Audi iPod Adapter

[jdp1962]

I've just bought an Audi iPod Adapter today, to fit to a Concert 2 HU in a B6 saloon. It cost me £100 from Docklands Audi. Best price I could find on Ebay was £90, and £10 wasn't enough of a saving to offset the convenience of picking it up on the spot (& of course being able to take it back if there are any problems with it).

They quoted me £172 to install it. After I stopped laughing, I figured my local ICE dealer could probably do it for about £40. I know it's meant to go in the glovebox, but I'm thinking of having the cable routed to the little storage cubby in the lower dash, to the right of the steering column. It'll be easier to reach when connecting & removing, plus the iPod will still be out of sight.

It'll also speed up the installation time, as it'll mean the glovebox won't have to come out. The installer will just have to unscrew the lower dash panel & drop it down. When you're paying someone else to do it, time is money! I did look at the instruction manual & the various cables, but decided this was not a job for me. It seems simple on paper, but I just know I will botch it up, & it'll end up costing me more to having someone do it right.

Will post review when it is up and running.

 

[jdp1962]

Quite an achievement this for me, as I'm usually pretty hopeless at this sort of stuff. I am not known as Captain Sausage Fingers for nothing!

After I read the instructions two or three times, I finally began to understand how the wiring would go at the HU end, but I wouldn't know for sure until I removed the HU, because the adapter came with two different leads, depending on what type of connectors the HU had.

One had a "Quadlock" plug with wires already connected to it. The other lead had about eight or nine loose wires with pins on them, for pushing into a connector on the HU. Once I removed the HU, I could see which one I needed to use. It was the one with the loose wires & pins. I plugged each of the wires into the right slots on the HU connector, & fed the other end of the lead back through the HU slot.

Then, instead of ar$ing around with removing the glovebox, I dropped the lower dash panel on the driver's side & fed the lead through under the steering column and connected it to the iPod adapter control box.

Next up, I drilled a hole in the back of the little cubby hole that is part of the lower dash panel. (it's the one on the right hand side below the headlight switch) fed the iPod lead through from front to back, & pushed the grommet into place, making sure that the cable could slide freely through the grommet.

I plugged the iPod lead itself into the other side of the control box & lashed them to the lower dash panel with tie-wraps. Before putting everything back, I plugged the iPod in, switched the HU & selected "CD". Everything worked fine, so I pushed the HU back in, refixed the lower dash panel & hey presto, it was done!

So, the iPod end of the cable sits neatly inside the cubby hole, invisible from outside. When I want to use, I just plug the iPod, & it then sits in the same cubby hole, still out of sight. The iPod display comes up with the Four-Rings symbol, but the iPod click-wheel is disabled. It's controlled solely off the HU.

It's dead easy to use, and sounds great. The only slight disappointment is that the volume level is much lower compared with listening to the radio, so I have to keep resetting the volume depending what I'm listening to.

Am feeling pretty chuffed with myself! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[jdp1962]

Okay, have just come across a little problem. When I switch from play list to playlist, for some reason, the HU is failing to read one of them. If I try to select Playlist 2, it rejects & skips to the next one. All others are fine.

Any ideas, anyone?

 

[The911SC]

Good work jdp; it is pretty easy..
I had the dension which I think is the same as the audi one.
What I did was create playlists for each album I had then select them through cd6, using the up/down to select playlists, then up down (next/prev) to select the album, then >><< to select the specific album or playlist...
Worked fine although it is a little slow to react.

 

[jdp1962]

I took it all apart today, to see if I could figure out why the HU is not recognising one of the playlists. I thought maybe a loose connection, but no, everything is spot on. I guess I'll just have to live with it.

When I re-assembled it, I repositioned the control box much closer to the HU than before, because first time round, I hadn't left enough slack in the cable to allow me to pull the HU right out of the dash.

 

[necroeire]

Jeff I have the Dension ICE>Link and it is limited to 5 playlists on my version. Maybe it's the same on the Audi iPod adapter?

 

[jdp1962]

Same here. I've created five playlists for CDC 1-5, & but the HU is only recognising four plus the full library on CDC6. If I try to select CDC2, it skips to CDC3.

I can live with, it just puzzles me why it's happening.

 

[jbw]

Congrats on your install. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif
Can you play the troublesome playlist on the iPod (not through your audi link)?
Are you using auto sync to get your tunes from the computer to the ipod cos I've come across weird happens when using auto sync with my ipod (missing off the end of tracks, skipping tracks).
If possible try removing the playlist from the ipod and copy it across manually.

ta,
jbw

 

[jdp1962]

I'm going to poke about with the iPod & iTunes on the PC just now, see if I can sort it out by that route.

Will post any developments.

 

[Kevint]

I've not come across this problem Jeff, but then again I use the Sony adapter.

I create the lists in iTunes and auto sync or create them on the move on the iPod itself. When I plug the iPod back into the car it recognises all the playlists fine.

Let us know if you manage to solve it.

Kev.

 

[jdp1962]

No change. Just that one playlist that isn't recognised. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/noidea.gif

 

[madvw]

Ive come accross this.

it will only play the first five playlists it finds, however, it does this alphabetically.

The problem here is that the ipod has a default playlist called "On the go" (or something like), and if it's alphabetically before your last playlist, it'll use it as one of your "CD's"...

The way i get around this is to call my playlists CD1, CD2. CD3 etc etc.

Another problem, is that i've found that the dension/audi adapter can sometimes become confused and forget playlists - especially if you've used the ipod out of the car, or it has been reset.

The way around this, i've found, is to always select CD1 when you first use it - it then seems to recheck which one should be CD1. The only reason i can see for this, is that the dension/audi adapter can only send the commands like "next disc" or "previous disc", so if you manually change the playlist/disc on the ipod it gets it's knickers in a twist.


may have nothing to do with your problem, but just a though.