Custom Install Mercedes Custom Install BMW Custom Install Porsche Custom Install Ford Custom Install Dodge Custom Install Lincoln Custom Install Hummer Custom Install Cadillac Custom Install RangeRover Custom Install Chevy

Look at some of the cars our recent customers have trusted us with! Image:  Here is a small sample of our work! What can we do for you? Featured Install Of The Month- Here is a how to series on upgrading the audio system in late model Mercedes with navigation. Most late model Mercedes have the Navigation head unit and a multi channel amplifier. The Headunit with built in navigation is a nicely integrated part of the dash. Most people don't want to give up the factory navigation but at the same time they are not satisfied with the audio portion of the system. Even with the Harmon Kardon upgrade the system is still lacking in audio quality. Following is the basics to upgrading the audio system. There are many different brands of equipment you can choose to get the job done. I will attempt to cover the concepts required to do the upgrade regardless of what brands you choose. Difficulty Level 4 on a scale of 1 to 5, Five being hardest. Time 6-8 hours Tools required- Wire Cutters Tone Generator Computer Safe Test Light Variable Temp Soldering Iron Heat Shrink Tubing Plastic Pry Tools Panel Popper 1/4" Drive socket set (metric) Metric box/open end wrenches Fine point metal pick. Overview- This installation upgrade deals with the CLS55 AMG with the Harmon Kardon upgrade, but most Mercedes models that have navigation use the same components as this one so they should all be similar. This car has is an eight speaker system (twelve speakers if you count the front and rear door components) one center channel in the dash, a midrange and tweeter in both front and rear doors and two small midrange speakers connected to the woofer in the rear deck. All of these are powered off of the factory amplifier. Despite the premium price for the Harmon Kardon upgrade the system is fairly low quality. We will bypass the factory amplifier for all of the speakers except the center channel, replace the front and rear speakers and the subwoofer. First remove the negative terminal from the battery located in the trunk. Next remove the speaker grill covers. Use the metal pick to carefully manipulate the tabs of metal grills from their positions in the door panels. You can start to free it up at the bottom front of the grill using your hands. See photo. Grill is held on by wire mesh tabs. Here are the pictures of the factory speakers with the grills removed Next remove the front tweeters. To remove the tweeter pod on the front doors grab and pull the pod out. It is held in by one clip. You mightneed to use the plastic pry tools to help you. It does take some pressure to get these out. Be careful. Here is a picture of the stock Mercedes Harmon/Kardon tweeter. The factory tweeter snaps into a retainer in the pod. To mount the aftermarket tweeter you can make an aluminum braket like we did on the Mustang GT500 or use hot glue.  Hot glue will allow you to make a semi-permanent mount and still allow you to remove it and return it back to stock. Also a picture of the alpine tweeter mounted in the pod. On this particular car as most Mercedes, the front component speakers (mid-range and tweeter) are run off of the same set of speaker wires, they are daisy chained. That is why the tweeter wires and the midrange wires are the same color. The wires run to the midrange and then to the tweeter with a capacitor in-line (in the back of the triangle speaker pod) to crossover the signal to the tweeter. The Alpine component speakers we put in are an upgrade to the factory Mercedes and work the same way, inline capacitor, no crossover. That is the what the black bulges in the speaker wires are. The white stuff coveing the wires is heat shrink tubing. Make sure you solder all connections and use the heat shrink tubing. If you were going to really step it up you would install a set of speakers with an outboard crossover like the one pictured below. In that case you would take the speaker wires going to the mid-range and connect them to the terminals marked IN on the crossover. Then you would connect the midrange to the terminals marked WF and the tweeters to the terminals marked TW. The rear door are basically the same as the front doors with the exception that the tweeters are behind the same grill as the mid-bass. Remove the metalic speaker cover and replace both mid-bass and tweeter. Sorry I forgot to take pictures of the rear speakers  with the grill covers off.  Here is a picture of the rear door finished and a picture of the front door with the alpine mid-bass driver installed. When you cut the speaker terminal plugs off of the ends of the wires that go to the factory speakers, I reccommend soldering all connections.  More To Come.... Image:  This is an install of an Escort 9500CI into a 2008 Mercedes SL63 AMG. As you will see in the pictures the detector is virtually hidden. The front Laser shifters are hidden behind the honeycomb grill and the rear laser shifter blends into the black license plate frame. The radar antenna is placed behind the Mercedes emblem since it is radar transparent because the factory parking sensor is placed behind it as well. The display module is mounted at the base of the instrument pod which makes it both visible to the driver and unobtrusive at the same time. The GPS antenna is on the dash above the instument pod which is invisible to the driver while driving and blendsinto most dash boards. The Control module is mounted in the ash-tray for easy access and can remain stealthy when the cover is closed. The speaker is mounted under the dash. All of the wiring is wrapped, zip tied and run in conjuction with the factory wiring. Unless you are a factory trained Mercedes technitian, you literally can not tell that there was any wiring added to the vehicle. W are the most experienced Escort Radar Detector installers in the San Francisco Bay Area. Don't trust your car to anyone else. References are avaiable on request. Image: