CLK radio/CD options

[Sparky 371]

thinking of getting a CLK- maybe an older 270 CDI say an 03 plate but i have noticed that a lot of them come with only the radio/ cassette player and not the CD.

so my query is whats my options- go to halfords and buy an off the shelf unit for a couple hundred quid?- if that much. If so is it a standard fit hole- seems theres a small shelf/cubby underneath???

or can a multi hanger be fitted for much the same price?

 

[Mike Edwards]

Second hand Audio 20s with Cd Player seem to come up on eBay fairly regularly at less than you'd pay for an aftermarket unit from Halfords.

 

[jasmart]

thinking of getting a CLK- maybe an older 270 CDI say an 03 plate but i have noticed that a lot of them come with only the radio/ cassette player and not the CD.

so my query is whats my options- go to halfords and buy an off the shelf unit for a couple hundred quid?- if that much. If so is it a standard fit hole- seems theres a small shelf/cubby underneath???

or can a multi hanger be fitted for much the same price?

It depends what features you'd like. A standard single din cd unit can be supplied and fitted for less than £100. You'd use a fascia adaptor, either single and keep the cubby hole, or go for a double din. Samples here Mercedes CLK
I purchased a C209 CLK 200K last year. I swapped out the original Audio 10 CD player for an aftermarket head unit. I wanted to keep the dashboard display of radio station tuned, song details etc, and also the stereo controls on the steering wheel. As far as I’m aware, the only company doing such a piece of kit to enable this is Alpine. They do the KCE-960B adaptor which delivers the output of any Alpine head unit to the dashboard visual display, including the songs mp3tag info. Additionally the track and volume control from the steering wheel feeds through to the head unit.

My choice of stereo was the Alpine iXA-W407BT. It has full iPod control, including playback of video from the iPod. Bluetooth audio and inbuilt facility to link with your phone, including the phonebook, recent calls etc. You can see the before and after photos below. (Apologies for the poor quality of the AFTER shot, it was taken at night in my garage!)

I also swapped out the original climate control module (Part number A 209 830 00 85) for the luxury unit (A 209 830 02 85) with digital display. Again, see the pics.

I’m really happy with the look of them both, the sound on the head unit is great. One thing that doesn’t work as well as it should is the USB stick integration on the Alpine. I transferred around 30GB of MP3s to a 32GB hi-speed stick, but at each turn on the unit would read ‘banking’ continually. According to Alpine they are organising the library into 1000 song batches for quicker searching. The problem is this would take an age (I’d get bored waiting after 5 to 10 minutes and switch to a different source.)

 

[npuk]

Audio 20, that is for post facelift so you couldnt fit that. In a 2003 car you will be limited to the Audio 10 cd or old Comand 2.0 unit. You could alternatively fit a single din aftermarket unit or a double din.

You could however fit the post facelift centre console which would then let you fit the post facelift audio units like Audio 20 or Comand NTG2. http://www.mwstewart.co.uk/articles/w209faceliftconsole/