Hello all,
New member here. I previously owned a R129, but now I am looking to import a 2011 SL550 from the States to Sweden.
The problem is that in order to get it registered in Sweden it has to show the speed in kph and not mph. Just having it in digital form won't cut it, it needs to also be km/h for the big gauge.
And from what I can read in the instruction manual, US cars do not have this feature, only Canadian.
Is there any way to get the Star Diagnostics to do this anyways, if I find someone in Sweden to help me with that?
Otherwise, how much is a new cluster, and what will that do to my mileage?
Thanks in advance for your help!

 

It may be as simple as changing the country setting within Star DAS. I'm in Australia but my car was a European import (UK) and I have the ability to change from MPH to KPH within the cluster.

 

I don't think you can do that on the US models. those came only with the MPH cluster and the only way is to replace the actual cluster - process that is rather complicated and pricey.

 

Thank you for your replies! I suppose I will have to look further into it. If I have to switch the instrument cluster I'm sure that's a couple of thousand dollars.

 

I tend to agree with Nosmo. Looking at the owners manual for US 2011 Sl on page 123 instructions for Canadian models to switch back and forth between miles and Kilometers is simple and found in the settings section.


Since Canada and US border each other, I'm sure cars are sold between them and the ability to switch to their country individual standards is inherent in the built in software. Why not contact a Canadian MB dealer and ask them what they do in the case of a US to CA sale? Should be the same in your part of the world. You may need someone with access to SDS to activate this feature.

Anyway, good luck and post your success story,

Bob

 

Thanks for the reply, Bob. That is the same page that I saw in the manual and what made me wonder about the US version. I wonder WHY in the first place, they would even do that for the US market? It would also seem very weird to me that they would produce two different clusters, one with both mph & kph, which can be used worldwide, but then also produce, in much much smaller scale, a separate cluster that can only show mph, just for the US market. But I will take the gamble and see.

It'll take about 4-5 weeks to ship the SL to Sweden, so I will get back to you guys after that!

 

I did a VIN lookup of the vehicle and it shows up with this feature:

342B - INSTRUMENT CLUSTER/HU LANGUAGE - AMERICAN

I used VinDecoderz (dot) com to check the VIN of the car I am buying. Do you guys think that this means that they actually DO have a special cluster for the US market? That may only show mph? That would be soooo economically wrong in my mind.

It also shows this SA code, which means that maybe, if the cluster is unable to be tweaked via programming, I can just change out the gauge within the cluster?

461 - INSTRUMENT WITH MILES IND. AND ENGLISH LEGEND

 

Mine also has this same code and has the ability to change between MPH & KPH. I'm thinking if you change the country designation from USA to ROW (rest of world) with DAS that this feature may then be enabled in the cluster. Maybe.

 

My SL55 was imported from the US to Canada. I didn't have Star at the time, but the dealer reprogrammed the instrument panel to read in Km/h instead of MPH. The analogue speedometer tops out at 200Km/h, but if you need to read higher, there's always the digital readout. (!!)

 

 

This is correct, my analogue speedo also now tops out at 200kph instread of 200mph. The Australian delivered SL55 cars have 330kph speedos.

One day I intend to take my car to a track and perform a top speed run. So what happens if I leave the cluster set for KMH and the analogue needle is trying to wind itself off the dial, will this do it damage or should I be temporarily changing back to MPH for the run?

 

Seeing as the instruments are basically digital, I would guess that they wouldn't destroy themselves due to over-ranging. Did the run from Wagga-Wagga to Mildura a couple years ago. Should be able to get it up to 200 Km/h there!

 

Oh I've had it up to 200, it's what happens at 300 that I'm worried about!

 

Just wanted to say thanks to the people that replied to my thread! I now have more optimism that I will be able to get it switched to km/h. Thanks for reassuring me! And I will definitely post a reply here once I've figured it out, so other people will know how we did it.

 

Hey guys,

I'd like to revisit this topic from a few months back, when I purchased my 2011 SL550 from the US and had it shipped to Sweden.

I visited a local Mercedes mechanic with Star C4, but he was unable to find the settings to change the country. He had never done this before, and it felt like we went through a whole lot of pages of settings.

Can someone give me some more specific instructions on where I will be able to find the settings to change mph to km/h in Star Diagnostics? (The analog speedometer, not the digital...)

A neighbor of mine also has a US R230, and that one shows the speed in kph, so I know that it is possible.

Thanks in advance!!

 

P.S. It already cost me 75 bucks for 2 hours of standing around with a mechanic, browsing Star menus and not solving the issue, so I would be very willing to throw a PayPal donation to anyone who helps me solve the issue. I hope I'm allowed to say that in the forum; I'm just very thankful for any help that I can get, because I can't get the car registered / inspected in Sweden, and be legally able to drive it on the roads, while the speedometer still registers in mph.

 

These are the steps to change the country for the instrument cluster:

1. Start DAS and establish communications with the vehicle.
2. Navigate to "Control Units" > "Information and communication" > "ICM - Instrument Cluster with maintenance interval display"
3. Navigate to "Control unit Aaaptations"
4. Select "National variant coding"
5. Choose a location from the list.

I can't promise this will unlock the MPH/KMH menu, and i am not sure which country to choose (maybe Canada or Rest of World?) but that's where the country setting is for the ICM.

 

xclens wrote: Just having it in digital form won't cut it, it needs to also be km/h for the big gauge

If you need to have to have the speedometer gauge showing km/h i suppose the only and best option is to buy new dials showing km/h as shown on the picture here. The link to the comany that sells new dials is below:
https://www.heiler-tachodesign.de/SL500

Price for the dials starts from 150 euros

 

Just to clarify some of the misconception/confusion: I have a US R230 (2003) and imported to Canada 7 yrs ago. It IS possible to easily convert from mph to km/h!

I think the path Rudeney has outlined is pretty much correct. I can't remember exactly because mine was a while ago, but I used my own DAS laptop, went into the Instrument Cluster settings, adn changed the region.

The old cluster showed the mph scale as 0-200mph (I think). When I restarted the car after changing things, the scale still said 0-200 obviously, but the "mph" indicator went out and a "km/h" indicator came on instead. When I drive 20 now, it is 20 km/h. No need to change the dials or anything else.

I suspect the hardware of the instrument cluster is the same worldwide. Then you code it for the specific country.

Everything in the cluster changed to metric (degrees Celsius, odometer and trip odo are now in kilometers, etc).

The ONLY way you can tell the car is from the US now is that the climate control dials still have markings in degress F not degrees C. I'm sure I could get a set of Celsius labels or overlay rings if I really cared (but I don't)

Do definitely play around with DAS/Star because it can be done for sure. I don't remember what version I used, but I did this in May 2011 and it worked, so mine must have been at least that old. I'm sure any DAS version from 2011 and newer will work.

Also if you need Daytime Running Lights in Sweden, you can turn those on too. I believe it is in the Instrument cluster module also. Restarted the car and the headlights stay on all the time now, even if the switch is set to 'off'

 

I remember years ago, back when the US was still considering converting to metric, I had rental car (Buick or Cadillac maybe?) that had a button on the dash that would switch from MPH to k/ph. When you pressed it, the speedo needle would jump around to the new position. Thank goodness we decided to stay with US Customary and stop that nonsense. We had highway markers and road signs with both miles and kilometers on them. Dogs were sleeping with cats, it was mayhem! :P

 

Haha! Yeah the US just HAS to be different than every other country in the world.

I just wanted to give the HUGHEST of THANKS for your detailed instructions a few posts above. We followed it step by step and after 5 minutes my SL550 is no longer a US immigrant. heh

No but seriously, that mechanic would NEVER have found that without your help. I am truly thankful for your help. Now I can finally register it and be able to drive it!

 

I am very glad to have been able to help. I wasn't sure if that was the solution or not, but now we know!

 

Great to hear. I am planning to import an 08 sl 550 to Germany - I hope same instructions work. What did you do with the license plate size issue?

 

Canadian licence place are the same as US, also headlights are the same, but you will need euro beam. Not sure if that can be programmed, or totally different headlights are required.

 

It should work just fine!

Here in Sweden the Transportation Department has the option to choose "US plate" when they first register our imported cars. If they see that the regular wide plates don't fit, we get a much smaller (much better-looking) plate. The guy who registered mine was nice enough to let me have the smaller US plates both front and back.