Jelibeli

Hi, I'm part-way through fitting one of these dashcams to my car: http://www.dashcamtest.de/en/review-blackvue-dr650gw-2ch/. Right now, I've got the front camera fitted & working very nicely, but I haven't started fitting the rear camera yet. I need to run the single combined video & power lead through the tailgate wiring duct, then to the camera at the front. I would expect the most direct route (across the headlining) will be tricky, although I do have a long length of electrical conduit I can use to guide it during fitting. Can anyone help me with the following questions: 1. Is the direct route going to be the easiest? 2. If so, how to I drop the rear of the headlining to get started? 3. If not, where should I run it instead? I'm not entirely sure how long the cable is, I'm fairly sure it will reach directly behind the headlining, but I don't know it it's long enough to go down a pillar & back up at the front. It could reach if I went all along the side of the headlining & across at the front, I suppose. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, I've just ordered a tailgate-release reversing camera as recommended in another thread, and I was wondering where to run the wires to get them to the power (will use the boot light supply as recommended by another thread) and the head unit. I know a couple of people have done this, and I wondered what trim parts had to be removed to feed the wires through. I'm also going to fit a rear-facing Blackvue dash cam (the front part of it is already fitted & working), so I'll be running that one behind the head lining - that's another question I'll be asking shortly. I would have asked the reversing camera question in the other thread, but that one has been locked for some reason. I'll add links to the threads I've mentioned in a moment. In the mean time, can anyone help guide me with my reversing camera wiring? Thanks. EDIT: Links to the other threads: Release handle camera: http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/350665-number-plate-lamp-reversing-camera Power for reversing camera: http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/306871-power-for-aftermarket-reverse-camera

I'd be interested to hear how you get on - although I'm sceptical about whether you'll have any success. I've been involved on the edges of this kind of thing for a number of years, and active anti-noise in any kind of space takes a lot of power, both audio and processing. You have phase issues which you have to manage throughout the whole cabin, or at the very least target the occupant ear positions. I've seen particular issues like a single gear whine etc. dealt with for demonstration purposes, but the only active systems I've seen have any success on production vehicles are those that use active devices to cancel vibration at the mounts or suspension inputs, and thereby avoid the noise being generated in the first place. And those have only ever been on high-end cars. Could be interesting to see if you have any success, though.

Really useful - this is on my list of things to do. One question - will this fit to PFL cars as well as FL cars?

I've just bought the correct trim for this off Skodaparts to fit my DNX525DAB. http://www.skodaparts.com/product/octavia-radio-trim-for-sat-nav-2004-2008-50284 Wasn't the speediest of delivery though.

Thanks. I've spent enough on the car lately, so I'll cope as it is!

Is there any way to get the trip computer to light up all the time without needing the lights on? It's a bit tricky to read in daylight without it being lit up. Other cars I've had light it up brighter during the day, and dim it when you put the lights on. Can this be done?

I've had a couple more days with it, so here's an update. In Birmingham and on the M42/M40, DAB reception is good. It's a bit 'kermit' inside the garage, and it drops out twice a day when out & about (in the same spots on the motorway, only in one direction). The nav voice can be turned up by turning the knob when she's speaking. The preset green matches the night illumination perfectly, but not enough of the display uses it in my opinion. I'd love to be able to customise it a little more - mine came as a VW unit, but there are instructions for changing the start screen elsewhere in this forum. Be aware that the screen proportions are not perfectly square. The display is 800x480, 16:9 ratio, meaning the pixels are slightly wider than they are tall, by about 6.67%. It is noticeable if you put a round badge on the screen. The internal video scaling takes care of this for DVDs, so they look normal, but if you create your own start screen or background, be aware that you're going to have to make any badges narrower by 6-7% so they look right on the display. My 240x256 skoda badge looks very slightly fat - it should have been 236 (or less) x256. DVD playback is OK, but I had to figure out how to use the touchscreen to select menu items on DVDs - it doesn't default to this mode, I pressed on the screen for a few seconds until some message came up, then I could use the touchscreen for DVD menus. Sound, as I said before, is awesome. The setting that I thought would give me speed-dependent volume doesn't work, it just makes the sound even more expanded, punchy and, I'll say it again, awesome. I'll try to remember what sound setting this was - I think it's something like 'drive enhance'.

Thanks all - this thread has helped me out after today's panic. I hoofed the car to get on the motorway ahead of another car when it wasn't fully warm (I wasn't happy doing it but I had little choice), and it's obviously gone into limp-home mode - hardly any power in higher gears, couldn't get it above 73mph unless I was going downhill. I'll see if my sedentary driving style works OK again tomorrow, and I'll remember to give it some gentle beans once it's warm to clear things out. Otherwise, I'll try the innotec (if I can find some detailed instructions on what's involved). The low power got me an extra 5mpg though, so it's not all bad...

Trim should arrive in a couple of days, then I'll post all the pics together.

See if you can find someone with one of the chinese units to try out. I'm sure I'll come to like the kenwood unit after I've finished getting everything set up that should really be automatic. I've found a setting that may or may not give me the speed-related volume control, and I'll persevere with the TMC activation. If you're thinking of getting the kenwood dealer-fitted, you may have fewer problems as they should set it all up for you. I'm worried that I'm being a little too harsh, but I keep remembering the price tag, and then I think that maybe I'm not. But then I have to remember that my car is pre-FL, and I think it's only recommended for post-FL cars, so maybe there are some integration issues.

Another observation from using it this afternoon - the NAV volume is set at one, fixed volume which you can choose in the settings, but it doesn't follow the overall unit's volume. If you set it OK for urban streets, it's far too quiet on the motorway. And in my car (PFL Octavia II), the head unit's volume doesn't change with speed, but that may be a limitation of the car or the older CANBUS system, even though the Stream it replaced very clearly got louder as I went faster. And reflections from the screen are an issue with the mounting position in the Octavia. Looks very nice in a tunnel, though!! To be fair, the Stream also had an issue with this.

I have some photos, but it's got the wrong surround right now. I'm waiting for the right one from skodaparts.com - the order was placed with them a week or so ago, so it should be here soon (I hope).

I've just fitted a Kenwood DNX525DAB to my PFL Octavia II, and I thought I'd share some of my observations. It was surprisingly easy to fit, although I did invest in a set of trim removal tools so I didn't damage anything. I found routes through for most of the wires, and space to store the link harness, although I was surprised that the car was so well built that there wasn't anywhere to feed the USB cable into the glove box - I will have to drill & trim a hole through for that, but I was warned by another user's post that this may be the case. There was no need to splice & solder wires - the kit has the complete wiring link harness, including CANBus interface & dual-fakra aerial connector, and it just plugs together (although a lot of the connections are tight). The DAB aerial was also easy to fit, although it wasn't quite the one described in the instructions - just a single plastic piece to peel off, rather than three. Getting the trim off the A-pillar and the centre stack, as well as removing the vents / cubby box to find a home for the GPS antenna, were all easy. It fired up first time with no problems. The touchscreen is sensitive & responsive, but sometimes just goes dead while the unit is doing something else - like reading the USB index for example. It genuinely takes about three minutes before you can search by artist, album or genre - you have to make do with folder searches for the first three minutes, and I'm usually well on my journey by then, so I don't want to be distracted. And the USB limitations are ludicrous. My previous 1-DIN kenwood bluetooth unit (BT-60U) could handle whatever I threw at it (biggest I tried was 64GB USB), as long as I used my PC to create the kenwood index file first, and it responded pretty much straight away. This one is limited to 255 folders, 255 files per folder and around 62k files in total. The last limit isn't an issue, but I had to rearrange my library several times before I got below the 255 folder limit. And this is with the kenwood index file created as well. On to the navigation - my first attempt was a bit of a failure: First restaurant I wanted to go to wasn't on the POI list. Then I tried to activate the TMC feature. But I can't, because you have to phone Garmin and they don't answer at weekends, only during office hours when, funnily enough, I'm working & I can't call them. The unit tells you to go the website to activate it, but the quickstart says you can't, you have to create an account, then phone garmin, then get access to the TMC part of the website to enter the code. This is a bit crap to say the least - this is 2015, FFS! I must say, even through the ten-year-old OE speakers it sounds absolutely awesome - far better than the non-MP3 Stream unit it replaced, and the DVD playback feature is fun, although I'm only buying blu-rays now, so that will go out of date quite quickly. Having the blue 'navigation ready' bar at the bottom all of the time is annoying, especially when everything else is green to match the interior lighting of the car. Overall, if I knew all of this before buying, with all the faff I would have to go through to get everything working and up-to-date (still not sorted TMC & update POIs, and I haven't tried updating the maps or speed camera database yet), I might have gone for a Chinese unit instead - at least I would have been prepared for the fiddling and messing around I would have to do, rather than have it happen unexpectedly when buying an OE-approved item. I think I may swap back to using my phone for nav, and leave the head unit for music. I'm disappointed, and for the price I expected something much, much better.

I'll find out soon enough - I've fitted the Kenwood today, just waiting for the nav trim to arrive & I'll see if it fits.

Hi. Thanks for that. Just one correction: the image has to be on a microSD card, not on the USB. Just finished fitting mine & this was really useful.

http://www.gpsunderground.com has a selection, but if you search for images of exactly 800x480 you'll get quite a few options, including a couple of (rather crap looking) Skoda ones. Get an image editor (Gimp2, for example), get some images & textures, and create your own.

Hi all, Just wanted to check I was planning to do the right thing. I'm thinking of installing a Kenwood DNX525DAB into a PFL Octavia 2, and I understand there's a lot of functionality I won't have, such ATC heater display, PDC display and MaxiDot integration, none of which are fitted to my car anyway. I want to check that the fascia trim plate I need for it to fit is this one: http://www.skodaparts.com/product/octavia-radio-trim-for-sat-nav-2004-2008-50284 It's for the manual AC system, which my car has, but it's the nav-shaped trim rather than the stream-shaped trim, which is in the car at the moment. Is this the right one to fit the Kenwood?

Apologies for the double-post. I've learned that a colleague of mine has VAGCOM - can that do the steering wheel module coding that's needed for MFSW and Cruise Control?

OK, so not as poverty as I thought - it's got the rear vents, so I assume I've got the Jumbo box, as well as the dash dimmer & headlamp adjuster. So it's wheel, highline controller, slip ring, maybe angle sensor and cruise lever. I'm probably going to go for an aftermarket head unit of some kind - the cost of the OE parts I'd need (even second hand) soon adds up to more than a Kenwood DRX525DAB anyway. Thanks very much for the help!!

I'm a relatively new Skoda owner (well, not yet, just need to agree a price with my dad) and his old car is a proper base spec 2005 Ambiente - the only options are metallic paint and rear armrest. I'd love to have cruise conrol fitted, but as I don't have an MFSW, I've probably not got the right module. I'm in Birmingham but I have very little spare time. How can I get my car scanned, and what will I need to fit? I'm considering going up to an MFSW anyway.

I have used a spray cleaner before now (on a Rover L-Series engine) and it gave a small improve in engine response so it seems to have done something. As long as you follow any precautions the manufacturers may suggest (such as not spraying directly on to the MAF sensor element), you may find it does enough to keep you going until you can get the full job done. I forget which one I had - I think it was the more powerful of the two that Wynn's supply, but I'm not sure.

I'm also toying with the idea of getting either a pioneer or kenwood VAG-specific unit (if I can bear the cost), but I can't find anything confirming that they will work with an 05-plate PFL Octavia, and fitting seems very involved for something that's meant to be application-specific.

I think I know the answers to these questions, after reading the whole thread, but I just want to check... 2005 pre FL Octavia Ambiente, currently fitted with the basic Stream system & CD changer, no parking sensors. Would I be able to directly drop-in an AS620 with no other fascia plates etc, would it work OK and would I be disappointed with the functionality and sound?