The Serenity came with the Sprinter factory radio. It is a Becker A15, model RY2550, manufactured by Alpine. I guess in 2015 it was OK, but we have hated it from day one.
We hated it so much, we basically only used it to stream audio from my phone or a tablet. The Nav on it was so bad we used my phone or an Android tablet with google maps for directions that sat on the cup holder below the radio. It would some times slide off on a turn.
With the approval of my CFO (June), I finally ordered a replacement from Crutchfield.
I chose the Kenwood Excelon Reference DMX1057XR, here is a link to the Crutchfield site.
With all the adaptors needed to install it, it was not cheap.
Removal of the Becker was pretty easy. The bezel is just held on with 6 clips, 4 screws and the radio comes out.
For about $25 Crutchfield will prewire a harness that connects to your manufactures plug, it makes the job much easier. Their directions are pretty good with the exception of a few omissions.
Just incase anyone reads this that is doing the same job.
- Neither 3.5mm audio plug is needed, tape them up and tuck them away.
- The blue 4 pin plug goes to the old Becker GPS box in the glove box, it is no longer needed.
- The black coax plug is for the Radio Antenna - use the coax to Antenna adaptor.
- The green coax is the Backup Cam - use the coax to RCA adaptor to AV In on the Kenwood.
- The purple 4 pin goes to the USB A port in front of the driver - use the 4pin to USB adaptor.
The back of the dash cavern is quite large, in fact I dropped a roll of black tape in there and could not retrieve it, hopefully it will not cause issues in the future. I tucked all the wires and adaptors into the cavern and installed the Kenwood per the instructions. I am not impressed with the way they hold the radio, plastic clips on the side, time will tell if it holds up.
The job took about 3 or 4 hours, but much of it was figuring out the wiring, it could be done in a few hours if you have done it before.
I tested it most of the functions and things appear to work as they should. It sure is a better screen.
I put the GPS receiver and the microphone in the tray above the radio, I drilled a hole for the wires that is covered by the rubber mat in that tray. You can see the microphone just sticking up above the radio head in this picture.
One remaining item that I am contemplating is removing the GPS unit from the glove box since it is taking up unnecessary space. I will make an update to this blog if I remove it.
We are leaving in a few weeks for Florida, I am sure it will be much better than the old Becker.
Update: Today, 02Feb25, I removed the annoying GPS unit that was in the glove box.
It took up a lot of space in the glove box.
Three screws for the glove box, one for the side panel and three more for the under dash liner, three more for the mount, three more for the unit itself and it was off.
There were 3 connections to the box, I did not know what they all did, so after removal, I reconnected them and stuffed it in the back of the dash.
I used metal tape to close the hole in the back of the dash. It is much more roomy now.
It was a fun, quick and pretty easy upgrade.
24Mar2026 - On our West Coast trip. The Kenwood uses WiFi to link to my phone. When we are out of cell coverage (which surprisingly is often in California) I use my Starlink Mini, but since the Kenwood is using my Pixel8 WiFi connection, it is no help. How stupid. Tomorrow I will try to connect my cell phone via USB wire. If I remember correctly, I wired the USB input to the port on the dash in front of the driver..... I will try it tomorrow.
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