I just finished installing the Dension Gateway 500 in my '05 G-Wagon to allow me to use my iPod and a portable Sirius radio.
My G was built in November of 2005 and has the D2B command system.
To do the install you have to cut one wire from one of the three wiring harnesses supplied by Dension and splice it to the correct wire on your existing Command plug. The Dension installation manual does not mention the need to cut this wire or that it needs to be spliced to the appropriate wire in on the Command plug. I had to email my distributor for help on the question of cutting the Gateway wire. The Dension wiring harness that you cut the wire from can just be thrown away, there is no place for the plugs to plug in so there's no confusion there. The diagrams in the installation manual made it pretty easy to figure out which wire needed to be spliced on the Command plug. I carefully stripped a small section of insulation from the appropriate wire (the wake-up wire" and soldered the purple wire from the Gateway wire haness. I decided to mount the Gateway 500 to the bottom of the glove box for easy access if necessary (only four screws and the glove box comes out). To do this I taped the Gateway 500 to the bottom of the glove box and moved it a couple of time to find the best location then with it taped in place I tried the installation with all the plugs in place to check for clearance. In the end I needed to use a zip tie to gently pull down a wiring bundle to make a little more room in the back. I ran the iPod and USB plug into the glove box. I didn't use the nice Dension iPod dock. I didn't want to take up any more space than necessary in the glove box.
I ran the "Aux" plug to the back bottom compartment of the arm rest and installed a Sirius Stiletto 2 in the upper compartment and connected the two. For the Sirius I ran the Sirius Vehicle installation antenna from the rear door on the passenger side to keep it away from the FM antenna in the glass on the driver side. I looked into having the MB Sirius antenna installed and then connecting it to the Stiletto 2 Vehicle Docking Kit but decided to try out the Sirius antenna first to see how well it worked. The Sirius antenna installation isn't as clean but I didn't have have the MB dealer drill a hole in the roof to install the factory antenna.
With this installation if I unplug my iPod the Gateway 500 defaults to the Sirius radio (if it's turned on) when I plug in my iPod again it is automatically selected. If I switch the button on the "Aux" input connector I am returned to the factory CD changer set up. With the Stiletto 2 I can take my Satellite radio with me for home use or out side.
The factory steering wheel buttons work to change songs on the iPod and change the volume. The only information that is displayed on the factory command unit the the in dash display id "Track"+number "xx", which is pretty useless as far as knowing what song is playing or is next. Prior to plugging in your iPod you can select which Playlist you want to listen to then just let it play. I haven't had a chance to see if you can scroll through your songs on the iPod and select once it's plugged into the Gateway. That would be nice. You have to select the Sirius radio station from the Stiletto in the arm rest, only the volume steering wheel buttons don't work with it.
I did find that there is a fairly large difference in volume between the iPod and the Sirius which is a bit of a pain. I'm not sure if that a Sirius thing or the "Aux" input it's self.
Overall not a project for the faint of heart but the results are satisfactory.
Linear Mode
