MY11 T5 - I found the antennas

[IN2VWS]

I had a Pioneer AVIC installed in my 2007 T5.
How do you find the bluetooth connectivity? Mine was a PITA. Sometimes it would connect to my phone, other times it wouldn't, it was hit and miss.
The other thing I didn't like on the AVIC compared to a RNS510, is when you are on a call on the RNS510, the music you are listening to on a cd, hdd or SD will pause until the end of the call. But on the AVIC, it will keep playing, so when you are finished on a call, you could have missed 3 or 4 songs.
Also on a sunny day, the screen was imposible to see.

[question?]

What van do you have?
If it is the current series, have you checked the antenna connections behind the door trim?
From the mirror, the antennas all have connections behind the door trim, and from there, they join the main loom back into the cabin from the door.
There is also the earth connections behind the door trim that go to the antennas in the mirror.

MY11 Caravelle... will take a look or more the dealer can perhaps.... it has just never been good. But I did check out another one in the lot one day (they ordered in the same colour as ours but non painted bumpers) to see if it was the same... and appeared to be so. Just weird that I can grab a smaller car like a passat etc and reception is heaps better. Better head unit in them too I guess.

[Sunny43.5]

Yes I can agree different head units have better tuners than others , our original head units in both our T5,s were Blaupunkt and yes they were made in China ???? both units were removed as they had limited play options [ the one in our family van the front panel which tilted down broke off in the first couple of months VW claimed we must have been to rough on it Bull so I bought a better unit from China with GPS built in/ reversing camera/ SD card slot/ iPOd connection/ bluetooth for phone and music streaming/ Digital TV /Am Fm radio plays DVD,s Mp3,s AVI files and many others along with touch screen and revolving menus for the pricey sum of $360 delivered . Now the radio tuners are pretty good maybe not as strong as some better brand names but as I rarely listen to radio these days it was not a priority .Now as for all the antennaes in the mirrors etc I would hate to think how much one of these suckers would cost if the whole unit was damaged beyond repair , as our older T5,s have had the odd broken mirror and standard they are not cheap just the glass mirror was over $120 not including any surrounds etc. And what peed me off was I bought one and the price was much higher than the one before as it had the heater element built in which we don,t even have !!!! I complained and got a reduction Howard

[IN2VWS]

Price?
The assembly (less glass) cost me $275.

[The_Hawk]

The AVIC is ... interesting... I don't know that I would buy another one, but for the money it's got Bluetooth, iPod connectivity & RVC all for much less than the dealers price for a RNS unit.

You're right on the screen, in bright light it sucks, the angle of the unit in the T5 doesn't help either. Bluetooth always seemed to work fine for me, although the wife tells she has issues with it not connecting sometimes. Maybe my lack of issues stem from the fact I have to manually switch from her phone to mine when I want to use it so force the connection... (It doesn't seem to have the smarts to just detect what's nearby, you have to TELL it what to connect to (even though they are both pre-authorised and connected).

The music thing doesn't bother me so much, although I have noticed the lack of pause.

The nav itself seems a bit wacky. I can't work out why, but it seems to plot strange routes down little back streets quite often. It's always got us there, but I can't figure out it's rationale when working out how.

The AVIC supports speed cameras which is awesome, but it beeps if one is NEAR you (even if it's on a side road). It's the proximity system used way back when POI's were new rather than a route aware warning. To be very fair it's much better than the non existent system on the RNS, but still a little strange.

On the interface side, it's a bit of a mixed bag of scroll bars which you can drag and buttons you have to press to scroll. You get used to which parts you can do what in, but it's very strange and feels like more of a beta than a final release SW.

On the plus side, it plays video from the iPod if you like It shows the posted speed for the current road (if it's listed in the mapping data) which is nice as well as tracking every journey you make on an SD card which you can download and play back later if you like. In our case I'm a hoarder and have saved pretty much every trip the van has ever made onto my computer... It's come in handy one time when we got a speeding ticket I didn't believe... till I looked up the history and it turns out we really were there when it said we were
Mrs_Hawk adds that it's *very* easy to use as a bonus too.

What I want... TomTom to partner up with VW and make the next gen RNS... that would be awesome.

[Sunny43.5]

The problem with bluetooth as far as I have experienced is that the head unit will only lock onto one phone it cannot accept connections from two at the same time so it would be pot luck which one gets the nod first , and usually if one locks on its a task to then discconect the paired one and then pair the other . Our Chinese units use the Igo nav software it is quite comprehensive as also has speed limits shown on screen as you move through different speed zones and it gives you a spoken warning if you go over the limit . One bonus is you have the option of setting the speed warning with a percentage allowance handy if you speedo is not accurate . The GPS also stores its trips as well plus you can set the directions to /fast /easy /direct it also allows you to input fixed speed cameras with the direction they are on the road and also add new ones as the rozzers install new ones . Trip computer is also handy along with lots of other data to use to be quite honest the GPS in these Chinese head unit is worth the $360 on its own .The other feature which is handy is you can set a destination and return to another function so while you are listening to CDor DVD or Bluetooth the GPS keeps working in the background and will cut in at way points turns etc . It even has a picture in picture function so if you are in navi you can have a small window with the DVD playing or turn it off . Howard

[mikinoz]

MY11 Caravelle... will take a look or more the dealer can perhaps.... it has just never been good. But I did check out another one in the lot one day (they ordered in the same colour as ours but non painted bumpers) to see if it was the same... and appeared to be so. Just weird that I can grab a smaller car like a passat etc and reception is heaps better. Better head unit in them too I guess.

If you access the diagnostic menu on an RCD/RNS you can get info on the signal gain. You might need to turn this setting on in vagcom first however. Hold the setup menu down and it flicks to the Radio Info screen if it is enabled.