shehabhaque008

Hi guys,

I have recently bought a w203 - c220 cdi.
When I turn on the displayed (comand) it shows the MB logo and disappears after 10-15 seconds. I have researched in Google and YouTube that the faulty module needs to be replaced and I am unsure which module is faulty. Mostly the sat nav at the back needs to be connected to a bypass loop but in my case, there is no sat nav module at the trunk.
My w203 has a disc changer in the glove box - unsure if that is the faulty unit and I could not locate where the sat nav is.

Any suggestions or advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Spooky55

The sat nav is fully contained in the head unit. Not sure what you're saying about symptoms though - does the screen go completely blank after the Mercedes logo disappears?

You will either need a new complete head unit or just the top drive which contains the navigation.

Petethepug

Welcome, nice ride to get about without draining the wallet.

Is it a coupe or a sedan? I see it’s an ‘06. At least the display comes up each time so that portion works.

Did the Navi ever work as it was supposed to without doing that? Mercedes left is with scrappy Navi units Stateside.

I have not dug into the Command unit that deep yet but the first thing that comes to mind is if it has all it’s Navigation DVD / SD cards intact.

A fair warning, I recently found out removing the SD card on the Navi in our 09 Cadillac Escalade when the unit is powered up will BRICK the Navi.

Do a little research and verify if it’s DVD / SD cards are intact the correct way. I heard the command units play DVD. Try playing one to see if the optical work.

Spooky55

No SD cards on the nav - too old. The nav disc is indeed DVD data based but will not play video. That functionality is disabled for North America. If memory serves (it's been a few years), when the nav drive fails, it won't boot up properly and won't get past the Mercedes logo. The nav unit however is in the same box as the drive and is held on by one screw and slides out from the top rear and can be swapped complete (or just removed and the radio will work fine).

As far as the rest of the radio portion, the faceplate is vehicle specific, but the electronics are shared between C/CLK/SLK/G/GL/R. I've read the COMAND may be a direct fit from the G wagon but being what it's in, is much more expensive than others so I can't confirm. The E/S/CL/SL units are completely different.

I used the electronics from the later GL to add backup camera functionality (and the compass screen that only the trucks got). It was quite a job, since the faceplate can't be easily swapped - it's part of the frame of the head unit. You have to completely dismantle everything. As a side note, there is one drawback to what I did: you cannot set the time zone - it is permanently set to mountain time, so I purposely didn't integrate the nav into the car (with STAR) or my cluster time would always be off by an hour. The camera was already enabled via CANBUS. As soon as I put the car in reverse, the screen goes blank. All I needed is a generic camera from Amazon. Resolution doesn't matter - 480 and 720 cameras work fine. Video input was through two pins on the secondary connector.