My V60 motorola cell phone antannae broke off.  I checked at my local Mercedes dealer for the cost of a replacement and was quoted $599.  I called the dealer where I bought my 2002 E class and was told the price for a replacement was $400.  Although the car is under warranty and Motorola has stopped making the V60, which had a known deficiency of the antannae easily breaking off, there is some question as to whether the phone is covered under my warranty.

My limited research has convinced me that I must get a Mercedes Motorola V60 replacement which uses the waveform of my provider, ie either TDMA or CDMA.

I happen to be with AT&T who is going over to GSM, and there is no Mercedes V60 that is GSM compatible.

What a terrible design.  Mercedes charges an outrageous price for yesterday's generation cell phone.  I understand the 2004 models will have a universal adapter that allows use of various cell phones.  To have a 2 year old Mercedes and not be able to install the latest generation cell phone is a very poor design on the part of Mercedes.

Are there any solutions?

Hand-Free cell phone is the biggest BS from Mercedes.  I can't believe they charge over 1500 dollars for this option with a so so phone.  
The new Acura TL comes with Bluetooth in the car "standard", which support all the Bluetooth cell phones.

Use your car for driving down the road, not as a phone booth. Spend the replacement/repair cost of a MB phone on your kids or girlfriend, wife or hubby, me, whatever.

I have three cell phones that I can take anywhere in any car, plus the one in my SL that I can't wait to yank out and throw through the plate glass of the nearest MB dealership, or to weigh down my garbage can at home so the wind doesn't knock it over.

Sorry to here that your lost your phone. But, after reading through the commentary here I wanted to provide some valuable data.

1) You can not use a off the shelf phone from Cell Phone store. I tried a ATT V60 in my E320 as a test it did not work.

2) You can get a replacement phone on E-Bay for about 1/2 half the price that the dealer charges or less. I purchased a new MB V60 for Verizon this way and it works just great. I was switching from ATT to Verizon.

3) Bluetooth is something we would all prefer but it was not available when this feature was introduced. Interestingly the V60 was the top of the line at that time, but as we all know that position lasts for about 5 minutes with Cell phones.

If you need a MB V60 for ATT contact me we could make a mutually agreeable deal, I am about to place mine on Ebay since I have completed the switch to Verizon.

Good Luck,

Carl Swanson