Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC announced Tuesday it will take back sales of the Sprinter commercial van in the U.S and Canada starting in January, effectively discontinuing the Dodge Sprinter that is sold by about 400 Dodge dealers.

Mercedes says it will take over sales, marketing, distribution and service of the van, which will be sold as a Mercedes-Benz or a Freightliner  next year as part of a new division: Daimler Vans USA, LLC. The wholly owned subsidiary of Daimler AG will be based in Montvale, N.J., where Mercedes has its North American headquarters. This from Alisa Priddle / The Detroit News

As of January 1, all contracts with Dodge dealers will be over (actually I heard the Freightliner deal was done also) and 120+ Mercedes dealers will have the job. Sure hope that there is one close to me. It seems we may have to go a long way for maintenence in some places.

Word has it that starting January, the Sprinter will be offered with a new 3.0L V6 common-rail diesel option from the M-Class and GL-Class and will be sold in all 50 states.

I guess I can throw away all the Dodge badges. Doesn’t look like I will ever change the bus back to a Dodge now!

For the 2007-2009 Sprinter, if you purchased the option (yes, it is an option) for DRLs it is fairly easy to turn them off. Just visit your dealer, sit back and have a cup of coffee and faster than you can spell Sprinter backwards, the lights go out.

When I first got the Sprinter I searched online, under the hood, in the fuse boxes for days looking for the “normal” way to turn them off (on the Sprinter DRLs means all your lights are on, headlights are just on low). There are a couple of easy ways for VW vans and many cars you can just pull a fuse or find the DRL control module and disable it but not so the Sprinter.

If you want this mod, the only way that I can assure you will work is to visit your dealer or someone with the Mercedes Star computer system and program the DRLs off. $65 for the option to turn them on, $75 to turn them off a year later – hey, that’s better than the stock market is doing!

The morphing of the Dodge Sprinter into a Mercedes Sprinter is completed.

The new grille is covered by my bug screen which I am making sure it works ok before the trip to Alaska – it does!

I notice now with the Mercedes badging, I get much better MPG and my top speed is 180mph . . .

Why re-badge? Hmmm, no one seems to be able to give a good answer to that so for me, just my super-inflated, over-active ego is the justification.

On the roof you can see the Thule wind deflector I mounted to the solar panels. Gives them a less industrial look and who knows? It may actually lesson the wind drag.

All I have left to do is to add Jack’s antenna ball to the antenna!

PS. Watch the height in the woods. I have scrapped several times on tree limbs and branches. No damage that can’t be rubbed out but the potential is there – if you see low branches, slow down!

This is so easy to do. Just order the Mercedes wheel inserts from one of the several vendors out there – waiting for them to come in is probably the hardest part.

Drill a 1/4″ hole in the plastic (yep, it’s plastic) cover.

Use a screw driver and pop out the insert. Don’t pry against the wheel – you may scatch it.

You are left with a very nice hole that needs filling.

Just pop in the new insert and you are good to go!

Of course, if you want to, you can take each wheel off to remove the insert but why would you want to do that?

The finished product.

Here is a picture of the work I did yesterday. I used the storage space beneath the radio to mount the Parrot 3100 and the connector for my Zune. The Zune fits nicely in here and with one of those silicone covers does not slide out.

Today I did the first part of rebadging the Dodge Sprinter to a Mercedes Sprinter. Why? Ego? Because others have done it? Something to waste money on? I don’t know. I never really wanted a Mercedes. I also never had a Dodge before so who knows. I guess cause its one more thing to do to make the Sprinter unique.

For the badge or star or logo. the Mercedes-Benz part number is A 906 758 00 58. For the surround (Mercedes takes a round one and Dodges is more like a shield) the part numbers are A 906 742 01 30 and A 906 742 00 30. You need both, the left and the right.

The left surround is the difficult one to get off. It is held in place by a small screw that you can’t get to until you partially remove the inside door panel. Of course, I didn’t have the correct size screw driver (mine was too long) and had to improvise. I undid part of the cover on the left side before looking at the replacement part and discovering it just slid into place and was held by the badge screws.

Given the proper tools, this small mod should not take you over a half-hour.

I also have some lettering in decal form to go over the rear license plate that says Mercedes Benz. I don’t think I will use that. All the MB’s I have seen are pretty low key in the rear – a logo and model number.

Next, what to do with the front-end?