Upgrading antique sat nav on E320 CDi

[buglawton]

I am researching this for my brother who has a E320 CDi 3-ish yrs old for chauffeuring. The car is brilliant but the sat nav very basic compared to his last car's. It is the original fitted one with no map, just arrows & voice prompt. No decent points of interest handling such as hotels or speed camera database as you can get nowadays and slow responding.

He was quoted £3500 for an official dealer upgrade. As I can see some good knowledge on this forum I'd like to ask - any way to get this cost below £1k even if it means using Ebay / German co's / + a private auto electrician? I speak German and am tech minded but still find this topic a minefield.

What he is looking for is something that fully integrates into the dash display + radio/CD like the E320's current system (one good feature is, press a button & the basic display appears in the dash display, presumably an Upgrade with Map could do the same?).

Cheers - Nigel

PS I saw a history of the fitted units model numbers on this forum but could not place the point when real maps appeared. Any ideas?

 

[marnix]

It's worth contacting Autotechnics on 01206 871279
They do a comand system fitted to an E-Class(W210) for £1299. They are an approuved MB fitting outlet
They are based in Colchester but do free mobile fitting service within a 120 miles radius from there.
or check this link to one of their items on Ebay
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Mercedes-Coma...576289882QQcategoryZ10398QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

 

[jberks]

The other option is to replace the existing system with a non MB one. Downside is that you lose the dash display etc but some firms do a module to integrate to some extent. Alternatively ignore the inbuilt system and get a tomtom!.

 

[996jimbo]

Alternatively ignore the inbuilt system and get a tomtom!.

...which gets you a better navigation system than most and you trouser (as the trade would say) £1k saving for the cheapest fitted cheapo alternative.

Only bummer is that you have a dangly wire screaming "cheapskate" at you!

 

[BarryS]

Many thanks to Marnix for the lead to Autotechnics. The've just fitted a COMAND into my CLK - everything works fine including phone after a re-boot and they arranged for the local dealer to conect to the STAR system (if that's its name) to get everything tickety boo. They also fitted the jack socket in the glovebox (after I told them about that from info on forums) to enable ipod or similar to connect to the aux input which is good news since I found you can not have music CD's playing plus navigation since as soon as the nav CD ROM is removed the route guidance stops. Would recommend.

Barry

 

[marnix]

Happy that the info was usefull to somebody.
It's nice to get a pat on the back.

 

[strukamula]

Many thanks to Marnix for the lead to Autotechnics. The've just fitted a COMAND into my CLK - everything works fine including phone after a re-boot and they arranged for the local dealer to conect to the STAR system (if that's its name) to get everything tickety boo. They also fitted the jack socket in the glovebox (after I told them about that from info on forums) to enable ipod or similar to connect to the aux input which is good news since I found you can not have music CD's playing plus navigation since as soon as the nav CD ROM is removed the route guidance stops. Would recommend.

Barry

Barry,
I lve in Colchester and have a newCLK,can you give me more info on Autotechnics and are you still happy with your system? How does it look?

Strukamula

 

[strukamula]

Barry,
I have a new CLK and live in Colchester,are you still happy with your COMAND system ? Where are Autotechnics?

Strukamula

 

[marnix]

If you have a look at the 2nd post, their phone number happen to be there.

 

[BarryS]

Strukamula,
Sorry, just seen your question: Seems like there are at least 2 similar aftermarket outfits; Autotechnic are one, the other is braybrooks.co.uk
I can't recomend one over the other. Suggest you talk to / visit both

Just be clear to get the price sorted - there seems to be a lot of flexibility based seemingly on whether the unit is new or used. I think they are actually all used.

Autotechnics were OK: They sent 2 fitters. The unit was for a W203 rather than W209 (I had done my homework and knew this combination was OK though. Others would not be since the gyroscope angle would be different). They followed a shopping list of instructions regarding what wire to fit where. Their only confusion came over getting the built in telephone to work through COMAND - they took advice from their HQ and momentarily fell into bull**** mode to try and explain why it wouldn't work. But then they turned the system off then on and it worked OK.

I was surprised they were unaware of the aux input on COMAND which I wanted to use to add a jack socket in the glove box. All this seemed a bit new to them but I sent them detailed instructions from forum's / internet sites and the nice thing is they fitted the jack socket, loom etc at no charge, very nice.

However they did not bring a lead with a jack plug at either end so we could test the aux input as I asked them to. I didn't have time to get one either. Since aux input looked to be "enabled" on COMAND we assumed it was OK. Unfortunately I subsequently found I only have sound out of one speaker so need to go back to them to get that fixed. I think it's a simple misconnection. The actual socket is falling out of the hole in the glovebox too which surprises me since it's a pre-formed hole that should be the correct size for the Merc sourced socket.

They also arranged for a friendly local dealer to connect to the STAR system to get the display working through the speedo instrument panel. Although the dealer recognised it as a W203 rather than W209 system and said he fixed it, whatever that means, it doesn't actually work through the instrument cluster. I don't see the need for that though anyway.

So do your homework - search on all the Merc forums, put "Comand retrofit" into google etc and choose carefully. Should be OK though, good luck.