davis449

Let me start by saying that I am a newbie to this forum. I have always found at least one forum as a home for all the vehicles I have owned. Very soon, this may be my new home. I may become the owner of a 1995 C 280. My question is: can I put an aftermarket head unit in this car? It has a Bose system and since I've already owned one car with a Bose in it, I know how much of a pain it can be. If so, what are the steps I need to take. I talked to a guy a Circuit City who put the deck/amp/sub combo in my YUKON and he said that most likely it could be done. ALso, do any of you have a situation like this? Will this void the warranty?( I have two more years left on the Starmark warranty) All advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

funky102

Welcome aboard.

It shouldnt be that difficult as the stock system you have is analog. The difficult systems to alter are the ones that use the Fiber Optic system in the 2000+ models. The head unit should be able to be easily replaced while having the rest of the system, i.e. speakers, work. Otherwise, I don't think taking out everything, speakers and headunit, will be a problem as you dont have steering wheel controls, cellphones, etc. to worry about. Good luck.

davis449

The guy at Circuit City told me that half the battle is getting the head unit to work the speakers and that after that you can run the RCA's to the sub/amp and everything works fine. So I'm gathering by your upbeat advice that there are people who have done this in C 280's before. So I will take it in tomorrow and find out for sure if he can get it to work or not. Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.

scorchie

The guy at Circuit City is making it sound way more difficult than it is.

Just use a VW/Audi wiring harness adapter. Wire the new head unit's wiring harness to this adapter, then you can just plug it in to your car.

It's that simple.

The only possible problem I foresee is that if your headunit outputs a lot of noise on the speaker outputs, the Bose amp will amplify this and you'll get a lot of noise in your speakers. You can alleviate this by wiring in a speaker/line leve convertor in the aforementioned wiring harness, or if your headunit has preamp outputs, you can feed that to the "speaker" wires on the adapter.

There's no reason a stereo installation on your car should take more than an hour. Well, actually, there is one reason: incompetence.

-s-

davis449

I messed with the Bose system in my Maxima a few times. I never actually did anything to it though. I was told the same thing with it, that there was nothing that could be done. I took the C 280 to Circuit City on Sat. and he said, no way in hell anything could be done. In fact, he said he had never seen the head unit I have before, which I find hard to believe because through my extensive research on Mercedes it seems to be a very common head unit. In spite of your post about the Audi adapter, I'm going to sell the system I have with the YUKON. The only complaint I really have about the Bose in the car is that it doesn't put out enough bass at high volume. It actually sounds kinda like it's blown, but not too bad, so mayber there's something wrong with it? Now I don't blair my system all the time, nor do I want a trunk rattler that you can hear a mile away. Heck, I'd be happy if it sounded like my Maxima's Bose. That thing could put out a lot of bass for just a pair of 6x9's in the back. Now it seems that there is a sub of sorts in the back of the C 280, but it just seems to quit at higher volumes. If anyone could clarify this for me, I would love to hear it.

EncinoMan

Part of the Bose system in the C280 is the Bose power amp. You'd better make sure where the problem is before you start spending money on a head unit - could possibly be a blown amp or speaker. I have a '95 C280 with an Alpine CD head unit. See my recent posts on the C202 forum.

davis449

I'm really having a hard time trying to figure out what's even back there. It appears that there are three speakers back there, but who knows. I can hear clean bass at lower volumes, like in a rap or rock song, if you know Linkin Park's music you know that they have low bass tones that well up and quit suddenly. Stuff like that I can hear a higher and lower volumes, but for some reason the bass just doesn't hit. Now I don't know if that's a regular thing for Mercedes Bose systems or not. Maybe it is. But it seems to me that a sub should hit. You guys' information has been most helpful and more info. is appreciated.

EncinoMan

Sorry, I'm seriously out of touch with current popular music, so I'm not familiar with Linkin Park (sp?). Can you find someone else with a similar car (with the Bose) who would let you play your tape on their system? That's the only way to know for sure. The Mercedes Bose system sub is not intended to provide that booming, thumping, windshield-popping bass that sets off alarms in parked cars as you drive down the street. It's just supposed to provide a nice, balanced, smooth response over a wide frequency range. The sort of system that classical or jazz might sound good on.

EncinoMan

I'm not sure what "Almost a Member" means. Maybe after 30 posts I become a member? I'm gonna make a few more posts just to see what happens. Bear with me .....

Zion800

i have a 94 c280 and i face the same problem with having NO bass at louder levels.

I found out though, if I use my pocket pc in conjunction with a tape adapter, the quality of sound is phenominal!

davis449

Well, like I stated before, I'm not a fan of bass that sets off car alarms, but I see what you're saying and that's what I figured in the first place. I've noticed in songs that have a symphonic element, you can really hear the quality of sound, but rap doesn't boom like I would expect. So you're probably right Encino. Zion800 is right about the tape adapter thing. I did that in my Maxima's Bose and it would bass seriously hard. So I might try that in this car. However, I have a CD changer so I really don't want to use a Discman. I will just have to deal with it. I can't justify paying almost a grand just to get the system out and another grand to put new components in. I also don't want to spend a lot of time cutting wires just to get a deck and sub in there, I would probably screw it up. The Bose really isn't THAT bad!