My Smartkey only seems to work from the infrared, not the radio. Curious, I thought I would investigate the amp for those bad connections people talk about. It does intermittantly work from the RF, just not with any consistancy. Both keys behave the same.
Anyway, I pulled the trim piece that surrounds the seatbelt off, and what do I find? A think coax, wrapped up with a blue and white wire, with a blue and yellow band around it. It appears to have been neatly cut. Am I missing some important component? FM, AM and weather band reception are all fine, or at least as decent as my previous car.
I wasn't totally clear the first time around - the coax is cut, but the blue and white wire is intact. I'm hoping it's just some part of the phone system, but blue and white tickles my brain as being power antenna wire. There doesn't seem to be anything missing, module-wise, but I'm not totally sure what's supposed to be there. Anybody have a picture of what the C-pillar looks like behind the trim so I can compare?
zeet - i think that beginning with the 99 model year, they went to D2B fiber
optic and that the phone connectivity was part of the D2B loop....at least
this is so with E320 for that year. the CD changer also was part of this
loop. that would leave coax to deal with audio system or antenna.
Yes, I have the D2B loop. That made it very expensive to add an iPod - tomorrow I am getting a Blaupunkt radio with Bluetooth and an iPod interface to see if that'll work well with the rest of the stock system.
ohlord - That A2/18 appears to be there, but there's a coax cable passing below it that is just cut off. It has one that looks similar attached to it, which is what makes this such a mystery. Obviously someone had been in there, because the trim was off a little when I got the car. Curious. The phone doesn't get signal, but I thought the antenna for that was in the bumper. It's all getting pulled out anyway, since it's totally useless when nobody will activate it and analog service is going away.
Here's a camera phone picture. You can see the colored band toward the bottom, and the spot where the coax just ends. Further toward the upper-left would be A2/18 (I think!) and you can see the pretensioner in the lower left corner. The window is further to the right. I can take a better picture when I have my camera handy, if it would help anyone.
For the reference of future searchers: I am fairly certain that the coax doesn't have anything to do with the radio, despite having a power antenna wire bundled with it. I put a new Blaupunkt head unit in yesterday, and apart from a little hiss at low volumes, it works perfectly - including radio reception. The Blaupunkt had all the same connectors as the stock Becker so I didn't even have to touch wiring! It plugged in and worked.
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