Becker Radio

I have a 2016 Unity MB, a question, does everybody hate the Becker as much as I do.I just came back from a long trip and found this radio to be a waste of space. No idea why MB would put this in such an expensive vehicle. The longer the trip I take the more I want to rip this thing out and leave it the middle of the road as roadkill.

The GPS is not intuitive at all, I am able to use it with the pitt function but find myself yelling at the unit every time I needed to change the state or city. Anybody watching me must have thought it was a madman driving this while RV screaming at his radio.
Brightness is at the max, # 10 on the adjustment range but I still can't see it during the day or just barely at night because it so dull and washed out. The rear camera on mine is almost useless, again for the same reason. So dull I can't depend on it for backing up especially at night. Overall the MB dash lights are not bright enough in my opinion except for the center yellow gauges lamps and they are to bright and annoying.

For the GPS I Finally just went with the phone, at least you can see it.

Have those who replaced theirs been happy with their choices and what brand of unit did you put in.
Did you do the replacement installation yourself or bring it to a radio store and have them do it and at what cost.
I used to install radios in cars many years ago but not sure if the newer radios with all there functions are that easy to to do anymore, I know places sell adapter cables but unsure if they will work with the steering controls and GPS along with the rear camera.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks
Rick

I can’t speak to the Becker but I “suffered” a Clarion in our Airstream trailer for five years. User interface makes a big difference and if it or the hardware isn’t working for you I encourage you to dump it! You have too nice a rig to have something like this be a bummer, is my thinking.

Treat yourself to a unit that is Android Auto and Apple CarPlay enabled and don’t look back! I will leave it to the others to answer your questions.

Chris
2020 Unity FX on order

It is a radio from the 1960's. MB with a dial search and program radio/stereo in a $150K vehicle. Come on, really? Pure Junk. Leisure should be ashamed to leave that in their rigs. Airstream and most other high ends replace them with after market systems. Yes it is a radio in the Sprinter delivery van, right?
Love the Unity and Leisure Travel Van's but step up.

The only nice thing I can say is "It fits the hole well."

There are a number of threads on replacing the Mercedes Becker A-15 head unit , https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=63884&highlight=Replacing+becker, https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=44232&highlight=Replacing+becker, https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32578&highlight=Replacing+becker, https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69674&highlight=Kenwood, https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=50128&highlight=Kenwood, https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=65285&highlight=Kenwood. The 2 most popular options are to replace it with a Kenwood Excelon (https://www.kenwood.com/usa/car/excelon/) or a Pioneer AVIC (https://www.pioneerelectronics.com/PUSA/Car/NEX/AVIC-8200NEX). In my 2014, Leisure installed a Kenwood Exelon model head unit and we love it!

I agree and am waiting on this Kenwood (made for RVs and truckers) to drop in price before pulling the plug (Becker in this case). I have been watching it for almost a year and the only place I found it available is on Crutchfield who also sells the prewire adapters. https://www.crutchfield.com/p_113DNX775R/Kenwood-DNX775RVS.html

I put in the Pioneer almost as soon as I bought my 2019 Unity. The Becker is made for a plumbing truck or something where I am sure it would work fine.
The Pioneer Avic-w8400nex was the latest at the time but they have since come out with the 8500.
It works absolutely great my only complaint is the screen is polarized so its glare free. As a result it doesn't work at all with polarized sunglasses, which is most of them.
My major concern was having wireless Android Auto and Sirius Satellite, so I never upgraded the speakers or did any other things to improve the audio as the built-ins sound fine for driving to me.
The install was not hard but there were a lot of steps. Most of the wheel controls work fine still. https://avoidpitfalls.com/pioneer-avic-w8400nex/

Sure hope they have upgraded in the 2020 LTV Unity on the 2019 chassis.....

2020 Unity MB on order.....

I put in an Alpine X208U with Car Play and built in GPS. I've ben very happy with it. The installer did have to fabricate a new faceplate to fit the 8" screen. I've also seen Alpine Halo 9s in Sprinters that looked pretty nice. Yes the Becker was a joke and drove me nuts. I think I still have it in the garage if anyone wants one...

I had to mount an external Sat Radio which I play thru the Becker. I use the Becker for blue-toothing my cell phone and Sat Radio Audio (and rearview camera). The nice part is the audio mutes when I get a cell call. I use a separate GPS (Garmin RV 760).

Heh. Set the Wayback machine to 1979. Just out of university, I worked for a Mercedes dealer in the parts department for a few months before my report to active duty. A common customer complaint: The Becker “Mexico” radio. The parts department manager had a lucrative side business going on selling Blaupunkt radios that fit in that hole, with the appropriate cable connectors.
Seems some things never change.
Or maybe they do: My 2019 chassis has the new touchscreen; I don’t know whose electronics are behind it, but it seems ok.

geds, thank to you and all the rest for the help and the recommendation on the KENWOOD DNX775RVS replacement radio to replace the Becker that came with my 2016 Unity MB,

Glad to get rid of the POS Becker, got a decent price at a local store for the Kenwood and let them do the install. Worth every penny, the GPS works great and radio sounds good even with the stock speakers, and best part its bright enough to see.

Thanks again,
Rick

Kbikes said:

geds, thank to you and all the rest for the help and the recommendation on the KENWOOD DNX775RVS replacement radio to replace the Becker that came with my 2016 Unity MB,

Glad to get rid of the POS Becker, got a decent price at a local store for the Kenwood and let them do the install. Worth every penny, the GPS works great and radio sounds good even with the stock speakers, and best part its bright enough to see.

Thanks again,
Rick

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Rick:

I am still watching Crutchfield for them to lower the price from it's original list price. May I inquire as to where you found one and at what cost?

I am also interested in your opinion on the nav system. Is it really better than GoogleMaps and Siri?

Thanks!

I paid $1350 for the Kenwood at a local car audio store in CT, they charged around 200 for the install and extra wiring harnesses and steering wheel interface. End of the day it was around $1600 for everything, not inexpensive by any means but for me worth every penny.
Funny part is I used to install stereo systems 40 years back have many times since, I could have easily done the install myself and saved a couple of bucks. But by the time I chased down all the extras then the time to do the install it just was not worth doing it myself. They did a nice job on the install and the new Kenwood works great.

I was up in NH in the fall and had also went down to FL, I had GPS failures using my Iphone all the time during my trips, phone would loose its cell signal and it would loose its mind, bad as the Becker was the dedicated Satellite type GPS still worked better then the phone type apps.
Its is nice having a real Garman GPS plus being able to store the RV dimensions is the extra plus, to many time Google maps or Waze wanted me to drive through someones backyard to get somewhere. Usually I did not listen but was temped to listen sometimes, lol.
The Garman interface works well through the Kenwood and I can also use siri to ask for directions using google or Waze by using Apple Car Play features.

The other issues were Bluetooth for the phone on the Becker sucked, no one could hear me, the other was the dull screen, max screen intensity was still to dark to use for GPS or rear camera day or night.
Now I can see the screen make calls and also was able to add parking lines over the existing rear camera using the Kenwood, nice feature.

Still cannot believe MB sold and installed a junk radio like the Becker in such a expensive vehicle, scary.

Kbikes said:

Still cannot believe MB sold and installed a junk radio like the Becker in such a expensive vehicle, scary.

Click to expand...

Always worth remembering that up until the new cab design the Sprinter was a European delivery van. As delivered by Mother Benz this had next to nothing in common with MB luxury cars. The thin paper cone speakers are the same ones that your plumber was listening to when he drove up to fix your sink and the FedEx driver heard before he delivered the package on your porch.

Anyone know if the new cab has sound insulation equivalent to passenger vehicles? It's easy enough to sound deaden the doors, but firewall and floor, not so easy.

Can anyone who replaced the Becker system report on the pros/cons? I am curious to hear of loss of functions (dash display info) that they miss. I am considering replacing with an Alpine iLX-W650 and then use Android auto.

Thanks

Replaced with an Alpine unit, so much better than the Becker in every way. The only cons I can think of are that you lose steering wheel controls for the stereo (changing play modes, etc) phone and anything else the dash computer relied on the Becker for except volume control. I don't notice that unless I am scrolling through the dash menu and see a few screens that can't get data. One comment on the Alpine (if you get one with built in GPS) is that I have been very unhappy with the vendor (NaviExtras) they use for maps. I paid $90 for a map update two months ago and still can't download it. I contacted tech support and it sounds like a problem on their end. NaviExtras is based in Hungary and the only communication option I can find is via email. They said they would trouble shoot it and get back to me but it's been over a month since I alerted them to the issue and repeated attempts to get a status on the solution have been met with crickets... Too bad the Alpine unit is great but I don't think I'd buy one again because of the lack of support for the GPS.

Check out crutchfield.com for a compatible harness that will restore most steering wheel button functions.

MobileCabin when I did my Pioneer there wasn't a ready made harness available although it was easy to wire one. As msmolow mentioned Crutchfield now will even wire it for you. All of my steering wheel buttons work fine and I have never missed anything on the Becker or Dash display at all. Android Auto obviously vastly superior to anything MB had. If I was buying today I might not spend so much to get native maps. 90% of the time I use android auto which works even with no cell service if you save the map area first. On the very few occasions when I forgot and had no service I used a phone app with downloaded mapping (Sygic Truck). I think I used the native pioneer gps maybe 20 minutes in 2 years.