Have you talked to the people at www.peripheral-aamp.com ? They do make CD-changer products for a number of Mercedes vehicles.

You should also seek the help of Mercedes themselves. They should have parts to facilitate addition of new non-Mercedes gear.

This would be reason enough for me to not buy a vehicle. And it's something I'll make sure to ask of any dealer in the future.


Yup. They were the first guy's I DID talk to. They don't have anything for the new systems yet. From talking to them, they ARE working on it, but it's looking like it will be a while.

Mercedes (the local dealer) is being very helpful about it... much better than I expected. However, Mercedes (MBUSA) is not. They have the lock in, and are using it. Their incar phone system uses Motorola phones that have been modded with a chip to make them the only phones capable of being used in the car. It's a $800 premium to get that chip. (standard phone runs about $400, the MB phone is @$1200). Mercedes (Worldwide) does not have this limitation. Of course, worldwide, they use GSM phones...

More and more systems are coming like this, I'm afraid. It's one of the reasons Empeg went to the OEM market from what I understand.