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After someone utterly destroyed my beloved 2012 E350d cabriolet six months ago, I decided to upgrade to a 2018 E220d Class Convertible. I really enjoy it (albeit I still mostly stick with my old car).

Even though it's a Premium Plus model, my NTG 5.5 (which does not have Command) only has one screen, physical rev counters, and a speedometer. It seems absurd that Mercedes-Benz deactivated Android Auto on a vehicle that cost £50,000+ when new, but someone managed to have it turned on for £150.


One of my complaints is that I have a hard time changing the radio station without using the on-screen or wheel-mounted menu. (I was old enough to recall when a radio cassette had six buttons—you pushed one to choose, and then you pulled them out to choose the station—to play a specific song or artist). This is still an issue, though; I had to make each station a favourite so that I could choose it with a little more ease.

It took me six months of moaning before I reread the instructions and realised that the touchpad next to the rotary controller should let me scroll between the radio stations with the press of a central button and a vertical swipe. The program comes close, however it has a few glitches (such as stuttering) and makes the station a preset, among other issues. The little 4 mm crack on the touchpad, which I had disregarded before, is probably to blame. From what I can tell when perusing the web, two possibilities exist:

2. remove the rotator and replace it with a single large touchpad for £112 (see Large Touch Pad Conversion), or 3. substitute the touchpad (I can find used ones from junk shops for around £100, but they all seem worse than my current one), or 4. purchase a brand new one from China for £65 (or just the cover for the touchpad for £20; apparently, it's difficult to unscrew and then needs regluing).

It seems like everyone on the forum uses the rotary knob instead of the touchpad. If that's the case, then how can one quickly switch the radio station? navigate to the correct section of lengthy podcasts in the media player? Do I have this minor crack all wrong, or is that always the case when they're bad?

The big touchpad "upgrade" that our Chinese pals recommended has nobody else installed it yet. Are you sure it's working? I use it for Maps because Merc wants to charge me £125 a month for live traffic updates, even though Google gives likely more accurate ones for free. However, I read on YouTube that it doesn't work well with the Android Auto interface, which is already annoying enough. They weren't expensive, but they looked terrible on my old A207.

I would greatly appreciate some advice before I go ahead and charge it all to the car, ruining countless clips and screws in the process of removing parts that appear to be straightforward in the tutorials on YouTube.

There have been no responses...

never use the E class touch pad. Even though I have two digital screens, the one on the right is where I can see my media or radio stations. Then, I can change stations and the like using the little touch pad on the right side of my driving wheel. Uncertain as to whether the analouge dials can be programmed to show radio stations.

In addition to the traditional analogue dials, I also have a digital display that shows the available radio stations. But this is the default setting for my Sat Nav. Going to the radio menu to switch stations and then back again is a real headache. I realise this is a really simple issue, but I really need to press a few buttons and scroll a few times. Plus, I'm not paying enough attention to the road at the moment. I remember that my previous A207 had actual buttons for this.
Keeping the rotary and getting a new touchpad from AliExpress seems like the best course of action.
The response is appreciated.

I should mention that I installed the whole unit (i.e., the touchpad, metal stem, and, astonishingly, the CPU component) that I purchased from AliExpress. It appears to be of equal quality to the original, so I'm assuming it was manufactured in the same facility.

Thanks to a discount and free delivery on £20 worth of additional items I didn't need, I was able to bring the total down to under £50, a save of £9. It was a steal of a deal, however it took a few weeks to get here. I could have attempted to save £35 by merely replacing the surface of the mousepad, but in all honesty, I would have probably broken something attempting to remove it and glue it back on.


You could just get a new one.

It appears to be functioning fine even when the button isn't depressed properly, so I doubt I'll bother opening it and re-screwing it. My only suggestion is to ensure that the unit is properly centred, since it is rubbing against my belt buckle and jamming its button.

Whoopee! Now I can quickly switch between the radio stations.


I was right; the original device had a little crack (less than 5 mm wide), and I knew this was the problem.

Anyone looking to use Google Maps via Android Auto will find the huge AliExpress large touchpad upgrade to be an absolute must-have. From what I can tell, the only way to choose the icons in Google Maps is via the rotary controller; the touchpad doesn't work.

Hopefully, this information will be helpful to anyone dealing with the similar problem.