Hello all,

This is my first post, but looking for some help with an issue a friend has with their 98 E. I couldn't figure this on out myself and it looks like the Mercedes dealership is stumped as well...My friend was driving along when her radio muted and displayed "Phone," but the actual in-dash base unit for the car phone is off. To complicate things, she doesn't have the original handset, since the car was bought used.

So far we've tried removing the appropriate fuses, and swapping out a new radio, but the phone setting is still on the radio! And of course tried to press every button on both the radio and the base unit that looks off. One of the options we're going to look to explore is maybe just unplugging the battery for 10 minutes or even trying to take the base unit for the phone out. I don't have too much experience with Mercedes so I'm kind of at a loss and looking for some help. Has this happened to anyone else, or does anyone have any other recommendations to get the radio off "phone?" Thanks in advance for any help you can give me...the dealership has never seen this before and their best recommendation is to find someone with the handset, borrow it, and power it down hoping that it'll detect a phone turned off and therefor disengage the setting on the radio. I have to believe there's a better way!

 

bump - help! Problem still not solved!