I have a debadged 2005 E320 4Matic sedan. I have confirmed that the car is a 4Matic through VIN lookup (http://www.mbclub.ru/mb/vin/index.html?lng=eng). I live in Northern California, and when driving up to the mountains in the winter, there this thing called "chain control". If you have AWD/4WD they will let you through no problem, if not they will force you to put on snow chains.

So my question is, given that my car has no 4matic badge on the trunk lid, how do I prove to the chain control guy that I am indeed driving an AWD vehicle?

 

Show him the vin and the registration which shows what the car is.
ohlord

 

Try pointing out to him that it has front and rear drive axles!

 

Throw the badge in your glove box and just show it at the check point. If your asked why it's not on the vehicle, I'm sure you can think of something although the truth works suprisingly well.

 

Drive over him and show him how the other wheels did not loose traction.

 

get your dealer to give you a VMI printout. will show VIN, you as owner, and vehicle model E320W4, which means e class, 3.2 litre, 4matic sedan. also will show op code for 4 matic in equip. list. cant remember op code number right now, but just look through the list and highlight it.

 

i checked the reg and it doesn't specifiy 4matic anywhere. good idea though.

 

i love this idea. jail time is probably not worth it!

 

the 6th and 7th digit will have 82 or 83, 82 is V6 4matic and 83 is V8 4matic. if it has 65 or 70 then is not 4matic. example WDBGHxx...