Does an antenna on the trunk lid = Sirius satellite?
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2006 W220 S65 AMG
Does an antenna on the trunk lid = Sirius satellite?
The S65 I bought is being prepped and put on a truck today. Should hopefully be here in a couple of days. I was curious though about the satellite antenna on the trunk lid. I asked the dealer if the car had satellite radio, and he said no. However I've seen other W220 S65's for sale and most did not have this antenna. Should I thus assume that since the antenna is there, the Sirius/XM box has already been installed and just requires activation?
Edit: slightly different angle of trunk lid with antenna
Edit: slightly different angle of trunk lid with antenna
Last edited by amstel78; Jan 23, 2017 at 10:31 PM.
Thread Starter
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2006 W220 S65 AMG
Searching the forums, discovered the antenna on the trunk lid is a second generation SDARS antenna. Keeping fingers crossed that the Sirius control unit is already installed in the car. Guess I'll find out this week.
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From: Laguna Niguel
'94 SL600,'05 SL600,'06 S65,'07 E63,'14 E63S,'09SL600 all sold, ‘15 S65,‘18 E63S,'17 SL65, '17S65Cab
The Satellite radio antenna is only on the trunk lid of a W220 S65 if it has the receiver installed. If it is just prewired there is no antenna.
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2004 CLK 500
I just went through setting up my Sirius and Kieth the MB cell phone expert who helped me and sold me the retrofit equipment told me a very valuable tip that I'll pass on to you. When you call to activate they will tell you to go to a preview ch and tell you the screen with the id number is wrong but they are wrong. There is no preview channel before activated on these systems. Now the important thing. You have to INSIST they activate it as Sirius only NOT Sirius XM. These boxes are old and the average long term employee is mich newer than them. If they try to activate the box as regular Sirius XM it will brick the box. Ruin it. I insisted this and the woman swore up and down she did it as just Sirius and she fried it.. we had to install a second box and get to a supervisor who also had no idea what we were talking about but we ground in the fact that the last lady fried our box and that this had to be done he put us on hold and did something right because that box went through. It took quite some time to activate and Kieth said sometimes they have to send 2-3 signals before it takes but it can still be activated. I just did mine a couple weeks ago.
Thread Starter
Senior Member
Joined: Jan 2017
Posts: 470
Likes: 25
2006 W220 S65 AMG
I just went through setting up my Sirius and Kieth the MB cell phone expert who helped me and sold me the retrofit equipment told me a very valuable tip that I'll pass on to you. When you call to activate they will tell you to go to a preview ch and tell you the screen with the id number is wrong but they are wrong. There is no preview channel before activated on these systems. Now the important thing. You have to INSIST they activate it as Sirius only NOT Sirius XM. These boxes are old and the average long term employee is mich newer than them. If they try to activate the box as regular Sirius XM it will brick the box. Ruin it. I insisted this and the woman swore up and down she did it as just Sirius and she fried it.. we had to install a second box and get to a supervisor who also had no idea what we were talking about but we ground in the fact that the last lady fried our box and that this had to be done he put us on hold and did something right because that box went through. It took quite some time to activate and Kieth said sometimes they have to send 2-3 signals before it takes but it can still be activated. I just did mine a couple weeks ago.
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Thread Starter
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2006 W220 S65 AMG
I activated my Sirius tuner tonight by taking advantage of the free 3 month trial. I did it right over the internet. I must admit, I was a bit worried after what you had mentioned earlier but fortunately there were no issues. As soon as I hit activate online, my tuner was up and running within 5 minutes.
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2004 CLK 500
Glad to hear! The installer was telling me he spoke with a stereo shop that said they wouldn't install them anymore after burning so many of them up until they figured this out.. I'm wondering if Sirius finally fixed the issue or at least the internet activation sets it correctly..
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2006 W220 S65 AMG
Who knows. Perhaps the internet activation works differently? I just entered my VIN and surprisingly my ESN came up on screen. It could be that their online system is smart enough to recognise an older Sirius-only tuner.
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2004 CLK 500
Oh your car came with it that's why. I'm talking about cars that didn't come with it and are retrofitted with an MB Sirius receiver after the fact. Those can't use the vin so you have to use the receivers esn number
