Now this may be old news but, I just had my mud guards painted body color (silver) and installed the rears without removing the back wheels. At first I thought there was no way around it but there is. After jacking the rear up, i noticed the suspension expands making enough room to get one of those short screwdrivers in there.
Just thought i'd save someone a little time if they were about to do this.

D

 

I installed the mud guards on my '03 CLS 6MT. It never crossed my mind that I would have to jack up car and/or remove the rear wheels. Now that was when I had the OEM wheels and tires and it wasn't lowered. Even now with the CT drop and wider 235/44/18 wheels/tires, there still seems like there's plenty of room to do the install without the need to jack up car and/or remove rear wheels.

 

Always loved the way body colored mudguards look on an SSM CL.

 

For an Anthracite CL, I think the black mud guards look best. I also installed the black fender trim.

 

Yeah i have the black OEM mudguards on my anthracite as well. Looks sharp in those pics of your car.

I actually never even knew they made BLACK fender wheel trim for our cars.

I remember seeing Chris (Scooter) chrome trim on his red CL and it just didn't look right IMO. You can't even tell that there is trim on your car though. Blends in real nice.

Does it really help though?

 

The mud guards do help reduce the amount of mud and/or road spray that gets on my car. The fender wheel trim does help deflect road debris that's kicked up by the tires.