Could do with some help, I'm after a new head unit but unfortunately my budget doesn't quite stretch to a Columbus?! Could anyone give me the benefits of going for a Bolero unit? As its half the price. At present I have the basic standard unit that comes with the vRS ( stream ), so obviously any improvement is good??

Cheers

I'd be very careful with the Bolero. Seems to be very hit and miss with the car and the age of the Bolero as to whether you get decent levels of illumination (probably with the lights on) or next to no illumination at all making the screen virtually impossible to see during the day.

I experienced the latter and it wasn't fun. Quickly swapped it out for a Columbus. Twice the price but 10x better.

Yeah, I love my Bolero. It's down to three things: the age of the car and the maker and software version of the unit. I have a '58 octy so have no problems with the earlier canbus reading the unit okay, and I also bought a Revision 54 version unit so at the time it was the latest software and i've had absolutely no problems whatsoever. It's a Blaupunkt made one as opposed to the early Delphi ones which some people had a problem with illumination.

Basically, if you can get a 54 revision Blaupunkt (which it will probably be if that revision), and your car has a gateway used in abouuuuut a 2008 onwards car, you shouldn't really have any issues, although I'm sure someone will be able to point out what year the non problematic gateway was put in... think it was Gateway K from memory, there's plenty of threads about it on here.

You can see the '0054' which will show the revision on this sticker on the back of the unit, although you can get an older unit and get the dealer to update the software at a cost of summat or other.

Edited 21 May, 201313 yr by blackspaven

I found the Delphi was much brighter than the Blaupunkt i had later.

i sold my bolero and bought a complete unit from icebox auto..........£350 all in and just plugged in and worked no problems has dvd nav bluetooth handsfree and music streaming

these units get a real hard time i know but.......there is a company online cant rem their name off hand but they do custom software for these units as they are windows operated and they are currently doing an android one i think this will change everything for these units

it can be slow at times but i do deliveries and need to use the phone and sat nav at the same time i personally wouldnt change it

i also bought a high speed dvb-t tuner which runs off the headunit aux power and all fits neatly behind the heating controls :rofl:

Can you point me in the right direction for the icebox?

Can you point me in the right direction for the icebox?

There you go...

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Iceboxauto/_i.html?_nkw=skoda&_sid=930448446&submit=

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/8-Autoradio-GPS-DVD-Navi-Fur-SKODA-OCTAVIA-DVB-T-Fakultativ-/280835382370?pt=CE_Auto_Hi_Fi_Autoradios&hash=item416317dc62

I had my OEM Audience swaped with this one and to tell you the truth, I have no regrets of doing that...

You can update the firmware yourself. I downloaded the latest version, put it on the root of a USB and plugged it into the MDI. It does the rest itself. For some reason, some Bolero units (and some RCD510 VW equivalent units that I have in my Golf) are really slow reading from USB drives via MDI or from SD cards. If anyone knows how to fix this it would be useful info!