lmadrid18

I'm wanting to upgrade my stereo in order to have bluetooth and ipod connection. Any advice? Also I have a few things I need to fix and need to know where I could order replacement parts. Thanks!

omega48er

will you be installing it yourself? do you have the hk or bose system? do you want to change just the radio or speakers as well, do you want to add an amp. also what parts do you want to replace?

Rudeney

I'm fairly certain the CLK550 will have the HK system, so there is no analog wiring from the dash to the speakers. You'll have to run some new wires. My advice is to put a good amp in the trunk, run "RCA" low-level cables from the dash to the trunk, then tie the amp's speaker output to the analog wiring "downstream" of the HK amp there. And FYI, the W203 dash faceplate is not a direct fit for the W209.

lmadrid18

I will not be installing it myself. To be honest I know nothing about cars other than how to drive it. I'm just now trying to familiarize myself with it. I would like the sound to be the same or better. Just want some upgrades without it looking too flashy. One of my seat pockets was broke off on one side and wanting to replace it.

lmadrid18

I'm confused as to what W209 means??

Yidney

Every car, not just Mercedes, has an official designator for the model line. Mercedes uses a naming system that starts with a W and three numbers. The CLK from about 2003 to the end of the run in 2009 is called the W209. The prior CLK, a more square design, was the W208.


And I should say that not every Mercedes starts with a W - depends on the basic vehicle type. Some are X, some R, etc.

omega48er

so this is what you need to do,
1) go to a shop and have them pick out all the equipment and buy it from them. (should be a good price)
2) get the equipment yourself.

now, it being a benz, the shop might try and charge you a premium but our clk are not that hard to work on.

now everything depends on your budget. and its not that hard to out preform the HK system

i would start with a good headunit something like the kenwood dnn990hd or the Alpine INE-S920HD

get a set of component speakers- look at the hertz HKS 165xl, alpine spx-17pro, JL Audio C5-653,JBL MS-62C and various Focal speakers to name a few choices.

then you need a sub. you can either put a free air in the rear deck or get a subwoofer in the trunk,
the other option would be to add a 6.5" midbass driver in place of the 2nd speaker in the door. (the clk door has 2 speakers, one all the way by your legs and one on the back of the door)

now an amp. its based on how much bass you like. you can get a 4ch and a sub amp or a 5ch stand alone amp. for a 5ch you can look at Jl audio hd900.5 its a very small and powerful 5ch amp enough to run your front component set and a sub.

hope this helps. if you need more detail just ask, im kind of rushing it because im at work. lol

gogos

Imadrid18, Hello from Greece. I will give you some info about my audio upgrade, which maybe are useful to you. I own a CLK200K '03 cabrio. I bought the car new and it has one din Cd audio from the factory. I wanted to upgrade the ICE but also the cost to be as low as possible and to have a good sound. After searching I bought a used Comand 2.0 for 250€ which it was a direct plug and play except the star configaration. The sound was better but not as loud as I wanted to be. After that I buy for 80€ a used subwoofer for cabrio which is placed in the center of the back seats and a Bose amplifier from W208 which has outputs for 7 speakers (4 door speakers, 2 subwoofers and 1 center speaker in the dashboard). I used only the one output for the sub. If my car was the coupe, I would be able to put a dual coil sub. The next step was the wiring. The amp (it has been placed at the driver's side in tranck) has on it the connector with 15cm wires left on it, so I make myself, a wiring loom from the Comand output (8 thin wires) to the input amp wires, and from the amp output wires (12 thicker wires) to the Comand ISO OEM speaker connector. The wiring loom at the end which is going to the dashboard has two ISO speaker connectors, one male and one female. The one is connected at the speaker output of the comand and the other one to the OEM ISO speaker connector. I connect the power at the back SAM (it has 40amp fuse) and for the remote signal I use the 12V antena output. With this setup, I didn't use any optical lines and anytime I can change the head unit with anyone I want just pluging the ISO speaker connector to it. The next step was the speakers. I keep the OEM twitter and the sub and change the door 6.5" speaker with 4 new from Hertz. Also I put the center speaker which I take it used for free. When I start the music the sound was far much better than the stock and for the money it cost me, 470€ including the head unit, it was a value for money. The Comand has aux-in, you just need a 20$ connector or to put a multimedia adapter which can give you aux in and video in and for bluetooth I will go for the Bury CC9060 which has a voice control and it is very easy to use.
Many of you will tell me that all of these harware I use are old. Ok I agree, that it isn't a highend system, but with the money it cost me regarding the sound I have, believe me it worth every euro I gave. I didn't post any picture with the amp wiring connections because all the info have already been posted at the W208 section. If anyone want any info or details, he can ask.
I wish you all Happy new Year.

Ny2cali21

Hi Guys,

I've seen the posts about doing his and I believe the last informative post was to replace the amp, send RCA cables to the head unit and tie into the speakers cables at the HK amp input. There are more than speaker wires at the amp so I'm a little confused on what exactly to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Attached is a photo of the amp and amp harness which is located in the passengers side of the trunk just behind the wheel well.

Airmousam

Rodney will be along momentarily

Rudeney

Here are your speaker wires:

rear right + white
rear right − white/brown
front right + orange
front right − orange/brown
front left + green
front left − green/brown
rear left + pink
rear left − pink/brown
center + gray
center − gray/brown
subwoofer + violet
subwoofer − violet/brown
left rear surr + blue
left rear surr − blue/brown
right rear surr + yellow
right rear surr − yellow/brown

Rudeney

Ny2cali21

After doing more research I was told adding in a new amp will require replacing the speakers as well because it's too powerful for them. Has anyone simply changed out the head unit, spliced the wires at the amp in the trunk and ran only the 2 front and 2 rear speaker wires directly to the new head unit? Bypassing the amp all together and ditching the other two speakers? I"m not looking for a better sound system, only a receiver that can stream bluetooth music and play dvd's.

Ny2cali21

FYI for all those with the Harmon Kardon system, you can simply change out the head unit. It sounds fantastic with just the 4 stock speakers in use (front an rear). I was concerned about the component system sounding muffled because it's getting a direct feed from the head unit but turns out it's not a problem at all. While I wish someone had already posted this, I love a good challenge and am excited I finally figured it out. P.S. The wiring diagram I got from Crutch*eld was incorrect. Their info about the 2007 CLK 550 is incorrect as they also stated the amp was on the opposite side. I let their tech department know. So thank you again Rodney!!! I'll post a clean reply on this thread on what to do if you simply want to change out the head unit.

Ny2cali21

1. Simply purchase an aftermarket head unit from Crutchfield or wherever.
2. Make sure it comes with the necessary harnesses, adapters and brackets.
3. Remove the existing radio. 4. Splice all wires necessary except the speaker wires (Front Left, Rear Left, Front Right, Rear Right) Positive and negative.
5. Cut the front and rear speaker wires (8 wires) from the Harmon Kardon Amp wire harness. Ignore all the other wires. - See amp harness wire breakdown below compliments of Rodney.
6. Splice the front and rear speakers wires you cut from the amp and run them all the way to the head unit.
7. Splice speaker wires accordingly to the new radio wires.
8. Put the car back together.
9. That's it! You're done. It's that simple.


rear right + white
rear right − white/brown
front right + orange
front right − orange/brown
front left + green
front left − green/brown
rear left + pink
rear left − pink/brown

Rudeney

I think the issue with no using stock speakers was related to the Bose system used (pre-MY2005). Bose used 2ohm speakers, and without their proprietary signal processor, they tended not to sound so good with aftermarket head units and/or amps. The HK speakers are just traditional Harmon Corp. car stereo speakers.

Just curious - did you tap into the cigarette lighter for illumination and switched 12v? Did the Crutchfield harness and instructions take that into consideration?

Ny2cali21

The harness I got from Crutchfield handled that. No additional tie-ins needed.

TechSuperstar

Just curious, doing an ebay search for "w209 radio" gives a whole slue of no-name direct replacement radios straight from China. These things have bluetooth, TV, AndroidOS, etc.. Has anyone had good/bad luck with these things? Do they seamlessly integrate right in without any adapters? For example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1080P-DVD-GPS-SatNav-GPS-Radio-Stereo-For-Mercedes-Benz-C-Class-W203-CLK-W209-/261253443203?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3cd3eb2e83&vxp=mtr

DanielFD

they are pretty straight forward.. I've seen a few models installed, but i wouldn't install something like that in my car. If you've ever used a no brand Chinese android phone u'll know what I mean. its laggy, no updates, no support, even the UI is not that polished (feels Chinese), but they do work. I'm fairly certain though from the models I've seen they don't integrate into D2B or MOST systems, so you do loose your HK/Bose system.

Ny2cali21

Quick update. Everything works great, however the bracket/faceplate does not fir properly. It seems 2007 and up have slightly different dimensions. Now I have a gap while I figure out what to do because Crutchfield doesn't have a solution for me. Other than that, all is well. I'll likely change out the front components witha 6 1/2" 2 or 3 ways for better sound. But for now, I love the new setup.

Rudeney

That's interesting. Is the Crutchfield harness just a simple wiring harness or does it have any electronic circuitry? The reason I ask is that I don't believe the car's wiring has any leads for switched 12v or illumination. Instead, it uses CAN bus signals to turn the radio on and off with the ignition and to switch illumination on with the headlights. I know there are such devices that do that.

As for the fit of the faceplate, I believe the problem is that they sent you one for a W203 C-Class. It's mounting bolts are in a slightly different position and it's actually just a little wider. My guess is that it is sitting too low int he dash so your ACC panel is also sitting lower or even tiled downward. Finding the proper W209 faceplate seems to be difficult, but I believe you may be able to modify the W203 version by shaving a bit off the sides (if it looks too wide - some people are not bothered by that) and drill new holes or fashion a metal bracket to get it bolted int he right position (use your original radio as a template).

Ny2cali21

Hi Rodney. The harness is simply a plug that accepts the stock radios harness plug. Not circuitry. There was a blue signal wire and an orange illumination wire in the group of wires. I'm pretty sure both of those wires do what you are asking about and the stock car radio came with it. I had the non-navigation head unit. The new radio and it's illumination shut off when I open the doors, not when I shut off the car. Just like the stock radio.

Regarding the face plate, you may be right that if I shave a little off it might account for the Gap after everything shifts to where it was supposed to be. I'm actually thinking of making a custom woof face plate and getting a walnut burl veneer to match my vehicle. I work in the construction industry so I can ask one of my vendors for the veneer and have it finished with a clear coat like the existing trim kit. It won't be a perfect match but I'm sure I can get it close. Or I may simply paint it a glossy piano black. That will be fast and may look pretty *****in'. I'll post it when I'm done.

DanielFD

sounds like a great project! please keep us posted (with pics!)

Rudeney

I replaced the stock radio in my pre-facelift C240 and while the harness I used (from eBay, not Crutchfield) had the illumination and 12v switched leads, my vehicle's connector did not. Instead, the radio is always powered with constant 12v, and then it connects to the CAN bus to get signals for when to turn on and off and when to illuminate. I solved this by tying into the cigarette lighter for switched 12v and the ashtray light for illumination.

I have not checked my CLK's harness, so I don't know if it's different - maybe the "facelift" added illumination and switched 12v back to the connector?

Airmousam

I tried to go this route with my SLK, and the Chinese unit I picked up on eBay (nav, BT, DVD Etc) turned out to be a giant POS. I trashed it after one day and put a Kenwood in. Would not go that route again. Looked like crap, sounded like crap, lagged on everything it did. Nav was awful too....painful....My 02