Savannahbenz

My neighbor recently picked up an 87 420 SEL in which the factory Becker Grand Prix appears to be wired to an unswitched power source so even when the car is shut off, you have to manually turn on and off the radio. the car was purchased new and owned by a mature attorney who does not seem like the type who would have have been screwing around with rewiring the radio. in fact, he would seem more like the type who would have never turned the radio on. It seems unlikely, but do these cars have an option to run the radio in an unswitched mode or is this a case of funky wiring/radio. I have the identical radio in my 300E and it has enough quirks that nothing would surprise me. if it didn't look so damn good in that console, I'd junk it for some asian built unit that plays CDs. Oh well, it still does ok for playing my XM.

jdc1244

Yes, the radio in the 126 chassis cars all have a switched main power source and unswitched source for the memory presets.

Did your neighbor buy the car from the original owner? If not a previous owner may have installed a new unit, kept the Becker, and reinstalled the Becker (poorly, incorrectly) just before the sale.

Pull the radio and see what the wiring harness looks like, or if it still has one at all.