Yeah, I did, and while it's harder than I thought, I know it will work in the end! Besides, it was a bargain and hell, it's more fun this way

Did Skoda ever even fit them to cars on sale in the UK? I know the part numbers are on the database, but I wonder how many were actually made by VDO?

J

It'll certainly be a great achievement if you get them sorted Jon.

I'm sure others would be interested if it's relatively simple.

got my parts today so ill hopefully be fitting on sunday. its the wife birthday tomorrow so i doubt shell be too happy if im in the car all day!

Did I give you my number Stu, I can't remember.

Did I give you my number Stu, I can't remember.

nope, stick it on a pm or email if you would be so kind

Good luck with the install

nope, stick it on a pm or email if you would be so kind

PM sent.

after 4.5 hours on sunday evening I finally got the car kit fully fitted and after some helpful phone advice from vrstu got it working on monday after I found one of the crimps wasnt set right on the can hi connection.

first thoughts are that its V nice and works really well with all the systems in the car coming together as one. I found a couple of things from putting in the system in (along with the many bruises on my hand!)

stu has updated his web guide to say dont remove the sill trim from the b pillar. Heed this advice as once the clips are out of the b pillar joint they are impossible to get back in unless you take the pillar off or remove the seat. I am currently clipless in one joint but it doesnt seem to have caused any problems or bumps.

Where you bring the microphone up to the A pillar you dont have to run it up the side of the fusebox. there is a large hole just in front of the windscreen and you can bring the mic up there. I dropped a usb cable down so it dropped into the footwell and attached the mic to pull it back up.

USB Cable dropped down A Pillar

Where (silver) cable comes out near obd port

Getting the cable through the carpet and soundproofing from where the control unit is to the main loom is an absolute bitch! If you have electric seats then it is worse as i guess there are more cables going through there. The easiest route is to go below the existing seat wiring towards the sill and it will eventually get there. Having fingers like one of those aliens off close encounters would help here too.

Pic below shows black mic cable running under existing loom

I have found one problem with my phone (Orange SPV M3100 or Hermes) which unfortunately is affecting all audi/seat and bmw bluetooth kits in that it constantly connects then disconnects then connects etc etc. This drives you mad with the constant "bing" through the radio. The workaround at the moment is to turn off the standby on the phone but this means its turned on all the time so ill need to get a charger for the car :( It seems its the bluetooth stack on the phone which disconnects when the phone goes into standby.

The "Super Bonus" is that after some advice from stu he pointed out the change for the steering wheel that Andrey Economov of Russia had been looking at. The upshot is that the mute button from the multifunction steering wheel now kicks off the voice recognition Ive programmed in a few names and numbers for the voice but at the moment the old dear in the controller has difficulty with my accent for "Store", "Four" and "Star" For those without MFSW there isnt a button at the moment to do this, the alternative way of kicking off the voice dial is via the button on the cradle version. If this is just a dumb momentary switch to the controller then it may be possible for someone to knock up a button but i doubt it will be that easy as there are probably some electronics involved in the cradle that would have to be back engineered.

Lastly the phonebook. When adding my contacts it did a steady count all the way up to 560 which is my total amount of numbers on the phone! I was hoping it would just take the 50 odd off the sim card but now ive got the voice dialling this will be better as the maxidot will be able to say who is calling. Ive yet to confirm that its actually stored all those numbers or just a selection of them. I need to have a good look through the list.

Once again thanks to VRStu for his help in organising the GB and aftercare, also to Andrey Economov of Russia for his help to stu

Sounds brilliant all round - I'm now wondering if a retro-fit is possible for this kinda gear on the Fabia as well, but I doubt the BT kit will work unfortunately :(

pic added for my last post

Where you've passed the cable into the A Pillar Stu is the route I take but there is no need to go inside the pillar, it will go down between the lower A Pillar and the dashboard.

One quick question; has anyone done this install on a car with curtain airbags, does this make difference to cable routing?

One quick question; has anyone done this install on a car with curtain airbags, does this make difference to cable routing?

Good question, I have these too.....

As long as the cable doesn't interefere with the airbag should it deploy (ie is behind it) then you should be fine.

Having just installed my Bluetooth kit I thought I would add a few comments that may help others shortly about to embark on it themselves.

Firstly, routing the wiring from under the seat to the loom running by the sill:

The wires must be routed UNDER the insulation felt and not just the carpet, it's obvious once you've done it, but it took me a few attempts before I realised. Also, I loosened the drivers seat front mounting bolts which seemed to allow the carpet to move a bit easier.

Radio surround:

I found it difficult to get this piece out. The sides come away from their fixings easily, but the thin top strip is held in place by six (yes, six) fixing points. They are roughly 25mm in from each end, then 40mm apart. It would be easy to break this trim piece, so take care (indeed I broke one of the small fixings, but it's gone back on ok).

Sill cover:

The rearmost fixing of the sill cover is interlocked with the seat belt cover on the B pillar and its a b*t*h to get out. I ended up levering the B pillar cover upwards and twisting the sill cover at the same time.

Main Bluetooth wiring loom:

In Stuart's instructions, he routes the wiring across to the radio via the crash bar behind the instrument pod. I'm not sure that the wires on my kit would have stretched quite that far (e.g up by the fuse box, across the crash bar and down a bit to the radio) so I routed it above the polystyrene piece that runs at the lower edge of the lower dashboard cover. I tie wrapped it to one of the ventilation outlets to prevent any risk of it dropping by the pedals, but it seems fine.

Connections:

Stuart's method of using the extra connectors and disassembling the main connector is excellent.

HOWEVER, before you attempt it, find out how the pink retaining clip is removed from the main connector block (I still have no idea) and if there is a special tool for releasing the barbs on the connectors, purchase one (or two) before attempting the job.

I confess I managed only one connection done Stuarts way, then after much toiling, swearing, perspiring and with darkness creeping in, I gave up and cut the wires instead - I know I'll live to regret it, but I was beginning to lose the will to live at this point.

Also, check carefully the blue and yellow wires in the separate green connector block, the yellow wire came away from its connector during the installation, which fortunately I noticed before re-fitting the radio and rectified.

Without a suitable CAN-BUS cable, etc. I haven't yet got it programmed and running, but hopefully I should get it done this week so will find out if any of my shortcuts will come back to haunt me!

One last thing, having disconnected and re-connected the battery, a number of warning lights illuminate on the dashboard when I switched on the ignition, which was a bit disconcerting. However a quick read in the handbook informed me that this is normal and that they would all disappear once the car had been driven a short distance and this they did.

One minor irritation is that the average mpg figure was lost on the MFD and hence the miles to go dropped quite sharply (from about 135 to 65).

But all in all, this is a smart bit of kit (thanks Stu for organising it) and I'm sure it'll be well worth the blood, sweat and tears once it's programmed in.

Nice work, I hope you'll realise the fruits of your efforts when you get it coded.

To comment on some of your observations -

The sill trim doesn't need to come out. It can be pushed to one side by bending it over a depressed throttle pedal. I revised the guide a couple of weeks ago -

It's not entirely clear from the picture here but I feed the cable under the carpet initially, tight to the seat mounting and then put a small cut in the soundproofing, feeding the cable through it and into the sill cavity.

Truthfully the method of using the extra connectors is a pain in the ar5e but it does mean you don't need to cut anything. As I am sure Chris G will agree (we spent ages getting the terminals out on his today), getting the terminals out is a real pain. The pink locking part is best removed by pushing a small screwdriver or similar into one of the unused cable openings in the top of the plug and pushing it upwards and out. There are special tools for removing the barbed connectors, I have them, but a bent paperclip still seems to work best.

The wiring loom does fit accross the back of the dashpod, but there isn't any spare. I normally run the cable through to the radio and then once it's connected to the radio put a cable tie in to hold it behind the dash pod.

The warning lights are normally TPM and steering angle. The way to clear them is to drive in a straight line for a few yards.

If anyone is having any problems fitting I am happy to take calls and answer questions. If you don't already have my number then PM me before you start.

Having now got my b/t kit correctly coded (many thanks to Fluffmeister for carrying out the programming and demonstrating his extensive knowledge of VAG-COM - also a thoroughly decent bloke) on my vRS, I have a couple on questions.

1) As my car doesn't have a multi-function steering wheel or a phone cradle, is there an equivalent of the 'press to talk' button? And if so, what is it?

2) If there isn't a PTT button, how do you operate the voice activation and how would you delete the downloaded phonebook?

Other than that, I'd have to say that this is a first rate bit of kit and the sound quality in the car and for the person taking the call is very good and much better than many of the after-market kits.

Sadly I don't know how to active the voice function without the MFSW. The phone books are deleted when another phone is added I would think.

Sadly I don't know how to active the voice function without the MFSW

If a phone cradle was fitted, where would it connect to? I assume they are phone specific, is that correct?

It's not critical, but it seems that voice activation does offer quite a number of additional features / functionality.

You would need to modify the wiring loom that you installed and add the wires required from the cradle to the unit under the seat.

Having now got my b/t kit correctly coded (many thanks to Fluffmeister for carrying out the programming and demonstrating his extensive knowledge of VAG-COM - also a thoroughly decent bloke) on my vRS, I have a couple on questions.

.

:O I am a but a padawan learner under the tutorlidge of vag-com master Stu-bi wan kenobi

good to see it all sorted though and nice to meet you, big thumbs up to Stu for getting these bluetooth kit's, they really are top notch and mine is certainly a quantum leap forward in clarity from my old Parrot 3100 in the vRS

My octy has a bluetooth kit cheers stu, after 5 hours of delicatly pulling up trims and panels i got it all in. A tip for after you do the microphone if you look through the gap where the light has come out of (so you can fit the mic) you can see light through the trim to where the window is. If you carefully push the wire through there and carefully push it between the window and roof lining it will slide in there saving the time of trying to remove visor etc (which i couldnt get out no matter what i tried).

I did find the cables were a bit tight by the time i got round to the stereo (i didnt follow the instructions i tell you which way in a sec). ive also got a spare set of wires which i bought today which i never used in the end (minus 1) if anyone who is getting a kit wants to donate some money for them .

The way i did it was

bolt the bluetooth in (pulling the lining away to screw it in)

pulled off the sill and the cover going down the window and pulled off the stereo facia and stereo after i wired it all in (probably why i bullsed it up at one point).

Dont forget to use vag com to set it, mine kept turning on and off when any door was opned but seems ok now. also dont forget to plug the bluetooth ariel in as it does help

had a screw left a v bit of metal which was joined to the a pillar plastic trim which i couldnt get back in again with it on, but seems to sit snuggly there with the sill adjacent (and clipped together) and a bit of plastic which is a clip off of something, but as everything else fits in place it will do. Did lose a silver screw for the radio but i guess thats been screwed in elsewhere (but cant find it).

Just got to take off the radio in a few days to install the mp3 lead (and watch my wiring come apart)

Cheers stu, you had faith in me to do the kit, even through i didnt fancy demolishing a new car. I must admit personally the wiring can all stay in there when i sell it, ill just take the BT unit out and get new wiring.

I didn't doubt you for one moment mate.

if any of the folllowing applied then i wouldnt have given it a second thought.

1. not my car

2. its not a new car.

Just need people to ring now any ideas what i need to set with vag com to answer calls with the stalk? its not a major issue as you be doing the maxi dot soon

You'll need the Maxidot to remotely make and recieve calls. For now you are limited to dailing from the handset and utilising the Mic and Speakers.