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For a while, I was on and off about replacing the headunit in my 2003 CLK500. It had the bose system which is a pain to work on. There is a D2B decoder that seems like it works but the other option was to buy an amp to power the bose sub. And plus, I need to take out everything from the center and buy all the harnesses and made sure it would fit and blah blah blah. Honestly, all I wanted was carplay and a way to play my own music. I found these "portable" headunits that they started making and settled on this one.
It had USB C ports and a good resolution. The end of the power cord was usb A so that was nice. However, the mount that it came with was not good enough for me as it sat too far back and made it hard to reach. Also blocks the view a bit. So I disassembled the ball joint and stuck it in this phone holder I had from scosche.
Although the ball joint thing was a bit too big for the scosche mount, it still held alright and when mounted on top of the A/C vents, it felt stable enough. Here are the results. It tunes into a FM station and the audio quality is good. The brightness is a bit lacking but good enough. Touch screen is responsive enough and I haven't had any major problems. Also comes with a backup camera if I ever wanted to tackle that in the future. Tucked the cable under the steering wheel and brought it up near the shift knob. Night shot Close up How it looks from the back Side view Cable placement
For $200, I'd say it looks pretty clean. Also, I get to keep my cassette player if I ever wanted to play some old cassette tapes...
For a while, I was on and off about replacing the headunit in my 2003 CLK500. It had the bose system which is a pain to work on. There is a D2B decoder that seems like it works but the other option was to buy an amp to power the bose sub. And plus, I need to take out everything from the center and buy all the harnesses and made sure it would fit and blah blah blah. Honestly, all I wanted was carplay and a way to play my own music. I found these "portable" headunits that they started making and settled on this one. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Z28VQ4T...roduct_details
It had USB C ports and a good resolution. The end of the power cord was usb A so that was nice. However, the mount that it came with was not good enough for me as it sat too far back and made it hard to reach. Also blocks the view a bit. So I disassembled the ball joint and stuck it in this phone holder I had from scosche. https://www.amazon.com/SCOSCHE-UH4WD...ef_=ast_sto_dp
Although the ball joint thing was a bit too big for the scosche mount, it still held alright and when mounted on top of the A/C vents, it felt stable enough. Here are the results. It tunes into a FM station and the audio quality is good. The brightness is a bit lacking but good enough. Touch screen is responsive enough and I haven't had any major problems. Also comes with a backup camera if I ever wanted to tackle that in the future. Tucked the cable under the steering wheel and brought it up near the shift knob. Night shot Close up How it looks from the back Side view Cable placement
For $200, I'd say it looks pretty clean. Also, I get to keep my cassette player if I ever wanted to play some old cassette tapes...
Nice. A bit big, but nice. I still haven't found a good way to place a phone holder where it doesn't bother me. Maybe I'm just too fussy with this kind of holders...but, it's great that it works for you.