Metra 70-1786 Radio Wiring Harness for Mercedes 94-04/Landrover 99-04

This worked on my F430 with optional Bose system, but it should work with any Becker style radio setup which is amplified outside of the head unit and relies on a pre-amp output.

Perfect fit for my '98 Mercedes ML320. I have the Bose system and this harness was a perfect fit and pinout for the vehicle allowing me to install a more modern deck and still use the stock Bose amp and speakers. The major part of the install was done on my electronics bench soldering/shrink wrapping this harness to the new deck's harness. After that it was "plug 'n play" to install it in the vehicle. Quick easy and professional results - I wouldn't do another install without one of these!

I bought this wiring harness to install a new radio in my Mercedes 2003 SLK 230. It's the right piece!I don't know about other Mercedes' by my SLK 230 required switching of Yellow and Red wires (it might be for others too). It's a battery constant and ignition. Also, I installed SONY stereo. Now the thing here is that it will depend on stereo whether it will turn on or not without ignition. The way these new stereos are designed is that they won't turn on if you don't turn you ignition on, so you don't forget to switch your radio off and save your car battery =) I was really confused about that. Of course, you can connect without the ignition wire, so it's always stays on, but I don't mind keeping my key in position 1 when listening to radio. This way I know that I won't forget to turn my radio off. The ignition function is a memory for new radios, so it saves your presets and settings.In addition, on SLK 230 there are only two front speakers! (Rear ones are low-frequency, aka subs) They way Mercedes designed(I don't know why) their amplifier is that front and rear speakers are connected parallel and the amplifier does all the job - automatically allocating low and high frequencies to back and front speakers. Stupid, right?! It took me a lot of reading to understand.So, if you take the bottom pinout, all you need is 2 pair of wires in the middle (left and right speaker) and you don't need left and right. Blacks are negative and color-coded are positive. (This is for SLK only. My friend had a 4-door sedan and he needed all of them!). After installation just go to settings and set everything to FRONT or ALL but not the back. (you will hear nothing ig you set it to back =) )One more thing, when you connect via RCA plugs you may hear an annoying popping sound every time you play with the menu or switch it on or ofF. Don't get scared! I simply cut off the RCA plugs and soldered it to my new radio harness speaker wires. (Hint: cut off pins from RCA plugs so you can solder them on to your new radio harness and put them back in place into plastic harness assembly so it looks neat) You Don't need to cut any of your stock harness!

Easy to identify and install.

Alright.....first things first. I used this on my Benz E 240 2002 and it wasn't an exact match. The car's +12 Memory and two more pins were not aligned with this harness slots. I had to pull out the Red wire (+12 Memory) and re-insert it to another slot to align it with the stock wires. To use my Sony CDX-GT500U, I didn't have to worry about the other mis-aligned pins. I joined the +12 Memory and +12 Switched together and then connected them to the +12 Memory of the stock wires. The Ground (Black) was aligned okay. I simply had to wire them together. Yes, the RCA sockets had to be cut off to make the speaker connections.It wasn't a tough job and I liked doing it. I cut off the RCA sockets and used crimp caps for wire connections and it made my work look very clean and professional. The wire color codes of this harness exactly matches the speaker locations on my car.Overall quality of this product is good. I'd recommend it.

I'm very happy with this product. Gone are the days of hacking up the stock wiring harness as I'm sure we all have had fun with over the years. I changed from the stock stereo (Benz tape deck) to a JVC unit with Bluetooth. I looked at the harness and checked it to the stock harness to make sure power and ground all lined up, and they did. I tested with a test light stock power and constant power and they matched up perfect to this harness layout. Wired the new stereo harness on my kitchen table with my son and walk to the car, plugged it in and started the car. Power and sound all perfect! (Notes-- the speaker out on this harness has RCA adapters and the new stereo harness did not. So to avoid hacking this new conversion harness I used 2 of these, ((((2 of Rockford Fosgate RFIF2SW Speaker Line to Female RCA Adapter))), to wire clean and correct. Plugged right in color to color and fade and balance all work perfect!

You need to splice off the RCA cables and connect (-) to (-) and (+) to (+). I used cable shrink wrap for a neat and solid splice job. Make sure to connect the Blue to Blue (sometimes this is antenna and others it is for Amplifier). In any case, they are the same and this connection powers on the OEM vehicle's speaker Amp.Cheers

It was a great price for a decent wiring harness. I remember spending 5x this amount for an Acura harness.Pros: great price, good quality harness, does simplify most installsCons: did not work for my vehicle, some installs require wiring harness modification2003 MB ML500 W163 w/a fiber optic Bose system. If you choose to utilize the integrated d2b fiber optic Bose system you will need a D2B fiber optic adapter/decoder in order to install a new head unit.Personally, I'm attempting to delete the head unit while adding a multimedia device connected to a USB-C hub. A Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE mounted on an adjustable metal modular arm should do the trick!