Factory Owner's Manual Cases - Leather and Vinyl Comparison

[a777fan]

ADMIN NOTE: This thread was cleaved off of a FOR SALE of a leather Owner's Manual case by Benz. This thread is designed to provide a comparison/contrast of the two types of owner's manual cases offered by MBNA during E500E production. It also applies to other "pedestrian" W124 production during the E500E production years (1990-1995).





Wow! Real leather at one point? Color me impressed!


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[gerryvz]

Re: FS: w124 E500E LEATHER OWNERS MANUAL CASE

Wow! Real leather at one point? Color me impressed!


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Yep, they were all leather until 1992. It’s a nice upgrade to the vinyl cover when you can find them.

It always makes me laugh when sellers on eBay advertise the vinyl covers as leather.

 

[maw1124]

Re: FS: w124 E500E LEATHER OWNERS MANUAL CASE

Until now, I didn’t realize they weren’t all leather.

maw

 

[gerryvz]

Re: FS: w124 E500E LEATHER OWNERS MANUAL CASE

Until now, I didn’t realize they weren’t all leather.

maw

Starting in 1993, they went to a vinyl case. It's considerably cheaper than the older ones and does not hold as much stuff. I have around 50 owners manual packs in my collection, and I'll go down to the basement and grab a leather vs. a vinyl and take photos of both, for comparison.

They switched to a totally different design I'd say around 2000, as I still have 1999 E-class cars with the same vinyl case.

I've switched all of my MBs over to nice leather cases, as I can't stand the vinyls. They are getting harder to find, and when you see them on eBay (and they are real leather) they can be expensive.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Re: FS: w124 E500E LEATHER OWNERS MANUAL CASE

I'll go down to the basement and grab a leather vs. a vinyl and take photos of both, for comparison.

Here is a detailed comparison of the two types of owner's manual cases.

NOTE: All photos below can be clicked for enlargement purposes.

You will be able to see that the older leather cases were much more expensive to produce, and were more extensive inside, than the newer, cost-reduced vinyl cases. The leather cases were used from the beginning of W124 production (and other chassis models, as well) in 1986 for model year 1991 through the end of the 1992 model year, and perhaps a bit into early model year 1993. Starting DURING the early-mid 1993 model year, the vinyl cases were used, continuing that design until the 1996 model year, and continuing on with a couple of other designs of the owner's manual cases until the 1999-2000 time period. Prior to the 1986 1991 model year (the summer 1985 beginning of production of the W124 chassis), a clear plastic owner's manual case was used for W116, W123, R107 and W126 models.

In the following photos below, the vinyl ("pleather" aka "naugahyde") owner's manual case is on top, and the real leather case is on the bottom.

Vinyl (top) and Leather (bottom) cases, obverse:


Vinyl (top) and Leather (bottom) cases, reverse:



Note the detail on the MB star embossed on the front of each case. The vinyl case's star is much sharper and distinct than the embossed star in the leather case.

MB Star, leather case:


MB Star, vinyl case:



Interior fold-out of vinyl (top) and leather (bottom) cases:



Also, note the four distinct "fold-outs" for documents and booklets supplied with the leather owner's manual cases. The vinyl cases only have a single compartment on each side of the zippered inner compartment.

Leather case, fold-out pockets:


Vinyl (top) and leather (bottom) cases, viewed from above:



Furthermore, the owner's maintenance manual holder has a large clear window, as opposed to the smaller clear window for the maintenance mileage page of the maintenance booklet. Also note that the leather cases have lettering that details the contents of two of the pockets; the vinyl cases have no notation on the inside of the case.

Leather case, small maintenance booklet window & internal notations:


Vinyl case, single large maintenance booklet window:



Lastly, the spines of the two case types differ. The vinyl case, on the left of the photo below, has a single stitched "gather" toward the bottom. The leather case on the right has two rivets in the spine, and is made from a single piece of leather.




I hope this analysis helps.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[cole67]

Great info Gerry thanks for the all the details. My 93 (12/92) has the leather case. It is excellent quality.

 

[gerryvz]

For folks’ information, here are photos of the prior-generation, clear plastic owner’s’ manual pouches used on the 116, 123, 107 and early 126 models up to around the end of model year 1989.

You can see the star embossed in the top of the plastic, as well as the small pocket on the reverse side used for the metal “data plate” that contained customer data for the service department. These data plates were phased out by the mid-to-late 1980s.

 

[gerryvz]

You can see the star embossed in the top of the plastic, as well as the small pocket on the reverse side used for the metal “data plate” that contained customer data for the service department. These data plates were phased out by the mid-to-late 1980s.

As I mentioned, the metal data plates were phased out by the late 1980s. I don't recall seeing them after about model year 1989.

Expanding on the previous post, here is an example of a "virgin" data plate and how it was presented to the customer as part of the owner's manual kit.


After acceptance of the vehicle by the customer, the metal data plate was generally removed from its' presentation folder, and placed (as shown below) in the small pocket in the back of the clear plastic owner's manual envelope.


Whenever the vehicle was brought into the dealership for service, the service manager would remove the metal data plate from the owner's manual envelope, and insert it into a machine that would "read" it like an old-school credit card machine did, whereby a roller moved over the face of the plate and imprinted its' information onto a carbon or pressure-sensitive service document.



The metal data plate contained the following information, and was custom-imprinted for each original customer of the vehicle:

• Owner's name and home address
• Trim number
• Paint code number
• Selling dealer code number
• Warranty code (if applicable)
• Vehicle's delivery date
• Vehicle model
• Vehicle VIN and Engine number
• Owner code
• Production date

Hopefully this helps add a bit of information about the pre-E500E-era owner's manual setup and service "data plate" arrangement.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[a777fan]

That’s great info. Thank you!

Such a fascinating little detail that I have never seen any other manufacturer do.

Does this metal plate have any relation to the data plate found under the hood of our 124s? I’ve always thought that to be a unique feature of MBs and wondered why they felt it necessary to include. The odd holes included in it have always made me wonder if it was mechanically scannable in some way... I really haven’t been able to think of any other reason to perforate it in that way.


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[gerryvz]

The metal plate on the radiator support is an assembly ID plate, and was used during the manufacturing process.

It contains some of the same information (such as the paint code) as the metal service plate, but otherwise is different.

Here is the plate on my car:



The plate has both the external paint code and the upholstery color code, as well as the type of vehicle it is, and a sub-set of the option codes (not all of them). The "M" stands for metallic paint.

There are other numbers that are production related. I do believe the holes are scannable by laser and were used during the production process to properly route the vehicle in the MB factory production line for body shell manufacturing.

Cheers,
Gerry

 

[gerryvz]

Here are a couple of additional examples of factory service department metal data plates. These are from the GVZ archives.

• One is from a 300SEL 6.3 (W109, delivered in 1970)
• The other is from a 420SEL (W126, delivered in 1988)

So, you can see, MB used these service data plates for more than 20 years before abolishing them in around 1989.

 

[gerryvz]

For the 1997 model year, MB introduced this even cheaper vinyl case for the manuals.

This example is out of my deep parts archive and is from a 1997 W140 S420.

 

[gerryvz]

A bit more information:

MB used the clear plastic pouch for all cars up through model year 1990.

For 1991 and 1992, MB used the black, "real leather" owner's manual pouch.

For 1993 and I think through 1995, and perhaps 1996, MB used the black "naugahyde" owner's manual pouch with the fewer pockets on the inside.

 

[Jlaa]

My 1993 car came to me with a leather pouch. However, I cannot say if it came from the factory with a leather pouch or an owner before me added it.

 

[gerryvz]

I have also seen some early-to-mid 1993 cars with leather pouches. I believe it was probably dealerships using up their stockpiles of them from 1991-1992. I have numerous 1993 cars' owners manual books in the basement with the naugahyde pouches.

It's likely that your leather owners manual pouch is original.

More than a few people on this forum have believed that their naugahyde pouch was leather, when in fact it was .... naugahyde.

 

[Jlaa]

 

[a777fan]

vinyl 'fabric'

*guffaw*

 

[Jlaa]

vinyl 'fabric'

*guffaw*

Iknowrite? And Naugahyde is a UNIROYAL (as in the tire company) product! I had no idea!

 

[szvook]

Do modern cars have leather pouches? Holding a leather pouch just feels right when you own a Benz.