E250 Coupe 2010 Dashboard display change.

[Johnerz]

Hi

I have an E250 coupe sport Sept 2010 model. I love the car but the screen display in the middle of the speedometer now reminds me of 1980's computer games.
It didn't bother me when I brought the car cause I fell for the shape and the colour of th car and the drive. I opted not to go for a model with a new display.

Is it possible to upgrade the display to one of the colour screens used in the later models? Does anyone know any ideas of costs or specialists that can do the work?

 

[markjay]

Are you asking about fitting a facelift dashboard in a pre-facelift car?

I know its been done on the C-Class, there's even a vid on YouTube, but it's a lot of parts and a lot of work...

 

[Johnerz]

Yes, the main thing I'm bothered about is the colour display. I'm happy with all other aspects of the layout etc.

 

[Uky]

Yes it can be done. But you will need either a brand new instrument cluster, or a salvaged one that has been "zeroed".

The mileage counter is not in the cluster, but is transfererd using Xentry (Mercedes diagnostic system) during installation.

 

[Johnerz]

Thanks, is it expensive? I'm guessing yes, but any idea of costs?

 

[Uky]

I think a brand new cluster will be something around £ 1000 but it is more of a guess.

Sometimes salvaged/second hand clusters appear on eBay but a word of caution. From my experiences with comand systems I know that electronic units are "SCN-Coded" which means that Mercedes can/will block units from being integrated into vehicles if the SCN-number belongs to a unit from a vehicle that has been reported as stolen. And this also if that vehicle was in a crash and then towed to a scrap yard and parts later legitimately sold. I am not sure wether an instrument cluster is coded in this way, but it could very well be so. (The SCN-number is labelled on the back of a comand unit and this can be checked with Mercedes.)

It used to be that a brand new control box could be inserted into a Mercedes and then used (tested) for about 40 start cycles. At that point, the unit was electronically coded/inegrated into the vehicle which meant that it could not later be removed in order to be used in another vehicle.

The second alternative was using Xentry, the service engineer could either enter a "very" long sequence of codes in order to code a unit into a vehicle OR have the Xentry system do this automatically being connected to Mercedes data servers.

So: Unless you are 100% sure that a second hand cluster is legit and zeroed, go for a new one. If you find a zeroed unit that has an SCN number on it (If clusters are SCN-coded), check with Mercedes the status of that unit before proceeding.