1999 Mercedes-Benz E300

I installed an empeg and Pioneer AVIC-N3 in my E300 sometime in the middle of 2007. Oddly, a bunch of the install process was photographed except for the final results. I guess my friend Ian and I were just finally glad to be done and forgot. Today, I took some pics because we're probably going to be taking the install apart soon. The E300 is in need of repair to the point that the fuel efficiency does not make up for the maintenance costs. I like the car plenty, but I have an opportunity to get a Forester 2.5XT from my mom right now. Look for another Scooby install soon, but here's the Benz for now:


Diesel + heavy 18" replica wheels probably don't make for the fastest launch time. I love the look though...


Say hello to the craziest harness I had to make yet. It has connections to the Benz harness, empeg ISO connector, and Pioneer AVIC-N3. That green box takes the high-level speaker outputs from the Pioneer and converts them to something the factory Bose amp can handle. I think it expects something like 5 volts. Fitting two head units and this mess behind the dash was not a treat.


Using the special removal tool I got from ebay, I took out the climate control and factory head unit. That pocket with the door flipped up is where I'm planning to stick the empeg.


We're running all kinds of wire for the AVIC-N3. The Pioneer consists of 3 main components. The head unit sits in the dash, but there is another box that holds its brains, and then another oddly large box for the XM Satellite Radio tuner. A nice feature of the Benz is that the rear seat cushion comes off to reveal a small area perfect for storing little electronic boxes.



Mercedes interior bits all over the lawn.


This is just a pic of the center console and some of the dash removed.


Here's what the finished product looks like today. The empeg is routed into the Pioneer's AUX input. The little door on the empeg's compartment has to stay up if the empeg is in the sled. The empeg sticks out just a bit too much to allow the door to close without hitting buttons.


Here's the AVIC-N3 with the screen open showing the navigation screen. It's not a bad unit, but it's gaudy and the nav routing is not the smartest.


Here's the empeg removed and the door shut.

Stealth Empeg FTW. Looks great Rob! Love the black E300 with tints and huge wheels too. Its the gangster look

Nice install pics. Too bad it's all going away. Bye bye Benz. What happened to it ultimately?

Good luck with your next car purchase(s). Some day you and/or I will get those Deloreans...

I bought the car with 110,000 miles, so I wasn't expecting a maintenance-free car. However, these last few months it has been nothing but problems.

The transmission was acting funny. My general (cheap) mechanic couldn't work it out, so I took it to an actual Benz dealer. I told them it seemed like it wasn't a mechanical problem, but something electrical. I'm sure they hear that kind of crap from uninformed customers all day, so they paid no attention to me. They didn't even take any steps to actually diagnose the issue. They just performed a transmission service which I had done 20,000 miles prior at my normal mechanic. I agreed to the dealer's service even though I assumed it would do nothing because it's possible my mechanic didn't use a synthetic ATF and maybe the Benz trans is getting upset. $500 later, they didn't manage to work out the problem.

I found this awesome dude in Tenafly, NJ that only works on Mercedes. His name is Wolfgang, so how could I go wrong? He diagnosed a bad switch in the gear selector that wasn't telling the car what forward gear I was requesting. The bad thing is that Wolfgang's service rates are almost as high as the dealer. The fix turned out to be $1,000.

Less than a month later, the car went into limp-home mode. When the car goes into this mode, it won't drive in any gear but 2nd and 3rd (I think) and generally the car won't accelerate over 40MPH. It turns out that one of the EGR valves died. When you replace one, you should replace both. That issue couped with a few other minor fixes cost another $1,000.

Now, there are still some annoying problems, but I have lost the will to carry-on in this fashion. The power steering needs attention and the climate control is really screwed up. I can probably fix both problems myself, but I'm totally not interested anymore. With 140,000 miles on the car now, there are just a ton of problems cropping up one after the other.

It's not just these recent issues that get me down, but since purchasing the car it has needed at least some sort of thing replaced every month. The lesson is that a Benz is probably not fit as a commuter car. The Benz gets an additional 12MPG on the highway than the Honda Element it replaced, but the fuel savings (and then some) are just going toward service.

What a shame.

Hi,

My son has a '98 BMW 750iL and paid $1000.00 for front brakes. Seems as though the curb weight of 4500 lbs (it has the "protection package" - bullet proof windows & shell), needs a 3 piston caliper for the additional weight.

I think everything on these cars is expensive like the Mercedes. Engine sensors are very expensive and require several computers to be re-sync'd afterwards since it is essentially 2 inline 6's that are managed under computer control. Everything is double even the mass air flow sensors, which if one goes out, it really runs crappy.

Both the BMW and Mercedes are fun to drive when they run right though and certainly have all of the ammenities.

Ross

My son corrected me. It is a V12 that is managed by computer control.

Sorry

That's a drag to hear. Maybe some DIY guy on some forum will want it and have a field day fixing it up. Oh well, there are other cars.

There are?

That said, thanks for the pics, Rob. I'm about to put the empeg in my 99 E320, and you answered the question I had been wondering about: will the empeg fit in the covered pocket. I can live with taking it out to close it. Woo!

You know, we really need to have a Benz + empeg meet someday.