Morning all. Really after some quick help as to what I need to do. Situation is that both I and my brother have a Rapid Spaceback, he has the "Amundsden" unit fitted, mine has the "Swing" stereo.

He is about to part ex his car and has told me that we can switch stereos. The dealer who is part ex-ing is happy with this providing that my brother's Spaceback goes in at the end of the week with a fully working "Swing" unit.

I appreciate that the bluetooth modules are separate to the stereo head units and am assuming that this won't be a stumbling block. Both cars have Bluetooth.

Both cars have rear parking sensors. His has climate control, mine is manual air con. Any issues with these?

Last night, we quickly removed each head unit from the 2 cars and "swapped" to be greeted with the expected "SAFE MODE" messages and the requirement for the radio codes to be input for each unit. Neither I or my brother remember ever being given our respective codes.

Having read through numerous posts, am I correct in thinking that all we need to do is to phone our respective Skoda dealers and pay for release of the radio code information?

When we input the codes into each car, will either or both head units then work without VCDS coding?

Will the 2 cars behave differently, i.e. if my brother's car with the new Swing unit works fine but I need to VCDS code my car which will have the Amundsden, then that's OK because I will have time on my side. However, he won't because he is part ex-ing at the end of the week.

Any help greatly apprecaited. I only have a few days to sort this and it would be a real shame if I am unable to end up with the Amundsden unit in my car (which I intend keeping for quite some time).

I have also posted this question in the Skoda Rapid forum in case it prompts replies from Rapid owners who have first hand experience of what I'm trying to do. Apologies for any duplication.

The Amundsen more than likely has Bluetooth builtin, Swing doesn't, it's a separate unit. So you'd need to locate the Bluetooth and swap that along with the Swing, or sell separately (depending on what deal's been done with the dealer I supose) If Rapid is like Octavia, the bluetooth usually lives under the driver's seat in a sort of foam box, and has a cable running to a quadlock mini-extension/adapter cable (quadlock is the big black connector with the hinge lock on it.) If Admundsen has DAB you'll need an aerial for that too.

 

The dealer should be able to provide the unlock codes for the stereo (my local one has done several times for me, and for free too ) I went in with the headunit, v5 and license. Took about 10 mins.

 

Whereabouts are you? have you looked on the VCDS owners map for someone local who could help with the coding?

RainbowFire.

Many thanks for taking the time to reply.

We eventually paid a Skoda dealer for release of the radio code info. As mentioned in your post, we discovered that the Amundsden had built in bluetooth (rather than it being incorporated into the car) and we initially believed that this would scupper our plans for a switch of head units.

However, the dealer who was taking my brother's car in part ex eventually agreed to accept his car without bluetooth, so I am now the very happy owner of an Amundsden in my Rapid Spaceback. One or two things I need to sort out but, initially I think that the overall sound quality is a significant improvement over my previous unit.

Thanks for the comment re the VCDS owners' map. I didn't know about this. Have already PMd a local owner to see if he/she can help with some coding changes.

No worries

 

Did you take the mic out of the courtesy light unit? If not, I've got a spare and there are plenty on ebay.

 

Glad you got it sorted

Thanks for your further thoughts. Am I right in thinking that my car, which has the built in bluetooth module under my seat, already has the microphone in the light cluster?

Having initially thought that I was having issues with the 2 bluetooth modules competing against each other, when I sat in the car today and gave the phone setup a thorough testing, I was able to make/receive hands free calls without any issue. So it does look as though the bluetooth side of things is OK with the Amundsden talking to the in-car bluetooth (unless I've misunderstood things completely).

Very kind of you to offer me a spare mic, though.

Edited 18 October, 201510 yr by ted1888

Am not sure what happens if you have two BT units in the car. Given that the Amundsen has one built-in, personally, I'd be inclined to remove the under-seat one and sell it otherwise it'll just sit redundant under the seat. Especially if you're planning to keep the car for a while.

 

The mic: hmmm, usually there's an "in-between" loom that connects the BT and the mic to the head unit. If you sell the unit, you'll need to replace the mic loom as the looms are different. The "normal" Amundsen one connects straight into the quadlock on the green connector. The BT one is on that "in-between" one and usually has a couple of connectors (just phone, or phone and voice control {although voice control is fairly awful, by the time you've got the voice control to listen, you've already pushed way more buttons than just doing it yourself })