TV when car in motion

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Paul Grainger

Active Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2002
Messages
372
Location
UK
Car
SL55, Porsche 996 C2 convertible
Does anybody know of a way to disable the Comand TV automatic cut off that occurs at approx 3 MPH?

Is this mod possible? I know that the legality is questionable but would like to try it anyway (Mrs Grainger gets easily bored in the car).

Is the cut-off done by the tuner or by Comand? Would it be possible to disable it by disconnecting (temporary) the can-bus to the comand?

Any help would be appreciated.......

Paul G
 
Yes its possible, I've seen a few places advertise in car magazines that they do it. Apparently you can't on the newer commands though.
 
hi paul check out these guy's http://www.nav-tv.co.uk

they seem to be the guy's that can do it. Merc supposdely can do it if they have a early version of STAR.

cheers

kenny
 
Have you tried asking the workshop forman at your dealership?

A face to face quiet chat might just work - I find that the people on service reception are not usually able to understand what we retrofit boys are talking about.

NAV TV charge £275 - ouch!

:)
 
Originally posted by steve_bcs
A face to face quiet chat might just work - I find that the people on service reception are not usually able to understand what we retrofit boys are talking about.
My local stealership allegedly might be able to do this for nothing, perhaps. ;)
 
I tried the stealer (actually, I had to go to the stealer for them to 'enable' the TV to display on the Comand screen).

The best that they could offer was no handbrake interlock & no 'park' interlock. I guess that they must have the newer star software.

My local stealer 'was' Leadley - now known as Mercedes Mansfield. All the local stealers around me are named like this now (Mercedes Nottingham, Mercedes Chesterfield, etc). I guess that this is part of the MB re-organisation - but the 'attitude' seems to have changed. I was quite friendly with my local service manager (Steve Simpson) when the dealer was called 'Leadley' - he often did 'minor' bits-and-bobs free of charge (eg fault light reset etc) if the job was only going to take a couple of minutes. I thought that this was good customer relations. When I recently went in to the re-named place to have my TV enabled, Steve said he would to charge me (ouch - it took less than one minute, they charged £28) and that he 'could not work' under the new regime. He has since resigned & left.

Is this typical of stealerships throughout the UK?

Paul G
 
Attitudes at the dealerships have changed, they appear to be more interested in selling than customer service.
 
Well , an example of this is the central scotland area.

The T211 / W209 cab launch locally didnt happen. I had to travel 60 miles to perth for it. When i got there , three t211's no demos to drive, Two W209 cab's one sold and the other one locked and tea and coffee. Thats it!!!!

now compared to what we were used to before all this bananas of creating a monopoly with the dealerships. At one point a dealership that closed down now turned their showroom into a kitchen and had celeb chefs cooking. This was for the W203 launch back in 2000.

Ohh , and if your still wondering, BMW do it a whole lot better :rolleyes:

EDIT: edited for content by Shude.
 
Yep, last w/e at Perth was a bit of a disappointment.

When I phoned my local garage beforehand to see if they were participating, they had no idea what i was talking about.
 
Western had a stand at the royal highland show .. yeah , im really going to go to a farm exhibition to see the new mercs :crazy:
 
Originally posted by fuzzer
Western had a stand at the royal highland show .. yeah , im really going to go to a farm exhibition to see the new mercs :crazy:

...and no doubt if you wasn't wearing a tweed suit and jodhpurs they'd have ignored you anyway. tally-ho!!! :rolleyes:
 
we went to a local event which was supposedly supported by "prestige German car makers". The idea was it was big weekend car and boat show at the local Marina promotoing the new housing, boat sales and obviously cars. It was a huge event, a fun fair, french market the lot - tens of thousands of people came along.

the cars went a bit like this

BMW - the entire range of new models on stands and about 50 almost new cars for sale all prepared and ready for potential buyers to "drive away", a marquee with an accessories "store" selling mats, clothing etc and buffet with about 20 suited and booted sales advisors and cutomer relations staff handing freebies out and talking to people encouraging them to look around the cars inside and out. One of their guys said they had actually sold 15 of the used cars that weekend

Audi - the entire range of new cars all on stands and about 30 used cars, with a marquee full of smart casually dressed sales staff handing out freebies, video presentations, soft drinks and ice creams for the kids drinks being handed out and a bunjee jump with the crane emblazoned with Audi banners for anyone daft enough to try it. Couldn't get near the cars as most were marked "sold" by the afternoon of the second day.

Mercedes, A couple of new cars - an A Class and an E class estate. about 20 used cars including a pair of immaculate AMG E55s. No sales staff that could be found, no marquee, no stands in fact the only visible staff there were the guys from the parts department sitting on the tailgate of an M class drinking cans of beer wearing jeans and T shirts. no giveaways, no customer contact and no cars actually for sale on the day just a box full of cards clipped to the window of each one to allow potential buyers to get in contact with the dealer.

we were Not impressed.

Andy
 
Originally posted by fuzzer
Well , an example of this is the central scotland area.

The T211 / W209 cab launch locally didnt happen. I had to travel 60 miles to perth for it. When i got there , three t211's no demos to drive, Two W209 cab's one sold and the other one locked and tea and coffee. Thats it!!!!EDIT: edited for content by Shude.

I went to my local dealers launch of the T11/W209 last weekend as I posted in another thread and I was very impressed with their hospitality. There were cars to test drive and a BBQ and entertainment laid on. This dealer has also changed from Lancaster to Mercedes Hertford and I've seen a real improvement in their customer service (I guess that must just mean they were particularly bad before!).
 
Got a very friendly welcome at M-B Newbury's open weekend - nice staff, no sales pressure, loads of freebie promotional items and food... oh, and some nice cars on show :)
 
I have now installed a DVD player in my CLK, Mrs Grainger and the junior Graingers have put me under even more pressure to enable ' TV in motion'.

I have at last worked out a system that works - sort of.

I have installed a (hidden out of the way) two pole switch that isolates the canbus connection to the command unit (the can bus connection between the comand and the TV tuner must be left connected. When the TV picture is on (car stationary) the switch is flicked to the 'off' position - isolating the CANBUS lines to the comand. Hey-presto, the TV picture carries on working whilst the car is moving. The negatives from this are that the comand 'times-out' after 45 minutes and has to be switched on again, and the navigation doesn't work whilst the CANBUS is isolated. Even so, I am quite pleased that this mod works.

Paul G
 
Neat trick paul

Have you thought about adding rear LCD monitors for the juniors?

If you use the megacomm adapter with the MB TV tuner you could have sound & vision in the rear and still use all the other comand features up front .

I did this on the ML using just 1 Roof mount LCD screen. . Actually you could have an integrated visor lcd monitor to your passenger side & a single rear monitor on a bracket attached to the rear of the centre console so front & rear passengers can watch the movie leaving you free to use the satnav.

downside ... this is not a cheap solution

Upside .. its the DB's

:)
 
Steve,

I have been unsucsessfully bidding on e-bay for suitable rear headrest monitors for the last few weeks. the CLK has quite a small cockpit, so the central comand screen is clearly visible to all persons in the car. A roof screen would be out of the question in my car ( it's a convertible).
I purchase my tv tuner from e-bay, needless to say there was no info with it - I ended up splashing out £250 for a pukka MB comand installation loom which included the TV connections. There are still two sockets (multipole) on the tuner with no plugs in them - I presumed that these could be for additional monitors but I don't actually know). The TV tuner output seems to be RGB rather than composite video - perhaps the megacomm adaptor converts the RGB to composite and hence makes it a lot easier to fit additional monitors.

Whatever - I am dead pleased with the installation.

Note - I do not, of course, condone driving with the TV on and providing a distraction.......


Paul G
 
The TV while in motion is to be set in teh comand - not in the TV tuner. There are 4 safety locks on each comand...
1) shifter in P
2) parking brake engaged
3) no TV when speed exceeds 0 mph
4) no TV when speed exceeds 6 mph

MB is able to get rid of 1, 2 and 3 but they cannot get rid of 4 unless they have and are willing to use stardiagnose software from before June 2002.
Switching CANBUS on/off is not the way to go (IMHO).

Do a search on german Ebay - there is a seller there who offers a reprogramm for 99 euro per comand (excl. shipping the comand back and forth).

I myself recently spend 1 day behind stardiagnose with old software to get approx 65 comands reprogrammed to make them display TV while in motion...

greetingz,
 
Originally posted by MBenzNL


Do a search on german Ebay - there is a seller there who offers a reprogramm for 99 euro per comand (excl. shipping the comand back and forth).

Steve
whats the sellers ID ? or what do we search for exactly to find this guy?
 
hi as far i know this guy only does e211 dvd comands AND you have to ship the units back to germany

check out : item number 2432742100 on ebay

Steve_bcs maybe we should do a group buy and bribe a friendly tech with the older software!!!

does anybody know if the guy's that do the breakdown service (mobilo ) have the same star machines as the workshop tech, if so that might be a option.

cheers

kenny
 

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