This was brought up on the facebook page.. my 04, 05, and 06 cars have the "full open" storage.. yet a few have reported having the "blocked off" version.. seems no rhyme or reason behind it.. thoughts?

 

Well, I learned something new about the Crossfire today......thanks!

 

My thoughts exactly when it was posted up! Thought maybe .38 hidie hole.. custom job.. but a couple others chimed in with the same.. did a search for "custom" work here on the forum.. turned up nothing.. doesn't appear to be a "year" specific thing or otherwise..

 

My roadster has the blocked off compartment but my coupe did not
i think the locking mechanism on the roadsters takes up room ? .

 

Nope. Mine is full-sized!

 

lucky you! storage is a bit short in these cars ,every inch counts

 

Wellll.... there has to be a common theme amongst them.

We all know the point of assembly is the same for all Crossfires, so we can rule that out.

So, my next things to ask would be:

-- Is it specific to Coupes or Roadsters?
-- Is there a year in which is does not appear?
-- What's the lowest known VIN of the vehicles including the reduced storage size?
-- Are they all Limited trim?
-- Does it affect both US and International owners?

As we all know, there weren't two generations of Crossfires. If the stamping on the bottom of the "blanker panel" is A 193 XXX XX XX then we know it's specific to the Crossfire (not leftovers from the R170 SLK, which would be A 170 XXX XX XX). If it's an A 170 part number, then we can do a search and probably find the guy

See if you can find out "common ground" among them. The absolute LAST thing any manufacturer wants (from a quality/warranty perspective) is a completely randomized installation of different design levels of parts. In the case of trim, it's bad enough -- but imagine if this was a structural metal component? This could (and has, at Nissan) cause the assembly line to scrap the entire BIW because of mis-manufactured sub-assemblies.

So... even though it's not glaringly obvious now, there MUST be a reason for its existence.

Maybe ask one of them to disassemble that back portion, and take a peek? It's an easy area to inspect

 

That is the thing .. those very few (3) that have chimed in with them.. have absolutely nothing in common on the cars.. limited roadster.. 06 SRT6 .. and I don't recall the other.. thinking it was a stick .. there is no "set" model year thing here.

 

FWIW, I think we can rule out leftover components from the R170... here's a R170 console from 2003 model year:

 

If you search Ebay for this item
06 Chrysler Crossfire Center Console Cover Assembly 1706800050
you will see pictures of what they say is a center console from a Crossfire.
One of the pictures shows the bottom with the M/B symbol and part number of 170 680 00 50
So it looks like the bottom part of the console was a Mercedes part.

The Roadsters have a locking center console. Could that be where the pneumatic locking assembly needs to go ? I know we already said it's not just Roadsters, but maybe someone swapped consoles, or on the assembly line they interchanged them some ?

 

That's what my wife said !

 

The latching area appears to be a little different, too. Perhaps related to the locking mechanism on roadsters? Is it possible the material for the bottom was simply folded wrong on some?

 

It is not folded as it is moulded. People with roadsters have said they have the big storage area. Getting the Mercedes part number of the small pocket part might give a clue to why it is small. I'm guessing the part is used on another Mercedes model that requires the small pocket and is the standard part on that model.

 

We have two Crossfires, both Limited Coupes. We just got the second so I can't say what the storage area is like but I'm pretty darn sure the first has the larger area. I see at least one reply above that stated their roadster had the smaller version. I had the console out recently to get ride of the broken cupholder but don't remember anything special in that area (though I know roadsters have a locking mechanism nearby). Odd. You may be on to something about Mercedes randomly using a different one here and there. I think if I had the smaller compartment I'd be searching for a larger one on eBay.

 

When I had the console out, I recall seeing a Mercedes logo on the bottom somewhere. Perhaps the storage compartment? Perhaps not but somewhere on the underside. But, maybe that's common with lots of other Crossfire parts, too.

I don't know the year but here's a bottom view of an SLK:

http://cdn4.pelicanparts.com/techart...arge/pic08.jpg

 

I have an 05 Limited roadster, automatic, built in 02/05 and it has the full size console. Perhaps a standard shift roadster thing??? Something doesn't look right where the cup holder is.

 

I had no idea that there were two different center console storage options. Unfortunately, my 2006 right hand drive (UK) coupe has the reduced size version. There must be some kind of logic to the size differences, but looking at this thread it appears to be totally random.

 

Mostly unrelated but I think it's odd the left-hand version has the parking brake on the left side of the console and the right-hand version does, too. I wonder why they didn't mirror the console? To me it seems odd that the driver would have to reach to the far side of the console to set the brake.

 

I never picked up on that before, but now that you point it out, it is a bit odd. I assume the SLK Merc is the same. Helps to have long arms if you have a RHD Crossfire!