Does this car have the nannies that sense something on a hitch and make
the ABS and stability control go bonkers?
--R
On 8/23/17 9:34 PM, Mitch Haley via Mercedes wrote:
First, buy a Curt 56146 trailer light converter, it has its own power supply
and does not draw power from the taillight housings, just samples taillight
voltages to tell it what to do. This avoids trouble with the bulb warning light
in the dash. Also, I checked the impedence on the power input, with the turn
signals, brake lights and taillights off, it was 26kOhms, so there's no worry
about battery drain when you aren't using the car (the rear power outlet is
always hot).
Buy a Curt 13018 hitch (3500lb), Draw-Tite 75087 (5000lb) or Reese 44720 (8000lb). I
hoped the Curt would not require cutting away part of the plastic bumper cover, but
I still had to notch it to clear the gusset on the back of the hitch. (less cutting
than the Draw-Tite in the video, which sits higher and requires you to cut a notch
wide enough for the 2" receiver.)
Download these two videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUtq8gvv8jU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTj1GjgeEMY
I don't follow the videos exactly. When they take the bumper off, and then take
the flat panel antenna off the bumper, I just fold the back seat and stick the
bumper in the back with the right end hanging out to keep from pulling the wire.
I made several changes to the wiring video.
They stuck the box in the left taillight recess, then had to extend the wire to
the right taillight. I stuck the box under the bumper cover, and the green wire
was then long enough to reach the right taillight.
They used a self-drilling-tapping sheet metal screw to punch a hole in the body
and secure the ground wire. I fished the white ground wire through the bumper
plastic and secured it with the rightmost bumper plastic holding screw.
Advantage, no holes drilled in my car.
They ran a long wire and an inline fuse holder to the battery, running the hot
wire under the body along the frame. I ran a 5' wire through the bumper to the
right taillight housing, wiggled it through the rubber grommet for the
taillight wiring (so the body is still waterproof behind the taillight), and
used the same sort of blue wiring tap as was used at the taillights to tap into
the red wire at the rear power outlet/lighter socket.
To get access to the wire, I just had to take off the cargo net hook nearest
the outlet, peel back the rubber tailgate gasket, and pull the interior panel
away from the body until I could get my hand in there and unplug (no locking
clip, just unplug it) the wiring from the outlet. The wire is long enough to
pull out the CD changer access door for easy tapping. Now the trailer light
controller has a 20A fused power source, and there aren't any stray wires under
the body.
My one mistake: While I was wishing they hadn't set the wire lengths to force
you to put the unit by the left taillight (because my chosen power supply was
by the right taillight) I didn't think of the solution until just now as I was
writing this up. Instead of driving to town for a spool of 14ga stranded wire
to extend the power input lead, I could have put the unit under the right end
of the bumper, connected the tail and stoplight wires on the right side,
shortened the green turn signal wire, and used the excess green wire to extend
the yellow left turn signal wire over to the left taillight housing. That keeps
the power wire short, and allows you to do the entire install with the wires
that Curt furnished.
Pictures: The first one shows where I attached the converter box with the supplied
double sided tape. You can also see that the white wire is taped to a 3" zip
tie, I used that to fish the green wire over to the right side and to fish the white
ground wire into the bumper cover as I reattached the bumper cover. The second photo
shows how I ran the power wire parallel to the existing wiring harness and slipped
it into the body via the existing rubber seal.
Mitch.
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