CLK TV Tuner

[design guru]

I have purchased a TV tuner on ebay for £300, I have a 2001 CLK which includes TV pre-wiring as purched when new, but does anybody know where the Tuner sits and is it easy to fit. :rolleyes:

[Paul Grainger]

On the facelift cabriolet the tuner mounts behind the offside rear passenger interior panel.

I suspect that the tuner mounts in the same place on all models. The trim is easy to remove, the only time consuming bit is disconnection of the seat belts.

BTW - you don't have to remove the rear seat back section - but it's easier to replace the trim if you do.

I presume that there is a special bracket available to locate the tuner in position, but I used double sided sticky tapes (RS Components), the tuner is rock solid and looks oem.

The wiring loom is routed along the sill panels, then through the trunking in front of the drivers seat, then up to the comand unit.

The most difficult bit is mounting the aerials! I have one pair 'hidden' around the edge of the front window, (vertical polarisation) and the second set mounted in the rear bumper (horizontal polarisation). This gives me satisfactory performance, but it will never be as good as being at home!

Don't forget to supply your aerial amplifiers with a ignition switched 12v supply. I took a short-cut and used a permanent-on supply (these are plentiful around all parts of the car). A few weeks later I couldn't understant why my battery was always 'low' - when I tested the amplifiers they were drawing 100mA each - ouch!


PS - it's worth fitting a set of leads to the ext1 / ext2 connections whilst fitting the tuner. It save a lot of hassle later when you decide you want to add a dvd player (I know from experience)


Paul G

[design guru]

Would I need extra aerials for my car, my command and all the TV pre wiring was factory fitted by Mercedes-benz when I purchased the car from new and the comand works from the aerial on the roof. The only reason I bought my tuner recently was it was'nt available at the time of purchase.

I just thought that all the necessary wire are sitting in the location where the TV tuner sits and just needs to be connected and then diagnosed by a MB dealer. If not then do you know what the £300 TV pre wiring option in the CLK price list involves.

CLK230K(2001)Coupe

[Paul Grainger]

I suspect that the TV pre-wiring option is just the pre-installation of the wiring loom. The OEM MB loom is a 'useful' piece of kit and includes CD wiring as well as TV and all comand connections, but costs £250 - so an installed cost of £300 would seem reasonable. The pukka MB tv aerial system costs as much again - and that is just to buy the parts. But who knows - you may be lucky and have the complete system including aerial arrays just waiting for the tuner to be fitted!

If you haven't already got aerials fitted, then You may want to consider going to a specialist car audio retailer. TV aerial systems are generally sold as double-diversity arrays with a single amplifer module - I purchased two of these at a total cost of approx £80 which gives the four inputs ideally needed by the MB TV tuner.

Paul G

[design guru]

Could you tell me how to remove the side panel without snapping any hooks or parts holding it in place. Does the back seat just pop out, or screwed in place?

Any advice would be great as I do not want to break any parts in the process or it could get expensive. :confused:

[MBenzNL]

link to a TV tuner in a W208 (http://groups.msn.com/mbenznl/installdetails.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=2238) picture

greetingz,

[MBenzNL]

On the facelift cabriolet the tuner mounts behind the offside rear passenger interior panel.
I presume you are talking about this:
picture to a TV tuner in a W209 CLK (http://groups.msn.com/mbenznl/installdetails.msnw?action=ShowPhoto&PhotoID=2236)

greetingz,

[design guru]

I have a 2001 CLK W208 which is Fully Loaded including TV pre wiring which was factory installed, does the tuner just need to be placed and conected or do I still need more wiring?

[pepe]

sorry to hijack thread. Paul im wondering if my aerial position may be why my tv picture isnt up to much. I to have 2 diversity antennas but both mine are mounted in the windscreen one in each corner like so !_ _! do you think moving one of them to the rear of the car would help. worth a try i suppose, i only fitted them there as it was easy and saved running wires to rear but picture could definately be improved on.

[steve_bcs]

you could alsways try adding another set to the rear . I used hirschman cell phone bumper antennas - 1 set in the rear & 1 set in the front. Picture qualityis superb (generally) so your window mount ones may improve by doubling up too.

[pepe]

Is it possible to do that, each antenna in the front windscreen has 2 jack plugs (total of four) and the tv tuner has 4 inputs. is it just a case of buying a splitter so you have the eight plugs going into four ?? dont suppose you have the part number or where purchased from.

[steve_bcs]

Is it possible to do that, each antenna in the front windscreen has 2 jack plugs (total of four) and the tv tuner has 4 inputs. is it just a case of buying a splitter so you have the eight plugs going into four ?? dont suppose you have the part number or where purchased from.


That should work I would have thought . OR You could always solder joint each pair to 1 jack . Then you dont need to buy anything apart from another set of arials - assuming a) you have a soldering iron and b) you can solder!

the antenna I used only had 1 jack per pairand I connected each jack to the outside pair of TV tuner inputs. Actually teh supplied jacks didnt fir so I cut them off and used proper MB connectors robbed off an old S class loom.

[pepe]

ive ordered another pair of antennas so will give it a go. picture is fine most of the time when still, but on occasions when passengers want to watch on the move its a bit hit and miss. but doubling the antennas can only be good i suppose. Is it better to have say fronts vertical and rears horizontal or vise versa or shouldnt it matter.
cheers

[steve_bcs]

Is it better to have say fronts vertical and rears horizontal or vise versa or shouldnt it matter.
cheers

it shouldnt matter