Best Dash Cam for the Mercedes E-Class

You are three hours into a run up the Hume, sitting on the limit in the right lane, when a car crosses two lanes without indicating and you brake hard enough to shift everything on the back seat. Nobody touches anybody. But you would like it on file, with the plate readable, because next time might not end so tidily.

The short answer: No E-Class comes with a dash cam as standard. Mercedes sells a Dashcam software unlock that films forward only, at 720p or 1080p, with no audio and no parking mode. GUARD 360° records nothing in Australia. For readable plates at highway speed you want a proper aftermarket camera, hardwired.

E-Class owners tend to arrive knowing their chassis code and already asking about hardwiring rather than a plug-in lead. Good. That makes this easier.

Does the Mercedes E-Class have a built-in dash cam?

No. No Mercedes sold new in Australia comes with a working dash cam as standard, the E-Class included. Two Mercedes products get mistaken for one.

The MBUX Dashcam is a software unlock from the Mercedes-Benz Store Australia, and unlike most Mercedes Digital Extras it is a one-off purchase rather than a subscription, with both the price and your eligibility confirmed once your VIN is linked in the store. It records through the camera behind your windscreen onto a USB stick you provide. Front only, no audio, 720p on NTG6 cars and 1080p on NTG7 cars capped at 25 frames per second. No parking mode. Mercedes documents no parking or impact-wake function for the MBUX Dashcam, and recording runs only while the car is on. On some Australian cars recording must be started by hand every drive.

GUARD 360° is the other one, sold as a subscription, either monthly or on 12 and 36 month terms, and often included for up to 36 months from new. Package contents checked August 2026. In Australia it contains Stolen Vehicle Help and Emergency Key Deactivation and nothing more. It records no video and no photographs here.

There is also genuine Mercedes camera hardware from parts departments, A2139055310 front and A2139055510 rear, and the E-Class W213 appears on Australian dealer fitment lists. It is comfortably the dearest of the three Mercedes options, installation is quoted on top, and both pricing and availability are confirmed against your VIN, so ask your dealer. The full picture sits in our Mercedes dash cam guide for Australia.

Sedan, Estate or Cabriolet? Three different jobs

The E-Class sells here in three body styles, and they are not variations on one install. They are three genuinely different rear camera problems.

The sedan is the easy one. The rear camera mounts on the rear windscreen, high and central, and the cable runs through fixed trim the whole way. Nothing moves, nothing flexes. The only decisions are which camera and where the power comes from.

The Estate gives the best rear view of the three. That tailgate glass sits upright rather than raked, so the camera looks straight back at the car behind you instead of skywards, and plates read more easily. The catch is that the tailgate opens. The rear lead has to cross a flex point between body and tailgate, routed with the right slack so it is not tugged every time you load the boot.

The Cabriolet is the outlier. With a fabric roof there is no fixed rear glass to mount a rear camera to in the usual way, so a standard front and rear kit does not simply drop in. Rear coverage needs a different approach, and which one depends on the car and how much rear footage matters to you. If you have the drop-top, talk to us before you buy a kit. It saves buying hardware that will not mount.

What hardwiring actually involves, and why we prefer it

Plug-in power via the cigarette socket works, but only while the car is awake. The socket dies when the ignition does, so parking mode is off the table, and you have a visible cable down a windscreen in a car where everything else is hidden.

A hardwire kit takes power at the fuse box, using fuse taps rather than cutting into any factory loom. It picks up a permanently live circuit and an ignition-switched circuit, plus an earth. That is the trick: the camera can tell driving from parked. Driving means normal loop recording. Parked means it drops into a low-draw mode and wakes for an impact or motion.

The kit also carries a low-voltage cut-off, so the camera shuts down before it can flatten the battery. On a modern Mercedes with stop-start and battery management, that cut-off wants setting sensibly rather than left where it shipped. The correct circuits should be identified on your own car rather than taken from a generic chart.

Pro Tip: E-Class owners rack up highway kilometres, and at open-road speed the front camera has a fraction of a second to read a plate on a car crossing your view. Frame rate does more for that than rear megapixels. Mostly open road, spend at the front. Mostly town, spend at the rear.

The best dash cam for the Mercedes E-Class

Three cameras cover almost every E-Class we spec, and the first two are a real trade-off.

VIOFO A229 Ultra, when the rear matters as much as the front

The VIOFO A229 Ultra records 4K HDR at both ends. On an Estate with that upright tailgate glass a 4K rear is a genuine asset. Sony STARVIS 2 IMX678 sensors, 5GHz Wi-Fi for files to your phone, integrated GPS stamping speed and location into the footage, and parking mode with buffered events, time-lapse or low-bitrate recording. It has a screen on the unit. For parking mode it wants the HK4 hardwire kit. The newer HK6 will run it, but the only thing it adds on this camera is a live voltage reading stamped into the video, because the HK6's other tricks are features the A229 Ultra does not have. Our full VIOFO A229 Ultra review has the detail.

VIOFO A329S, when the front is where your risk lives

The VIOFO A329S shoots 4K at 60 frames per second at the front, or 4K at 30 if you want HDR. More frames per second means more chances to catch a clean image of a car crossing in front of you. The rear is 2K with HDR. STARVIS 2 sensors, IMX678 front and IMX675 rear, Wi-Fi 6 and an 18-month warranty. Low Power Impact Detection sleeps while parked and wakes in about two seconds on impact, and needs the HK6 hardwire kit. Full VIOFO A329S review here.

The trade-off, plainly. The A329S buys 60fps at the front and gives up rear resolution, dropping to 2K. The A229 Ultra keeps 4K HDR at both ends, and our product page does not state a front frame rate for it, so we will not quote one. Live on motorways? Take the A329S. Rear doing as much work as the front? Take the A229 Ultra.

Vantrue Sonnet 1 Pro Max, dual 4K at the lowest outlay

The Vantrue Sonnet 1 Pro Max is the most affordable of the three and still delivers 4K front and rear on twin STARVIS 2 IMX678 sensors. It adds Vantrue's PlatePix processing, aimed at number plate legibility, plus built-in GPS, 5GHz Wi-Fi and an IP67 waterproof rear camera. Parking capture is buffered, saving 15 seconds before a trigger and 30 seconds after. It is also the most compact of the three in the hand, which is the practical reason we reach for it when someone wants the camera to disappear behind the mirror. Vantrue does not publish body dimensions, so that is our own observation from handling both rather than a spec sheet comparison, and it is worth saying the Sonnet still has a screen and buttons, it is simply a smaller unit. Warranty is 12 months, extendable to 18 on registration. The Sonnet 1 Pro Max setup guide shows how it configures. Pricing is on the product pages.

Fitting it properly in an E-Class

The front camera goes high on the windscreen, behind the mirror shroud, outside your eyeline and inside the wiper sweep. There is driver assistance hardware in that area, so the mount is placed around it. The cable goes up into the headlining and down the pillar trim, behind trim the whole way.

The rear run depends on your body style, as above: sedan through fixed trim, Estate across the tailgate flex point with correct slack, Cabriolet by arrangement.

Power comes from a hardwire kit if you want parking mode, which on an E-Class you almost certainly do, because these cars sit for days in airport parking. Under Australian Consumer Law a manufacturer cannot void your whole vehicle warranty simply because you fitted an accessory, though it can decline a claim for a fault the installation itself caused, which is why a professional install is the lowest-risk approach we recommend. And use a card rated for continuous recording.

The quick version

  • No E-Class has a dash cam as standard. The MBUX unlock is a one-off purchase rather than a subscription, front only, no audio, no parking mode. GUARD 360° is a subscription and records nothing here. Package contents checked August 2026.
  • Sedan is the simple install, rear camera on the rear windscreen.
  • Estate has the best rear view, but the cable crosses a tailgate flex point.
  • Cabriolet has no fixed rear glass, so talk to us before buying a kit.
  • Hardwire, do not plug in. Tidier, and it enables parking mode.
  • Highway driver? Front frame rate beats rear resolution for a plate at speed.

Mercedes E-Class dash cam FAQs

Does the Mercedes E-Class have a built-in dash cam?

No. The E-Class leaves the factory without a working dash cam in Australia, in every body style. Mercedes offers the MBUX Dashcam as a paid software unlock using the windscreen camera, front only and without audio. The W213 is on dealer fitment lists for genuine hardware, and availability is confirmed against your VIN.

How much does a Mercedes dashcam cost?

All three Mercedes options cost extra, and pricing moves, so check the Mercedes-Benz Store with your vehicle linked for the current figure. The MBUX Dashcam software unlock is a one-off purchase. GUARD 360° is an ongoing subscription. The genuine hardware camera is the dearest by a wide margin and installation is quoted on top of it.

How do I activate my Mercedes dash cam?

With the car linked to your Mercedes me account, buy the Dashcam item in the Mercedes-Benz Store, cycle the ignition and give it a couple of minutes. A Dashcam tile then appears under Apps on the media display. Plug in a USB stick formatted to FAT32 or exFAT and start it.

Does the Mercedes dash cam record while parked?

It does not. Mercedes documents no parking or impact-wake function for the MBUX Dashcam, and recording runs only while the car is on, so recording ends when you do. GUARD 360° records nothing in Australia either. If you park at airports or on the street overnight, only an aftermarket camera in parking mode will be watching.

Can you hardwire a dash cam in a Mercedes E-Class?

Yes, and it is what we spec for most of them. A hardwire kit draws from the fuse box using fuse taps rather than cutting factory wiring, picking up a switched circuit and a permanent circuit so the camera knows when the car is parked, plus a cut-off to protect the battery.

What is the best dash cam for a Mercedes E-Class?

For highway driving we lean towards the VIOFO A329S, because it is the only one of the three whose page states a 60fps front mode, described on its product page as helping you identify licence plates even at high speeds. If your rear matters as much, particularly on an Estate, the VIOFO A229 Ultra with 4K HDR at both ends fits better. The Vantrue Sonnet 1 Pro Max is the most affordable dual 4K.

More Mercedes guides

Want a hand choosing?

Tell us the body style, the year and the chassis code if you know it, plus how your kilometres split. We will tell you which camera earns its keep and what the hardwire involves. Cabriolet owners especially, have a chat with us first. Reach out to Michael or Harrison any time.

Mercedes package contents and feature availability checked August 2026 against Mercedes-Benz Australia and the Mercedes-Benz Store Australia. Mercedes changes these from time to time, and both pricing and eligibility are confirmed against your VIN, so check before you buy.

Disclosure, sources and limits

The Dash Cam Guys is an Australian dash cam retailer. We sell VIOFO, Vantrue and WOLFBOX, and the cameras recommended above are cameras we sell, so please read this as retailer buying advice rather than an independent survey of the market. We would rather lose a sale than fudge a number, but we do have a commercial interest in what we recommend and you should weigh it accordingly.

We have no commercial relationship with Mercedes-Benz. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by or an authorised dealer for Mercedes-Benz or its Australian distributor, and no vehicle maker or camera brand paid for, sponsored or supplied anything for this article. Mercedes-Benz vehicle, feature and accessory names are trademarks of their owner and are used here only to identify the vehicle a camera is being fitted to.

Vehicle details, factory feature availability and any figures quoted for factory or dealer-fitted equipment come from the manufacturer's own published Australian material and from what owners have told us, and are identified in the text where it matters. Specifications, feature availability and pricing change between model years, trims and markets, and Australian-delivered cars often differ from overseas ones, so confirm the current details with Mercedes-Benz or your dealer before you buy anything on the strength of this page. We have not carried out controlled laboratory testing of any factory-fitted system described here.

We do not install. We spec, supply and support the cameras, and any fitting is done by an independent installer you choose. Nothing on this page is legal advice, and none of it changes your rights under the Australian Consumer Law or the terms of your vehicle's warranty, which are matters for Mercedes-Benz or your dealer.

Last reviewed: 19 August 2026. If a specification, a feature or a price on this page is wrong or has gone out of date, tell us and we will correct it.