Proud new owner of an overall great 1988 300 SEL... not so proud owner of a defunct Becker AM/FM/Cassette player. In having the problem diagnosed at a MB repair shop (getting passenger-side sound only... I tried left/right balancing to no avail), I was told that the problem is in the unit itself, not the speakers or wiring. In the course of learning this, however, the unit has since rendered itself inoperable (dashed lines), further motivating me to just replace the whole thing with a simple AM/FM/CD anyway. Despite assurance from SoundTrack that they knew how to rewire old Mercedes and such, they eventually admitted ignorance, so am now back to square one. (The car came with an alarm system too, which apparently further complicates the replacement, I'm told.) I'm in Colorado and would just like to find someone who can recommend a simple deck, do the install, and be done with it. I've now left the car at the MB repair to get their opinion (while addressing an A/C leak.) I don't care about the dial thingy in the console for front/back balance... and I don't care about the feature that automatically increases/decreases volume in response to how fast I'm going, or connecting it to the alarm, or whatever... I just want a radio with a single CD player that can route sound to all existing speakers. (Yes, I'm partly just venting some frustration here... sorry... but am also curious if anyone has a good contact for such matters here in Colorado... I'm in the Fort Collins area.)

Thanks,
Bob

In further researching, I found a possible replacement for an '88 300 SEL, as noted on the Becker auto sound site:

The MB CD Radio, part # Q 6 82 0410

with adapter cable Q 6 82 0411

supposedly a plug-in installation. Anyone have experience with these to share?

Update: I finally found what seems to be an excellent contact in Denver for all things related - fellow named Lance Manning via the list of Becker dealers. Should be able to install whatever deck I want w/o great complication/cost. Hope to get lined up in coming weeks, so will post again if anyone interested in how it goes.