Hi all, this site is superb, all the information you require at a few clicks, truly brilliant.

Now to the point of my post, today I fitted a DAB columbus to my Superb estate.

I purchased a 2014 DAB unit from  Briskodian RUSTYNUTS, and fitted today, not the best day to do it because it was raining, you know the stuff that gets you wet....cyclists will know what I mean by that comment.

My car is a 2012 Elegance with Pan Roof. 

Before anyone asks I don't have any images-sorry it was raining i was wet and I forgot 

 

Aerial fitment;

The aerial is accessed from the rear of the car by pulling  seal out and then pulling the headlining down, the securing nut is 22mm A/F and is not really tight but you still need a spanner to undo. The Fakra connections were a bit awkward but did come apart quite easily. Mine only had the Blue and Purple connections the FM aerial is in the rear side windows on the estate otherwise there would be a third  White Fakra. 

With the Fakra's disconnected and the nut removed the aerial came off easily, there was loads of corrosion under there not from the car body but the base of the sharkfin. The replacement aerial base, 6RO 035 501 D,  was smeared with vaseline to mitigate further corrosion the nut was then tightened, beware this nut is awkward to get started, best to get a mate to push down on the aerial to give more exposed thread don't forget to connect the Fakra's. Test these connections to the radio before removing to make sure that the aerial is good and that the Fakras are correctly fitted, you can't get them wrong..... now remove the radio, it can be done without removing the air bag light but i removed the whole assembly. 

 

Aerial lead routing;

I have a electricians draw wire that I used for the routing of the cable, as my car has the pan roof and roof air bags there was limited space to route the cable along the passenger side, left hand side as viewed from the rear of the car. The draw wire(plastic)  fouled somewhere near the B pillar and would not go any further when pushed through from the rear. The solution was to use a stiff wire, taped to the  removed draw wire adding approximately 1.2m in length to push through form the pulled down passenger door headling, this allowed sufficient rigidity to  find a clear route into the rear of the car. The new DAB Fakra was taped to the stiff wire and this was carefully drawn through back into the front passenger area.The wire was then pulled through  and the front A pillar trim pulled out a little, the Fakra is physically quite large so this was un-taped from the draw wire and fed through into the removed side cover. The cable was then pulled trough behind the glovebox; there is so much soundproofing that the rigid or flexible draw wire could not through. The new radio was unpacked connected and fitted in minutes, simples.

 

After 2 hours my DAB upgrade is fully operational and that is all that I can say. 

 

A great deal of thanks for thelp with his upgrade goes to Rustynuts a true legend, a genuine honest bloke who wants to and is wiling to help with loads of my silly questions. I hope that this is of use to someone I will try to answer any questions.

Been trying to get to my Superb estate’s aerial. I pulled the seal around the boot lid and the rear pillar covers. The headliner won’t budge downwards more than a cm or so. Not enough to get my hand in. Is there a knack or something I am missing? It looks like it will move better if I pull the rear handles and the C pillar covers. Still figuring out how the C pillar covers are installed. 

there are just a couple of pieces of velcro apart from the boot water seal, unless someone fitted a dog guard and you have two ceiling sockets for it?

Ah thank you. Where is the Velcro roughly? No dog guard installed, didn’t want to force it and crease it all!

Found the two Velcro tabs at the rear by the door rubber, but looks like the liner won’t pop down without the C pillar covers coming off. Anyone got a line on how they come off?