Good Morning Guys,

Just thought i'd post my experiences of fitting a Parrot 3200LS bluetrooth hands free into my vRS.

First off i'd like to thank everyone (too many individual posts to list them all here) who has posted in the past relating to fitting bluetooth kits, the connector on the Stream Head Unit etc .. thanks guys and keep up the good work .

After trying to use a Garmin Sat Nav with it's handfree bluetooth which is fine until you have any amount of road noise and inevitably you have to pick you the phone as you can no longer hear anything (and i'm sure the caller is loving the 'echo' effect).

Anyhow .. took a trip to Halfords on Saturday morning to see what all they had and if like others have suggested an interface cable is available as well. Upon checking their system they had the interface cable available (took a bit of convincing for the guy to check as he was sure they'd have nothing for Skoda .. until i told him it was exactly the same as a Golf). The cable cost £19.95 and was made by Audio Leads (actually listed cable is also used on BMW's and must be popular as they had quite a stock). I really looking for the Parrot CK3100 but ended up with the 3200LS as they had it in stock and not that much more expensive. Halfords has offered my free fitting, but when i asked about getting a switched 12V supply to the unit, the guy promptly said 'That's not normal installation, that lead would be extra, sir.'. I asked how much and he said £45, with that i decided a DIY fit was the way to go.

Ok enough with the waffle and on with the fitting ....

I found stripping the centre console and Stream unit out of the car relatively easy. I set everything out on the passengers seat and proceeded to connect everything up and test. The parrot kit consisted of a bluetooth box about the size of an audio cassette case the microphone and display screen. The Interface loom consisted of a male and female connector to plug into the existing skoda connector and provide ISO breakout connectors for the Parrot to plug into. All powered up and functioned as expected. One thing i did notice was that the connection for the CD Changer & Jumbo Box was not carried through the interface loom so i had to split the car loom and leave that connector to allow it to be pluged into the back of the unit once everything else was installed.

First obsticle hiding the mircophone & cable. I decided to mount the microphone at the top of the plastic strip on the drivers pillar, this was relatively easy to do as the wire tucked nice in behind the plastic trim along the endge of the windscreen and i was able to bring the end down into the fuse box. Not wanting to do too much stripping of the dash i was able to feed a relativly string piece or wire from the fuse box around the stearing column and into the cavity behind the radio unit. With the microphone wire and wire for my 12V switched source taped to the end i pull both through.

I connected the 12V switched to the line to the switched line on the parrot and again connected up and tested. Like others on the site i wanted to mount the display on top of the pocket above the gear stick so i positioned the unit and fed the lead up behind the pocket lid and into the cavity.

Now came the most difficult part of the installation finding room for everything behind the dash. Firstly the audio cassette size parrot bluetooth box. I found that it slipped down in behind the dash relatively easily and i could tuck a lot of the wires in along with it. However no such luck with the skoda connector and it's interface connector. Although there is a lot of space behind the dash on either side of the radio the connector physically wouldn't fit past the edges of the housing to move into the gaps. So having looked at possibly stripping more of the dash i decided that by cutting a tiny part of the back of the dash away i could slip the connector and all the wiring to one side.

So i got my dremel out and cut an small piece of plastic about 15 mm wide out of the back of the dash and the connector slipped through nicely and left the bay for the radio to go back into almost totally clear. Having connected the CD-changer cable back to the unit and plugging the aeral i fitted the unit back into the dash and turning on, everything appeared to be fine. Having replaced the facia etc to my horror the cd-changer was showning no cd's even though there are 6 in it. Was worried then that i'd have to strip the dash back to reseat the cd-changer connector, but just before i did that i took all the CD's out of the changer and put them all back in and with my relief they were all recognised as normal.

Impressions of the system as a whole are very good, quality of speach both in the car and on the other end of the conversation are very good. So all in all I am very pleased with the installation and it was a very well spent 2 hours on saturday afternoon.

The guy at the halfords store was a weener. I Tend to do the switched live running as part of the free fit. I bet that store never meets their fitting budgets, about 90% of modern cars dont have a switchable ingition at the radio and require a feed running through.

Good work, Its so much more rewarding when you it yourself Plus you know if the kit ever goes fualty where everything is and can easily get to the blue box.

Job well done

Thats true, i just figured they were trying to make money on the 'free' fitting when they had an 'excuse' to do so.

I knew my way around the inside of the car from fitting my sat nav to a switchable supply earlier in the year and from all the great posts and pictures on here, thanks guys

Hi just a quick question,why does my parrot ck3200 stay live when i switch my ignition off , its doing my head in, what am i doing wrong ,it stays live all the time , HELP.

Probably cos you have a perm live rather than a switched live from the ignition.

I beleieve that some cars require 2 cables swapping in loom somewhere but will depend on how its fitted.

Have a look at the forum at Sio Communications Home page

Terry who runs the site and is an installer is highly reccommeded for any one interested in getting a pro to install a car kit.

The forum also gets replies from auto-leads which can be usefull too.

Steve

Hi just a quick question,why does my parrot ck3200 stay live when i switch my ignition off , its doing my head in, what am i doing wrong ,it stays live all the time , HELP.

You dont have it connected to the switched live, as mentioned earlier there is no switched live behind the headunit. You need to make a connection to the back of the fusebox to get a switched feed.

Cheers lads , thanks for advice.

Is this the same with the Octavia I?

Is this the same with the Octavia I?

No, its plug and play with the mk1, as it has ISO connectors the same as the Parrot kit.

Did mine 2 weeks ago, easy peesy.

Nice work chap.

If you struggling for space for the main control box, there is a good sized cavity under the ash tray. Remove the inner part of the ash tray and there are two screws by the gear lever cover, remove these and the whole lot slides out. Thats where I put mine anyway.

Is this the same with the Octavia I?

No, its plug and play with the mk1, as it has ISO connectors the same as the Parrot kit. Did mine 2 weeks ago, easy peesy.

I have a 2002 Skoda Octavia L&K with the factory Symphony radio. Do you mean, I just have to order the Parrot and NO adapter wire conector?

Also, can you post pics were you put the Parrot Disply

THX,

Isaac

I have a 2002 Skoda Octavia L&K with the factory Symphony radio. Do you mean, I just have to order the Parrot and NO adapter wire conector?

Also, can you post pics were you put the Parrot Disply

THX,

Isaac

No adapter required for mk1, just plug and play.

Ill take a picture tomorrow and post it up.

You do need to follow the instructions on swapping over the bullet connections in the parrot loom to deal with the switched lived and permy live being backwards in VAG cars, but it is all documented in the handbook and otherwise it's a plug and play jobby in a MK I octy.

Forgot about this, going out in the motor in a bit, so will take a snap.

I fitted a MK6100 bluetooth kit that streams music from my mobile. I took a while to fit because there is not much room at the back of the head unit. I ran the wires from the ISO connector down to the right at the back of the raido and fitted the Parrot control module under the lower dash cover beside the drivers left leg. It works a threat :-)

Tucked all my gubbings behind the glove box.

On a MK I I found that putting the box to the left of the radio with industrial velcro, taking the glove box out to get there was the best for ease of fitment.

Run the mic up the passenger A Pillar to the central console, the controller out a spare button blank with a notch cut in it and it's all good

Anybody tried the Nokia ck-300? It's suppose to use the phone screen as a display and have a friendly car menu while connected.

It also charges the phone and streams mp3 via bluetooth as well.

Anybody tried the Nokia ck-300? It's suppose to use the phone screen as a display and have a friendly car menu while connected.

It also charges the phone and streams mp3 via bluetooth as well.

Looks like they've uprated the CK-20w I was looking at replacing my CK7w with a few months back.