W211 saloon - run a wire through parcel shelf?

[donkmeister]

I would like to run a thin cable from the boot area to the parcel shelf area. This is a USB cable to provide power to a rear-facing camera.

I have had a good look around in the boot to see if there are any gaps or grommets that would allow me to pass the cable through without drilling anything, but I've had no luck.

Any ideas? If it makes any difference the car has HK audio and does not have the foldable rear seat option.

 

[John]

I don't have HK but I have installed my own 10" subwoofer on the underside of the parcel shelf to more than make up for it.

Mine is a W211 saloon without folding rear seats and there are many holes in the parcel shelf which I had to Dynamat up!

Can you post a picture of what your parcel shelf looks like under the rear?

On the inside of the car, there is a cloth grate that sits in the middle which you can lift up on the edge closest to you to be able to access the area in between that shelf and the metal shelf underneath.

 

[donkmeister]

I don't have HK but I have installed my own 10" subwoofer on the underside of the parcel shelf to more than make up for it.

Mine is a W211 saloon without folding rear seats and there are many holes in the parcel shelf which I had to Dynamat up!

Can you post a picture of what your parcel shelf looks like under the rear?

On the inside of the car, there is a cloth grate that sits in the middle which you can lift up on the edge closest to you to be able to access the area in between that shelf and the metal shelf underneath.

A very belated thanks to JohnEBoy... I have finally got around to completing this job, so I followed this advice and popped up the parcel shelf speaker grill - this gave me access to various holes, and I found one that allowed me to run a cable up through the foam gasket on the lefthand side, in the rear passenger-side corner of the windscreen. I used a wooden barbecue skewer, taped to a thick plastic cord, which I then used to pull the USB power cable through.

For anyone contemplating this job, the power adaptors that come with dashcams are usually poor quality and chuck out a load of RF noise, and the W211 radio receive is very sensitive to this noise. On my first attempt, I did a neat job but lost all radio stations along with TMC messages. This is obviously no good if you want to listen to the radio or get traffic updates!

My solution was:

1) replace the supplied power adaptor with a PortaPow car charger and Lindy USB cable (both high quality items).
2) attach a ferrite core RF choke to the USB cable just after it connects into the PortaPow charger
3) where the 12V power had to cross the radio antenna feed, I ensured this was done at 90-degrees and I fitted another RF choke just before the crossing point (this could be overkill but I had a spare choke).
4) I kept everything as far as possible from the gateway, so the USB power supply sits down in the back corner of the boot by the back of the tail-lamp fittings.

Also, be sure to keep everything cable-tied away from the bootlid springs - cables will easily get caught by the bootlid spring and squashed up. Not good in the long-run!!!