MDI niggles

[cwcarruthers]

It works very well, the sound is great, but there are a few things that make it slightly less than seamless.

Sometimes when I start the car the iPod doesn't get recognised. And occasionally it recognises the aux port over the MDI (nothing is in the aux). I have to unplug my iPod and plug it back in again for it to work.

Occasionally at the start of a track it stutters/pauses for a split second.

Does anyone else have similar or other issues?

I have the exact same issues (factory fit in console).

To get some reliability I have to always set the iPhone playing whatever I want before I plug it in (paused of course), and wait 5-10 seconds after start up before turning on the RCD-510. The downside is that when I browse on the touch screen it goes to /Songs instead of where it is currently playing from. It seems to only know where to go to if you start playing from the RCD-510 unit, rather than start it from the iPhone before plugging in. Ugh.

As for the slight pause when changing tracks, that just sucks and I don't know how to avoid it.

Surely they can fix this in firmware? I am going to complain to the dealer at my first service, although I am convinced that will be entirely pointless.

[Corey_R]

As for the slight pause when changing tracks, that just sucks and I don't know how to avoid it.

This has been an issue with MP3 from day one. 'Gapless playback' was never written into the specification.

Although it is quite possible to do these days, so many device manufacturers and software writers have refused to do it or claim it's not possible.

Even Apple are to blame here to some point. The iPod itself can't do 'gapless playback'. They use iTunes to do 'preprocessing' so that it analyses the track and figures out how far through the first and last frame(s) the song starts and stops and passes that information to the iPod so that it has the information - rather than the iPod just doing that work itself like some older players (which Appled killed with the ipod) could.

My feeling is that iTunes is also doing this preprocessing for AAC files as well.

Anyway - if Apple's engineers aren't smart enough to do gapless playback on their hardware, I guess it's no surprise that VW's engineers have the same issue.

[INOV8]

How about the SD card slot? Has anyone had any issues with playback?

[AdamD]

Sometimes when I start the car the iPod doesn't get recognised. And occasionally it recognises the aux port over the MDI (nothing is in the aux). I have to unplug my iPod and plug it back in again for it to work.

Occasionally at the start of a track it stutters/pauses for a split second.

Does anyone else have similar or other issues?

I have a genuine Honda iPod controller for my iPod in my Accord Euro, and it does the same things. I use an iPod Classic 6.5 gen (current model, 120G HDD), and if it's been powered down for some time - perhaps 2 days or more - it takes a long time to wake up; by the time it becomes responsive, the Honda controller reports an error about the device.

To get around this, I always switch to tuner mode before I turn the car off, so when I start the car again, it's not trying to read from the iPod immediately.

As for the stuttering/pausing, I have that from time to time as well, and have attributed it to the iPod disk spinning up, seeking and buffering the track. Sometimes the iPod becomes unresponsive as well, and needs hard-rebooting followed by playback with headphones inserted before it'll play music. Bloody annoying.

[Karlosovic]

I have a genuine Honda iPod controller for my iPod in my Accord Euro, and it does the same things. I use an iPod Classic 6.5 gen (current model, 120G HDD), and if it's been powered down for some time - perhaps 2 days or more - it takes a long time to wake up; by the time it becomes responsive, the Honda controller reports an error about the device.

To get around this, I always switch to tuner mode before I turn the car off, so when I start the car again, it's not trying to read from the iPod immediately.

As for the stuttering/pausing, I have that from time to time as well, and have attributed it to the iPod disk spinning up, seeking and buffering the track. Sometimes the iPod becomes unresponsive as well, and needs hard-rebooting followed by playback with headphones inserted before it'll play music. Bloody annoying.

I have the same iPod as you
Having had it for a year or so now - and having had other mp3 players before it (like the Creative Zen),
I have reached the following conclusion:

iPod is rubbish

I now refer to any apple products as 'handbags' since they're just designer gadgets rather than proper tech

If you're having issues with the MDI / iPod - I'd look at the iPod

Incidentally, my work vehicle (Hyundai i30 - yeh, I know) also supports USB devices like iPod.
I don't yet have my new GTI (within a month now I hope) so I haven't tested the MDI, but the iPod interface on the Hyundai is awful.
Rather... the iPod isn't set up to be used the way the Hyundai wants to use it - which is just simple Folder/File names rather than ID3 tags
I think if I put music on my iPod with Winamp rather than iTunes (which I hate anyway) it would alleviate this problem as I could use sensible file names and a sensible directory structure, rather than the totally meaningless system that iTunes uses.
But it's easier to just load a 4GB usb stick with songs and whack it in. I don't have to manually shut down the iPod then either

[G-rig]

Yep it works, so I assume the iPod is doing the processing.

[Guest1306]

I think the majority of dealers do. I would estimate that 99% of our whole range in stock has it as a factory option. If someone does not want it and is adamant about not paying for it, then tuck in for a 6-9 month wait.

[kennyc]

Is it possible to remove it from the factory fit and then move it to the golvebox?

[G-rig]

Is it possible to remove it from the factory fit and then move it to the golvebox?

That's a lot of work why would you bother?

Armrest is good if you are using an iphone etc, but i dont mind glovebox either.

[Guest1306]

With the extra labour and parts involved (new glove box insert) you would end up at the same cost of just retro fitting it.

Although I personally prefer the factory fitted option, I do have one complaint, and it has been the same on every car I have had (I have had dozens at this stage) with factory fitted MDI, and that is the cable. It is too short and clumsy. In all cases, the space to fit the I-Pod and cable is too small, and it eventually ends up damaging the lead and or the I-Pod, causing random problems (not charging, going back to song A every time you shut the car off etc...) The space is just too small to squeeze both into..

Perhaps Volkswagen will issue a revised unit in the coming years to combat this, or perhaps I am just doing something wrong...