installing aftermarket stereo in T5

[Sunny43.5]

You can pick from this lot , these are what we have in out 3 T5,s and we are happy they all come with Can Bus adaptors the radio side is not as good as original but for me that's not an issue . There are shed loads of aftermarket radios by major brands single and double din and they also have radio issues.vw au items - Get great deals on Special Car DVD Player items on eBay Stores!

[kordo]

So not many people install the Alpine, Pioneer etc equivalents? After all there are no steering wheel controls etc on mine. It's a basic unit

[kordo]

You can pick from this lot , these are what we have in out 3 T5,s and we are happy they all come with Can Bus adaptors the radio side is not as good as original but for me that's not an issue . There are shed loads of aftermarket radios by major brands single and double din and they also have radio issues.vw au items - Get great deals on Special Car DVD Player items on eBay Stores!

Have you powered the arial? It's required on all VWs to keep good signal

[Sunny43.5]

On our two older vans it was unsuccessful I had tried a method explained by car radio place but this did not work , on our latest I used a roof mount aerial from a Nissan XTrail it is powered by the head unit it improved the radio but as I said its not a priority for us . VW use a diversity antennae system which they obviously design to work with their radios so aftermarket will always have a problem . You can read a more detailed bit here he last post by myself T5.2 OEM Radio Options - fitted post delivery

[kordo]

So how do i actually go about fitting an after market solution? Is this possible?

[kordo]

You do not have to hook up the can wires. You need the powered antenna adaptor and acc pick up from streering colunm. Thin Brown/Green via a relay, works a treat on my T5 with a Alpine IDA300e

So do I not need to connect Canbus in my 2012 T5? I've started a thread here to try and get answers. It shows my radio which does not have steering wheel controls etc

http://www.vwwatercooled.com.au/foru...tml#post985992

[Sunny43.5]

Hi Kordo if you buy one of the ones as listed by myself and Sharkie you will find that they have the Can bus adaptor in the kit , any manufacturer who is selling these for Vw's will know this already , its only a small box with specific wiring all connected you just plug it in and it works . The first unit I fitted to one of the new T5's from July 2010 onwards was a mate of mine's van I fitted a reverse camera at the same time and spent a heap of time running a trigger wire for the reverse camera only to find that it was already part of the factory harness . Our current T5 has a Chinese unit which looks identical to the factory and it was a plug and play .If you scroll right down to the bottom you can see the various options but now most come with the can bus adaptor ES1158AU 8" HD CAR DVD Player GPS Ipod TV Wifi 3G BT RDS VW Passat Skoda Seat | eBay

[Sunny43.5]

For those who are after an Aussie supplier I receive updates from several companies as I am always on the lookout for tech items ,Volkswagen VW CAR GPS DVD Player TV PASSAT Polo TIGUAN

[kordo]

So to pull this back on track.

I want to fit an aftermarket (non chinese) head unit. Do u need a canbus adapter and if so where from?

[Sunny43.5]

In this day and age you will be flat out buying one that is not made in China even Pioneer and the likes of use the Chinese or several other Asian countries to make their units . The problem is that the major manufacturers will not make copies of every car dash that's out there it does not make economic sense to spend huge amounts of money making units to suit small markets . The old days virtually every dashboard had a standard single din size opening so it was easy to buy an aftermarket unit , now if your van is built after June 2010 it will need the adaptor . Again the same problem will occur making adaptors for all the different models will be too costly so the Chinese are the main players in this area they are the masters of copying what the west has done with cars . I have spent some time on the net but I cannot find anyone yet who sell just the adaptor for VW's on its own . An American company called Crutchfield make adaptor plates to suit the late model T5 it is the same shape as the double din but it can take a Double Din square head unit made by the big guys but the cost will be high as I pointed out recently . I purchased a single din head unit with 7 inch folding screen made by Phillips it is a pretty good unit but to get the GPS to work required a GPS antennae and the software this was an extra $300 plus for the antennae and software !!! so all up the unit was over $800 .Okay I keep coming back and editing this as more info comes to light YES Pioneer do make a unit to suit the VW's BUT the actual screen size is only around 5 inch it has no where near as many functions as others and the cost with GPS Bluetooth and other options $3000 . As some others have pointed out you may as well buy a OEM head unit .