on a heavy powerful AWD car).
- The dash is pretty awesome. Haven't settled on a favourite layout yet.
- The Heads Up Display is awesome. Really bright (though I suspect pol
- The difference in ride between comfort/sport/sport+ isn't as pronounced as I both feared and hoped for. But then I've driven it for less than an hour.
- It still needs some "de-Japanification".
- I don't think the radio has been converted (I can't seem to tune stations in).
- It has a really annoying beeping inside the cabin when reverse is engaged (like a bus/truck makes externally when reversing, to alert pedestrians and drivers), this is apparently a JDM specific configuration.
- Fuel economy is listed in km/L, not L/100km.
- Can't fix the built-in navigation without replacing the physical module apparently, which I hope to avoid with Android Auto. The car is throwing a warning about no card, I'll have to find what that is.
- I dislike capacitive controls and the the rotary dial/trackpad thing where I expect to find the gear selector. I'll live with it.
- The handbrake/park brake/ebrake location is nuts. Need to check if it auto-engages it when the car is put in park (I dislike leaving a car "sitting on the gearbox", my normal procedure is "stop the car with brakes, car into neutral, engage handbrake, foot off brake pedal, THEN car into park").
- There's an annoying rattle in the right rear door. Seems to be around the seat controls or speakers. I'll have to pull the door card out I suspect. I've got two boxes of Focal BAM, I might start installing with that door...
- I hate the column-mounted gear selector - I indicated into neutral on the first day I had it, and I'm constantly reaching for the centre console to put it into park, change it into drive, put it into reverse, etc etc. Why MB, why?
Thread Starter
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Joined: Dec 2025
Posts: 20
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From: Sydney, Australia
2017 E43 AMG Wagon (import from Japan)
To complete a comment earlier:
Another few annoyance.
Another few good things.
Now to try to remove the door card and find this rattle...
- The Heads Up Display is awesome. Really bright (though I suspect polarised sunglasses will dull it down). They did, but that's hardly the fault of the car.
Another few annoyance.
- As the car is an import from Japan, it has an electronic toll collection (ETC) device installed. Almost every time I start the car it tells me "ETC card not detected." Apparently I can either code this out , remove power to the reader or grab an old/expired ETC card and be done with it. We'll see.
- I have Android Auto working via my AAWireless device. Great, but a third of the screen is taken with a useless Android Auto logo. Apparently I should be able to run Android Auto over Carplay and get it full screen.
- The control design is a bit weird. It's impossible to see the labelling on many of the buttons around the centre rotary controller, the buttons between the door and the steering wheel are occluded by the steering wheel. I'm sure I'll eventually get to them via muscle memory.
Another few good things.
- The 80L fuel tank is nuts. It will be interesting to see what sort of range I ultimately get per tank - early tanks won't be a valid sample (giggling a little at the noise, etc).
- I mentioned it before, but the ride on 20" wheels is insanely good. I did a ~200km drive yesterday (left at 5:30am) and there were some pretty rough roads. At no stage did I feel I needed to remove it from Sports mode.
Now to try to remove the door card and find this rattle...
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Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Dec 2025
Posts: 20
Likes: 6
From: Sydney, Australia
2017 E43 AMG Wagon (import from Japan)
I *think* the rattle is sorted.
Removing the door card, relatively easy - two T30 screws (note you need a long narrow driver), then unclip all the trim clips (use a trim tool to pull the door card away, find the clips, pull harder there, they just pop off. Then remove the cables for speakers, lighting, controls, etc, and the door handle.
The speakers are mounted to the door card, and once the door card was removed, the cause of the rattle was obvious. The mid-range speaker one was fine in my instance, it was the tweeter that was rattling. The tweeter itself is twist/friction fit into a holder, which is then twist/friction fit into the door card, and both fittings allowed movement and rattling. I was able to remove the tweeter from its holder, but couldn't get the holder out of the door card.
I've used "foam peanuts" (packaging foam), squished in between the fittings as at least a temporary fix (yet to drive the car, it's raining cats and dogs here). if that works permanently, I'll just leave them, if it works for a while but comes loose, I'll grab some thin stick-on foam as a more permanent solution. I'll also try to find out how to remove the tweeter holder - there was definitely movement, it looks like it's a twisting mechanism, but I couldn't get it to come undone - but it still definitely rattled.
Removing the door card, relatively easy - two T30 screws (note you need a long narrow driver), then unclip all the trim clips (use a trim tool to pull the door card away, find the clips, pull harder there, they just pop off. Then remove the cables for speakers, lighting, controls, etc, and the door handle.
The speakers are mounted to the door card, and once the door card was removed, the cause of the rattle was obvious. The mid-range speaker one was fine in my instance, it was the tweeter that was rattling. The tweeter itself is twist/friction fit into a holder, which is then twist/friction fit into the door card, and both fittings allowed movement and rattling. I was able to remove the tweeter from its holder, but couldn't get the holder out of the door card.
I've used "foam peanuts" (packaging foam), squished in between the fittings as at least a temporary fix (yet to drive the car, it's raining cats and dogs here). if that works permanently, I'll just leave them, if it works for a while but comes loose, I'll grab some thin stick-on foam as a more permanent solution. I'll also try to find out how to remove the tweeter holder - there was definitely movement, it looks like it's a twisting mechanism, but I couldn't get it to come undone - but it still definitely rattled.
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Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Dec 2025
Posts: 20
Likes: 6
From: Sydney, Australia
2017 E43 AMG Wagon (import from Japan)
I've done a bit more to the car (thanks to @LumpyCam for the push in the right direction with coding with a Launch device).
I want to fix the Auto Start/Stop setting too. I've seen the setting for that, but seem to have lost it. The other thing I'm still trying to sort out is the "No ETC Card Inserted" error. It's not the end of the world, just a minor bug I'd like to fix.
- Converted the economy meter to L/100km instead of km/L
- Turned off the Navigation option in the instrument cluster (as without replacing the COMAND module, it will never work in Australia)
- Turned off the Eco Score in the Instrument Cluster (I didn't buy a 3.0L twin turbo with ~295kW at the flywheel to worry about an Eco Score)
- Turned off the digital manual link in the instrument cluster) (I find the interface for accessing it infuriating)
- Turned off Attention Assist in the Instrument Cluster
- The big one - disabled the "bong bong bong" noise in the cabin when engaging reverse.
- Changed the radio location to Australia so I now get correct tuning options (the tuning interface is still ALittleBit****(tm), but I'll cope).
I want to fix the Auto Start/Stop setting too. I've seen the setting for that, but seem to have lost it. The other thing I'm still trying to sort out is the "No ETC Card Inserted" error. It's not the end of the world, just a minor bug I'd like to fix.
Last edited by Manaz; Jan 23, 2026 at 09:23 PM.
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2017 AMG E43 Wagon (Japan Import)
Hi, I just got an E43 wagon from Japan not long ago as well and want to try "de-Japanifying" myself. Do you mind walking me through how you changed the radio location to Aus and disabled the reverse warning sound?
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2005 Mercedes Benz C200 Kompressor
Hope the OP is having fun..I saw one at compliance shop and loved it
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Dec 2025
Posts: 20
Likes: 6
From: Sydney, Australia
2017 E43 AMG Wagon (import from Japan)
Newbie
Joined: May 2026
Posts: 3
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2017 AMG E43 Wagon (Japan Import)
Thread Starter
Junior Member
Joined: Dec 2025
Posts: 20
Likes: 6
From: Sydney, Australia
2017 E43 AMG Wagon (import from Japan)
Newbie
Joined: May 2026
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
2017 AMG E43 Wagon (Japan Import)
Oh perfect! If you could tell me what you selected starting from the home screen to get to those settings that would be great.
How are you finding the device so far and did you do any more coding since your last update?
How are you finding the device so far and did you do any more coding since your last update?
Last edited by greenie10969; May 8, 2026 at 06:11 AM.
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Joined: Aug 2006
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From: MD
w210 AMG or S213
Some thoughts thus far.
- The handbrake/park brake/ebrake location is nuts. Need to check if it auto-engages it when the car is put in park (I dislike leaving a car "sitting on the gearbox", my normal procedure is "stop the car with brakes, car into neutral, engage handbrake, foot off brake pedal, THEN car into park")..
If you car still has run-flats the ride will improve with non-run-flat tires. I have run 18's - 20's on my car and the difference between 18 and 19 inch wheels was not significant. Also not sure if your car will fit 18s with the AMG brakes.
Last edited by illest; May 8, 2026 at 02:52 PM.
