springerfever

OK...my 99 ML430's CD player has played its last song. For the last year its been marginal, occasionally displaying error messages. Yesterday, it refused to play CD's AND it will not kick out the CD magazine.

I've heard I could replace the CD unit itself for somewhere in the neighborhood of $300.00 and that would be a simple plug and play. That's the price for a rebuilt unit with a one-year warranty.

However, my son has an IPOD w/ the iTrip that allows playback through the FM tuner section. Sounds pretty decent, but not the quality I would like. Also no way to charge the IPOD as you drive.

I like the fact you have unlimited music at your fingertips with no magazines/CD's to fiddle with and I like its portability. Has anyone devised an easy hookup for an IPOD using the factory CD harness to supply power and L/R channels. Seems that would be all required to have a better, less-expensive alternative to the factory CD.....

GDawgC220

Blitzsafe puts out an auxiliary adapter which one end, it has a port for the CD changer 10-pin (which I think is on MB's) and the other end of the component is AUX outputs. So you would need to get a good set of AUX cables to a headphone jack cable. The R/L AUX would plug into the Blitzsafe adapter and the headphone end would go to your iPod headset jack for output.

This is the only way I can think of integrating the iPod into the ML.

ViKTORiOUS

I have the Biltzsafe kit in my ML, a little pricey (350 bucks) but definately worth it, bought it through my Audio installer and had them install it, though I lost my CD Changer, its all good (its so annoying go to the trunk to change a frikken CD)

Blitzsafe Rocks!

gshock

Am i missing something? I just checked the Blitzsafe website and it specifically says not for the ML?
http://blitzsafe.com/blitz_catalog/b..._mercedes.html

ViKTORiOUS

I ordered through my audio installer

springerfever

Thought I had the answer with the Monster ICruze for the Mercedes. Went as far as pulling the radio and hooking it up..but no dice. The plug for the rear of the radio was a perfect fit, the IPOD read the ICruze and was charging, but unfortunately I could not access the CD function from the head unit with the ICruze in place. After comparing the factory CD connector and the ICruze, I noticed the 9-pin configuration was different..

Hopefully, Monster Cable will come out with a ML cable somewhere down the road. The one they currently market is for 95-98 Mercedes, excluding ML's. My ML is a 99 but the changer had a manufacture date of July 98 and was non-optical, so I thought it worth a shot....

Now the good news....just purchased an IPOD 30GB and it is simply awesome ! Let the downloads begin !!! Color screen and updated menus. For now, I will just use an ITRIP FM Transmitter and wait for some updates on wiring harnesses......