R4ND0M_AX3

I just went to the SF C-Spot party on Saturday. They had a couple of cars equiped with Sirius satelite radio. Anybody know if this is a retrofit option? The head unit looked like a regular one with the addition of the "SAT" option on one of the flex buttons. Is is a D2B device?

Anybody know anything about this? I know about Sirius and aftermarket add-ons but I'm interested in it working with my factory head unit.

jmartinacevedo

I'd love to see a pic of the HU.

I don't see why it would not be retrofittable. Of course, you'd have to buy the new sirius enabled HU, possibly some type of receiver, and an antenna. Judging by Mercedes prices, I anticipate the cost of those 3 items to be approx. 1K.

We'll see.
Martin-

Rick

This is a pic of the head unit in a CLK....controls through the steering wheel. They said the receiver was mounted in the trunk and antenna was slapped onto the rear window below the teleaid antenna...looked a little goofy...

Matt230K

Since there is a SAT button, that explains why there is now a blank button on the 2004's without Sirius. I was wondering why they had made that change. I think it's the WB button that they moved. You have to cycle through to get to WB.

R4ND0M_AX3

No. No. No. You push the Radio source button. Then you can cycle through AM, FM, WB, and Sat.

vadim

Has2B D2B

.elijah.

Any pics of the "ugly" antenna?

rmklaw

I had Sirius installed when I added the Comand to a 2004 CLK. Mine is hooked up through the Aux input in Comand. The antenna is on the rear deck hardly noticeable. In fact the black and silver antenna matches the car and looks factory.

phattbam

do you have any pics of the sirius antenna for your clk comand system??

jmartinacevedo

Rick:

Thanks for posting that pic. I think this is officially the first pic of the new Sirius enabled HU that's been posted or at least that I've seen. Cool!

Where did you get the pic from? Is it your car? Can u post a pic of the antenna please?
Thanks.

Martin-

I love my XM set up but the thought of having factory sat radio in my car is very tempting. Damn!

Buellwinkle

Just back from the the C-Spot event near Mexico and got the scoop on Sirius. It will work with the factory radio in any W203. It plugs into the fiber loop like the cd changer. It's a dealer installed option and their suggested installed price is $800 (ouch). No clue as to uninstalled price saying it's not a diy job. No word on if it will work with the Audio 10 but it may as it's another device on the fiber loop like the CD changer.

You select SAT just like you currently select AM/FM/WB. When in SAT mode you can punch in the station directly with the asterisk button. Once at a station it displays the station name, for example if you do *002 is displays The Pulse. One of the soft buttons says TXT, that lets you toggle between Artist/Song/Channel Name/Catagory. The text display is small and didn't scroll like the RDS display on the Audio 10, it was just truncated. Channel to channel time is normal for Sirius, about 2-3 seconds, takes 5 seconds to switch from something else (FM/AM/CD) to SAT. When first powered on it automatically switched to the preview channel 184 and it took about 15 seconds before you were able to change stations (maybe a prototype isssue). The antenna is a standard hockey puck antenna you get at CC and it's a magnetic mount and they stuck it mid trunk on the sedan with a thick wire leading foward towards the lip that turned into a thin wire that you can see, pretty much an embarassment for MB let alone $800.

Although I would love to have it I can't justify $800 or the ugly antenna but mostly I can't justify going back to the flat sounding Audio 30 and to me, Sirius did not sound that much better than it did going through the FM transmitter on my Audio 10. So until something better comes along I'm going to pass on satelite radio. Maybe I'll get better insight in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas.

jmartinacevedo

Thanks for the scoop. So basically, you don't have to replace the HU? Once the receiver is plugged into the fiber optic network, the factory HU recognizes the"Sat" function, as in AM/FM/WB/SAT?
Thanks.
Martin-

Buellwinkle

Yes.

vadim

But what sense does it make with a crappy-sounding stock Audio 30 unit? If so much into music, may as well go aftermarket all the way.

jmartinacevedo

That's true, although the fact remains that people dont go completely aftermarket for many valid reasons, including preserving the "factory" oem look and not losing the ability to control the stereo functions via steering wheel.

At approx. $800, MB certainly is not making a compelling case for people to retrofit Sirius in their W203s, specially when the antenna looks ****ty and you even have to press all kinds of buttons when you want to see artist and song name info! That's lame.

rmklaw

I installed Sirius in my 2004 CLK and love it. I bought the unit from CarToys for about $250 and linked it to the Aux input from the Comand. The antenna is inside on the edge of the hat shelf (rear window) and it is hardly noticeable. The head unit was installe inside the glove box next to the CD changer. It works great, although it does not display the stations through the Comand.

HiTEC

Is the OEM Sirus tuner avail at dealer parts departments yet? I talked to my sales guy this weekend and he was kind of clueless when it came to the Sirius tuner.

rmklaw

dealers I contacted said NO. I decided to go ahead with a Kenwood Sirius and take advantage of the lifetime subscription promotion that Sirius is running now for $300+

HiTEC

I've had Sirius in my beater car for ~9 months now (Kenwood head-unit and tuner). I really love the service! When I'm not driving my beater I get really pissed of listening to the radio or CD. I ordered the OEM tuner in the new Audi I have on order, and am hoping to get the OEM unit for my new C230 on order.

Once you have Sirius you'll never go back.

tivoboy

What promo?

HiTEC

You can now sign up for a "lifetime" subscription to Sirius. Kinda like how you used to be able to do with Tivo.

From Sirius site: Limited Time Offer - Through January 31, 2004 for $399.99 you can get SIRIUS for the life of your satellite radio.

rmklaw

Lifetime subscription instead of paying $12.95/month. Check Sirius website www.sirius.com

Buellwinkle

Be careful, I believe it's for the lifetime of the equipment, not your lifetime (like Tivo). So if you get a permanent setup on your C and you sell it in a year or two then you lost money unless the person buying the car will give you a premium for a permanent subscription but most people don't care so don't bank on it. Also keep in mind that when DirecTV bought Tivo they dropped their monthly fee on Tivo to $5/mo for all the Tivo's on the account.

HiTEC

Correct it is on the equipment, just like Tivo was.

rmklaw

The subscription is activated for a given ESN (electronic serial number) like a cell phone. If you replace the equipment all you do is call them and swith the ESN. I tried that when a thought that I had a receiver problem and they said that you can change ESN. All it means is that tou can only have the subscription in one piece of hardware at a given time, but you can move it to another ESN.