chaging to full command system

[fordie]

i have a E-Class on a 55 plate w211 is it easy to upgrade to a full command if i purchased one or is there alot of changes required.

thank you your input good be great.

[kbhogalW126]

Ask Alfie on here.

He is the resident Comand expert.

Welcome by the way!

Regards,

Kj

[Diesel Benz]

Also what do you mean by "full COMAND", are you after navigation too? Which head unit does it have now, Audio 20 CD or Audio 50 APS I guess?

[richard]

I will write a document on this shortly on mercupgrades.com, but heres a quick overview.

There are 3 parts of a 'full comand' system
a) Head unit
b) Audio Gateway
c) Nav unit
(a) and (b) are required, and (c) is required if you want navigation rather than just a nice looking DVD/CD player/radio

There are '3' types of Audio-Gateway in Mercedes cars
1) built into the head unit (on the Audio-20 CD)
2) Single FM tuner (for the Audio-20-Casette in early cars)
3) Dual FM tuner (for the Audio-50-APS and the Comand)
The Audio gateway has the tuners, amplifier, diagnostic interface and fibre optic ring control in it. Where it is not built into the head unit it is in the trunk up between inner and outer wings. As the AGW contains so much stuff, the wiring is very different between cars with Audio-20-CD (UK standard) and Comand (or Audio-50-APS, or the old Audio-20-Casette).

So, to install COMAND-APS you need
a) Head unit
b) Nav unit, nav wiring loom, nav fibre optic loom
c) If you have an Audio-20-Casette, a new dual tuner AGW
OR
c) If you have an Audio-20-CD, a dual tuner AGW, mounting brackets, screws, and a whole new wiring loom
OR
If you have an Audio-50-APS the existing AGW is probably fine

Also, When installing the nav processor, if your car doesnt have certain options, you need a Nav processor bracket and a new boot liner on the left.
If you look at your boot liner on the left, if it is basically flat all the way along, then the bracket is already there, if it goes back in at the rear of the boot (by the boot door) to give extra space (so the boot is wider) then you need the brackets and boot liners. If you hav factory fit parktronic you have the bracket.

If your car is *very* early, there are CD changers and phone controllers that dont work properly with COMAND - but ive never actually seen one

Everything is easy to install *except* if you have to install the wiring loom - there are nice retrofit looms available that let you just plug into the existing loom, but it means lots of dismantling to install it.

I have a flash card full of photos of the last W211 install we did, and will try and document it at some point

Richard