I am not going to spend time describing how to remove the pieces from your vehicle necessary to do this
retrofit. The WIS (on my website) from Mercedes is pretty specific. If you can’t follow them you probably
shouldn’t be doing this yourself. The only part of the WIS that was inaccurate was the removal of the
center air vent in the dash … that was the worst part of the install for me!!!!
This is a picture of all of the stuff you are going to remove. The shifter trim plate and knob, shifter cover
wood trim panel, ashtray, center air vent, center console trim assembly, under radio storage tray, and head
unit all come out.
If you follow the WIS you can’t go wrong but removing the center air vent took me about 20 minutes. The
tabs you use to pivot the vents farther up and down to get to the screws and release tabs are easy to figure
out. If you are pivoting the vents up you pull the lower tabs right, the upper tabs right to pivot the vent
down. You remove the two Torx screws on the bottom of the vent opening as shown in the WIS by
pivoting both vents up. When you pivot the vents down there are four plastic tabs that need to be released
on the vent, not two as described in the WIS. The other two are near the center and you should release
those (with your plastic wedge … or at least something softer than a screwdriver) first while keeping light
pressure on the vent assembly to pull it straight out. You then pull down the outer ratcheting tabs and the
entire vent assembly pulls out!! Easy once you know how (sigh). This is what your center console will
look like (fun huh?).
