johnrl3

Hello everyone,

I am new to these forums so bear with me. I hope this is the correct place to post this. I just picked up my new S550, black, and fully loaded, and I really love this car. Well except for one thing. I HATE the IPOD kit. At first I couldnt even figure it out which is how I found these great forums and searched the postings and found great instructions on how to work the IPod. Well I still hate it. A friend of mine has the 2009 SL and his Ipod shows everything on the screen and works much better than mine. I asked the dealer where I bought mine and they said this was all I could get.

I have heard of the dension? kit that I saw in a post on here. Does that work for the S Class? I really just want a better solution than what I have now. If anyone could help me I would really appreciate it.

XJ9

Hi John and welcome to the forums...

To answer your questions, the dension kit will not work with the W221 platform, its really only for the earlier models. The ipod kit on your friends SL is the new multimedia adapter which is supposed to become available on all vehicles with the new platform but AFAIK the S is not going to be one of them for 2009. I checked a 2009 S that just came in to our dealer and it still has the old ipod kit like yours.

You may be in luck however as the company that does our aftermarket work at the dealer just built a custom ipod kit for one of our customers and its pretty darned cool. It lets you control an aftermarket ipod dock using the factory controls on the center console and it displays on the command screen. You can see a video up on youtube of it working here:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aj0MuotHW1E



Interestingly enough the guy they did it for had the same complaint: He bought a new S65 from our dealer and also did not like the factory ipod kit. I happen to agree as well that you spend all this money for this great car and the ipod controls are unbearable.

jbondox

yep Rob at midcityengineering is a genius...

Diesel Benz

Better iPod solution? Does iPod need to be involved? I mean why not use a 32 GB Compact Flash memory card on the PCMCIA slot. So much faster for browsing and if if 32 GB is not enough, buy a few of those or wait till they get a lot bigger, or use MP3 on DVDs in addition.

johnrl3

Thank You XJ9; that is exactly what I am looking for. I do have a few questions:

1. How much was the kit?, Do you sell it? Where do I get it?

2. Will the kit work with the new Iphone?

3. Does the kit do video by chance?

Thanks so much for the help.

johnrl3

The dealer actually talked to me about this option, although they didnt even have one employee that could show me how it worked and they did not have a card or adapter. I understand the idea but how would I get my music out of Itunes and into the card. Right now I just send everything to my IPod and go.

Diesel Benz

It isn't really different, most computers have Compact Flash adapters and if one does not, it is a cheap to buy. Once you have a memory card attached to the computer, like any USB stick etc., you can just copy the iTunes folders you want to the memory card and move it to the car.

One thing that needs to be taken into account, the songs need to be MP3, not AAC. You can set iTunes to use MP3 as a default.

The memory card can be anything else too, just buy the PCMCIA adapter accordingly. Some adapters read multiple formats. In any case, it is pretty much the same as playing MP3 from a CD/DVD.

Diesel Benz

At least my car has both Audio and Video AUX jacks. I can play videos directly from my N95, just plug the cable between the phone and the car. Again standard MB capability (if you don't have the video AUX cable, it isn't complicated to add it, at least for Euro cars).

XJ9

We dont sell the interface, It was done by the guys at midcity engineering but I believe they are building it as a kit so that it can be added to any W221 S class.

I can tell you that it does work with the new iphone including charging (the 3G which I assume is what you are talking about). The interface also does video if you have a compatible ipod. We tested it with a new 3G iphone and a ipod video and on both the video playback option showed up. My regular iphone did not show video, I dont know why that is but I know they were looking into it.

abenner5

Diesel,

I like your idea. Plus, frees up the ipod for jogging, active use etc, avoids damaging it from heat/cool/cycles in the car etc.

Q - have you tried it with 32GB stick? Does it work? 64GB? Is there a limit?

In 1 year the 128GB stick will be around $50-60 so really a good option.
Aaron

Diesel Benz

Myself I only have a 4 GB Compact Flash card, unfortunately just about enough for my music collection, I'm not that active buying music.

But note that on the W221 you cannot use a USB memory stick, my reference to a USB stick was intended to illustrate how music is stored on a Compact Flash memory card.

The W221 can take any memory card where you can have a PCMCIA card adapter. Excluding USB sticks, it probably covers all the rest. Compact Flash is just one of the least expensive as it is pretty big by size and is almost a standard on SLR digital cameras.

I have a Sandisk PCMCIA to Compact Flash adapter, they also make adapters that accept SD, MMC, xD, Memory Stick (Sony memory card), Smart Media or so:

http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item...d_Adapter.aspx
http://www.sandisk.com/Products/Item...d_Adapter.aspx

irieblue

I spoke to Rob at mid city eng. today, about the new ipod interface, and he said it will be available in another week or so, that they are finishing up the software. I have to say I'm ordering it from them when it's available as it solves my iphone 3g charging issue, and plays video off the iphone 3G as well.

It also pretty much confirms it for me from holding off from another S model until mercedes brings the mmi interface to the S class (prob. in the 2010 model)

I do hope though that the background for the ipod interface is not that blue in the youtube video..

mklasse

Either you copy the entire iTunes folder like DieselBenz said or you can highlight the songs you want right in the iTunes library (holding Ctrl on PC or apple button on mac and click the songs u want), and drag those files into your card. Easier for those who has huge song collections and just want to copy a few of them to the card.