My Search for the "Ultimate" Ride Finally Ends

[mcandmar]

That's a pretty hardcore ride, sign of a true driving enthusiast!

My ride has a crappy Sony head unit from the mid 90's with a faulty antenna that doesn't work and i couldn't care less, i'd rather listen to the music coming from the engine bay

[Yoder]

Yankin' apart Benzes? I'm your man. Aside from the fact that the cars are about 40% plastic that goes brittle with age they are usually fairly easy to get into. You just have to learn to go very gently on all the little clips and connectors.

OK, you will be my goto man! I know all about the plastic clips breaking, as it was a big problem with my 280. Then when I was at my mechanic recently they were pulling apart some part of the trunk on a MB and the clips kept breaking due to old age. A lot of profanities were being thrown around...much to my shock! Who would ever curse while working on an auto? Me. I would get into cussing streaks that I cannot replicate unless under a hood and cracking my knuckles on metal. Maybe this is why I enjoy DIY electronics so much...no pain.

i'd rather listen to the music coming from the engine bay

Truly the sign of a true lover of power.

[Doc B.]

I got an Appradio 2 running today with the stock Bose speakers. After reading what turned out to be a bunch of misinformation about the impedance of the Bose drivers being 1 ohm and such I said f***all and measured them myself. There is a 6.5 woofer and a 1-3/4 tweeter in the front door. And at the rear of the front door are the roughly 5.25 "rears" that play behind the front seat. Turns out the tweet is 4 ohms with a cap on it, and each of the woofers is 2 ohms. So I did the obvious thing and wired the woofs in series and the tweeter in parallel with that composite woofer. Damned if it didn't turn out rather nice.

The Appradio is very slick, with it's own AM/FM and access to Pandora via your phone, which cables to the radio. Also does handsfree, Nav through the iphone with a choice of a couple of different apps, interfaces with the steering wheel controls via an Axxess ASWC-1 adapter, and I just ordered a wifi OBDII reader that works with an app called Dashcommand to display OBD data and also uses the accelerometer and inclinometer functions of the phone. There re something like 30 apps although several are redundant as near as I can tell.

It took an entire day to sort out all of the issues including the fact that the stupid Bose stereo was fiber optic connections all the way from the CD changer and head unit to the amp in the back. Once I found a way to tap into the speaker cabling and figured out that the cigar lighter wire I tapped was on a circuit with an open fuse (duoh!), it was just a matter of contortion until it was all back together.

[Yoder]

Decided to use this thread as my "MB info thread." My daughter owns a 1998 E-320, and like most MB's it needs an AC recharge. She ran out of time in Palo Alto, and did not have it done prior to driving to Seattle to do an internship. She even made the major mistake of taking I-5 from SF to SEA. It was only 106 in Redding when she drove through with no AC. Flash to the past!

Anyway, my question is: does anyone know of a good, trustworthy MB mechanic near the downtown Seattle area?

Thanks in advance.

[Doc B.]

The irony is I know a great shop in Redding. In Seattle I've used Strictly Mercedes, and they were OK, but I wouldn't say incredible. Mercedes Garage in Bellevue has a good reputation.

These guys claim to be Mercedes specialists and are running a deal on AC service right now

http://www.scottshermanautocare.com/Mercedes-Service