I've recently been asked about which phone controllers support which mobile handsets.

Mercedes introduced a mobile phone system in about 1999 (in Europe) where a Nokia mobile phone could be used in the car. The system was limited to certain Nokia phones until mid 2003 where they introduced a system where the phone cradle could easily be changed and initially a few Siemens phones as-well as Nokia phones were supported. This system is called UHI. In North America the system is called MHI - it seems to be almost but not quite identicial.
Over time more cradles were made available and then bluetooth cradles were introduced.
In 2002 (W211 E class), Model Year 2004 (S/CL), Model Year 2005 (most of the rest of the range) the technology used to connect allthe audio system components was changed from something called D2B to something called MOST.
The bluetooth cradles (with the exception of the SAP cradle) do not work in D2B cars (the other party hears echo of their voice).

This article just covers the D2B phone controllers.

- Initially, the system supported the Nokia 3110 - this was option 317.
- Somewhere around 2000 the system was replaced to support the Nokia 5110, 6110 and 6150. This only involved Mercedes changing the controller and the cradle.
- Later, support for Nokia 6210i was added - this again involved replacing the control unit & adding a little clip to the existing cradle to hold the phone in, as the 6210i no longer had a protruding antenna. Shortly after this Mercedes released some nicer (non square) cradles. The 6210i system also had a GSM 1800 Mhz booster ("E-Net compensator") but you could still change the cradle and controller and it would be fine. Interestingly Mercedes have dropped the booster later on cost grounds.
- And then support for the Nokia 6310i was added - this was initially just a control unit change, but within a few months Mercedes realised the 6310i could fall out of the 6210i cradle and released a better cradle.
- The UHI system was then released in late 2003 and the wiring for that is incompatable, so everything was changed (although the control units look physically identical)

So, in summary, if your car has an older Nokia fixed phone system you can update it to a later one (but not UHI). This is particularly useful if you have the old 3110 system, you can replace it with any of the later systems and add a ViseeO MBU-1000 for bluetooth.

Control unit part numbers: -

A220 820 67 26 Nokia 3110 (option 317)
A220 820 09 85 - replacement for above from MY1999 - not sure of changes.
A203 820 32 26 - Nokia 5110/6110/6150 option 852
A203 820 99 26 - Nokia 6210i + 5110/6110/6150 option 852
A203 820 25 85 - Nokia 6310i + 5110/6110/6150/6210i option 852
A230 820 42 26 - UHI controller, Option 386 (or 388 when car supplied with a Nokia or Siemens handset)

Cradle part numbers vary by vehicle. However A203 820 07 51 was the adapter piece to convert the original rectangular 5110/6110/6150 holder to hold the 6210i.

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