Right, we’ll, I got my Monte Carlo on Wednesday and I’m thrilled to bits with it.  However one thing I’m not so thrilled with is the stereo.

 

Its an eBay special,  looks like one of the OEM RNS items but runs on android.  It works to some extent.  Sat nav works perfectly.  However it’s main purpose of playing music is a complete lottery.  The radio is horrendous, terrible signal, no RDS, crackly and awful, the Bluetooth worked on Wednesday and hasn’t worked since (several phones tried, both iPhone and android), playback via a USB stick results in it freezing on certain songs (I discovered it particularly hated Kylie, but who can blame it),  the DVD player played a disk once then for every subsequent disk it told me that visuals were “forbided while the handbrake is ON” which seems back to front, but okay.  It has a display to tell you when the doors are open, but these are reversed so when the drivers door is open the passenger side shows on the screen and vice versa. Most curiously it you hunt down the menus it has some games and a (wait for it) bra size guide!

 

The manufacturer is “A-Sure”, I’m guessing that trying to get in touch with them will be “forbided” (sorry bad joke), or at least difficult.

 

I did ask about these RNS lookalikey Android stereos some time ago and someone pointed me in the direction of a reasonably decent looking one, but I have to be honest my faith in these units is quite low after seeing this one in operation (in the loosest possible sense of the word).  I don’t know if it’s typical of these type of units or if A-Sure are just one of the worse ones.

 

I’m wondering what my options are?  A second hand OEM stereo, if so which one? (Sat nav not a priority, I can get it on my phone), or would I be better getting a branded double DIN unit and a fascia adaptor?  Or has anyone any experience with these A-Sure units and is it salvageable?

 

 

I have that one, are you sure its Android because mine is WinCE.

 

My previous one another chonky make would crash all the time like yours, it just could not multitask yet the A-sure one which was a bargain at £80 is completely stable.

 

It has a couple of niggles that I cant resolve like the door handing, that I programmed out on the other unit but cant find an option to do it on the A-sure, there is a further factory programming menu only accessible by the factory code (try 3368) where the function should be found but they are all in incomprehensible Chinglish and none I tried would change it.

 

Instead of being able to choose between 4 backlight colours for the buttons mine only has Blue and White, the latter just being a dimmer Blue.

 

Not even tried the Bluetooth on this one, the last one drove me mad because it wanted me to repair the phone every time I switched on the ignition.

 

I hit lucky this time, all the functions I want to use, radio, CD, CD's copied to the memory card, Satnav, reversing camera etc all work and will work together without it crashing, for the money its more than I expected, my expectations were revised to reality after the experience with the first unit, a Tingtonglinglong something or other.

Sounds like the unit was already installed when you bought the car, regarding the radio its very easy to break the special connector so check that first.

 

I also had radio reception problems on this one, I cant recall what I did but it was something either in the radio set up or the unit programming which resolved it, prior to that it seemed like a duff aerial.

5 minutes ago, J.R. said:

I have that one, are you sure its Android because mine is WinCE.

 

My previous one another chonky make would crash all the time like yours, it just could not multitask yet the A-sure one which was a bargain at £80 is completely stable.

 

It has a couple of niggles that I cant resolve like the door handing, that I programmed out on the other unit but cant find an option to do it on the A-sure, there is a further factory programming menu only accessible by the factory code (try 3368) where the function should be found but they are all in incomprehensible Chinglish and none I tried would change it.

 

Instead of being able to choose between 4 backlight colours for the buttons mine only has Blue and White, the latter just being a dimmer Blue.

 

Not even tried the Bluetooth on this one, the last one drove me mad because it wanted me to repair the phone every time I switched on the ignition.

 

I hit lucky this time, all the functions I want to use, radio, CD, CD's copied to the memory card, Satnav, reversing camera etc all work and will work together without it crashing, for the money its more than I expected, my expectations were revised to reality after the experience with the first unit, a Tingtonglinglong something or other.

 

i assumed it was Android but you might be right regards WinCE as I'm fairly sure I noticed a Windows style error on a previous crash.

 

Sounds like it's complete pot luck if these things work or not.

3 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Sounds like the unit was already installed when you bought the car, regarding the radio its very easy to break the special connector so check that first.

 

I also had radio reception problems on this one, I cant recall what I did but it was something either in the radio set up or the unit programming which resolved it, prior to that it seemed like a duff aerial.

 

Yeah already in the car.  I'm fast running out of patience with it 😂

Yep, a windows sysmbol beside some writing like a Chinese sick note

 

My old unit spent most of its time displaying those, the new one never.

 

Here is some advice regarding living with your unit.

 

Switch off the auto-start navi function and any other things that auto-start.

 

Use just one function at a time, radio, CD etc. switch them off before using the Shatnav, easier said than done, my biggets gripe was the radio booming out every time I turned the ignition on, I had to leave it set to an unused input like the TV.

 

Switch on the satnav only when you want to use it, dont listen to the radio or music at the same time, accept that parking sensors (if they display) door open display or reversing camera if fitted will likely cause the system to crash.

 

The multi-tasking is not such a problem if the Shatnav is not used and reversing etc with the radio on is less likely to cause a crash, the virtual CD player will rarely play more than a few tracks without crashing, its better to copy them onto the memory card than onto the units memory.

 

The satnav may refuse to loadn buying a new one on a memory card for less than a tenner from China will get it working again, had to do that twice on the old unit, the A-sure to date seems OK.

 

If you ever do a VCDS scan expect fault code city as a result of fitting one of these radios.

 

 

2 minutes ago, J.R. said:

Yep, a windows sysmbol beside some writing like a Chinese sick note

 

My old unit spent most of its time displaying those, the new one never.

 

Here is some advice regarding living with your unit.

 

Switch off the auto-start navi function and any other things that auto-start.

 

Use just one function at a time, radio, CD etc. switch them off before using the Shatnav, easier said than done, my biggets gripe was the radio booming out every time I turned the ignition on, I had to leave it set to an unused input like the TV.

 

Switch on the satnav only when you want to use it, dont listen to the radio or music at the same time, accept that parking sensors (if they display) door open display or reversing camera if fitted will likely cause the system to crash.

 

The multi-tasking is not such a problem if the Shatnav is not used and reversing etc with the radio on is less likely to cause a crash, the virtual CD player will rarely play more than a few tracks without crashing, its better to copy them onto the memory card than onto the units memory.

 

The satnav may refuse to loadn buying a new one on a memory card for less than a tenner from China will get it working again, had to do that twice on the old unit, the A-sure to date seems OK.

 

If you ever do a VCDS scan expect fault code city as a result of fitting one of these radios.

 

 

 

I'm becoming more and more convinced that I should just find a Skoda one and fit that 😂 i hope this thing was plug and play with no wiring butchered haha.

 

Cheers for the advice.  I'll try closing the sat nav down, see if that helps it to stop picking on poor old Kylie.

Turning off the sat nav seems to have improved things JR,  managed a full hours drive without the stereo crashing and rebooting while playing mp3s.  I might be speaking too soon, but fingers crossed that’s it sorted it.

I'm stoked to hear that, I spent months trying everything and was at the point of throwing in the towel before I tried that as a final last ditch attempt.

 

As I said I have 2 versions of what I am convinced is exactly the same head unit sold under different names (no names written on the actual units), the female version works fine, the male one cannot multi-task

6 hours ago, TheRivieraKid said:

 Most curiously it you hunt down the menus it has some games and a (wait for it) bra size guide!

 

 

 

Ahem! Perhaps they thought you might make a bigger tit of yourself, then the previous owner!   👙

 

@mrgf

 

😂

Any optionfor a factory reset and then just start againwith the set up?

On 11/06/2020 at 20:53, skomaz said:

Any optionfor a factory reset and then just start againwith the set up?

I’ll have a play with it later today.  I’m not convinced resetting it to factory will be any better mind you lol.

I hope you can read Chinese if you do that.

 

Ask me how I know 🙁

Hahahahaha....

 

....how do you know?

 

因為我很愚蠢，可以嘗試一下！

Yīnwèi wǒ hěn yúchǔn, kěyǐ chángshì yīxià!

41 minutes ago, J.R. said:

 

因為我很愚蠢，可以嘗試一下！

Yīnwèi wǒ hěn yúchǔn, kěyǐ chángshì yīxià!

😂😂