Reverse Parking Camera - retrofit by AICT

[monopole]

As per title, Reverse Parking Camera - retrofit by Advanced In Car Technologies http://www.advanced-incar.co.uk/

A short while back I visited AICT at their workshop in Poole to have a reverse parking camera fitted, all genuine OEM parts and the high level system with moving guidelines.

Car in the workshop:

The installation was top-notch and very professional, which didn't really take very long - just a few hours from strip-fit-rebuild. All the cable wiring was 'behind the scenes' so to speak, following main looms and harnesses already in place from the boot handle all the way to behind the glovebox.


Although the fixed fittings side went seamlessly, we came to a halt on the coding side of matters

The new MQB chassis CAN hasn't yet been fully decoded by the user using VCDS (Rosstech), though other companies seem to think they have done the impossible and have locked the information away within coding dongles or more expensive diagnostics system VAG-CAN!!!!

AICT have had many many long talks with their sources over coding for the high level camera on the A3 chassis and we got together so they could use my car to resolve the coding issue.
(Remember, this isn't just a low-level camera wired straight to the screen, it interfaces with the car OPC and gives moving guidelines)




So, the question is, have they a coding solution to an A3 MQB issue?

YES Coding SOLVED!


Yesterday I opted to travel down to Tim and James again to further test coding and I think our faces were a picture in itself when reverse gear was selected and the camera image came to life!!

I was please to assist Tim and James and become their guinea pig for the first retro-fit reverse camera on the A3 MQB chassis and appreciate how they must have felt every time the '...computer says no...' scenario popped its ugly head.

Without any additional requirement to either configure or 'set-up' the camera it worked flawlessly and accurately.

In the above pic, you see a red line at the foot of the image - this is when you are "supposed" to get a steady tone from the OPC at 1 foot (I think it is) and it was SPOT-ON, as soon as we backed up to a car, the OPC markers were working on the overlay and as soon as the car "touched" the red line, the tone went steady.

Tim and James made a vid of the system in operation for their youtube channel and I imagine it will appear on there in good time. (I expect Tim to give a link here when it's ready)


5 star service from the boys and subsequent customers can rest assured the system is awesome.

Yes, opt for it at order stage on a new car, but we retrofit our cars because our choices and preferences change with time.

 

[Cruiser89]

Wow... What a write-up dude!!

So much appreciation for it. I know that it was a tough retrofit but we did it! Plus I believe you're the first 8V platform in the UK to have the Genuine Highline Camera retrofitted!

I do have to push over our thanks to monopole for coming down again yesterday, we were making plans to come and meet him up in his area but he was pretty keen to aid with the testing and the logic surrounding why we were having problems so we bucked trend and got ourselves geared for doing some work on a Saturday.

In short it was down to the 5F. Most 8V owners with VCDS know that it's a tough one as you just can't get in but with our three heads in the mix we did it.

When we first saw it pop up on the screen it really did catch us off guard as we had only gone for a quick spin to clear some fault codes out and weren't expecting the camera to come online!! Now to make sure we hadn't just done it by accident we checked our coding and activation and de-coded the system and re-coded it again.

Our YouTube account is now back online after being fixed by the guys at Google HQ in London (Who we're hopefully going up to see soon) so we'll be getting the video online asap

I agree with Monopole, it's a much cheaper option to have done at factory but at least we all now know it's possible!

If you want any more info then please check it out here - http://www.advanced-incar.co.uk/audi-retrofits/audi-a3-s3-8v-reversing-camera-retrofit

As always, much love!

 

[Cruiser89]

As promised:



(No idea why the forum has rendered the splash screen low resolution but will play in HD.....)

 

[Liquidfusion-S3]

I'm assuming some indepth work has gone into this including working with the electrics of the car, how does this affect the car warranty?

What's Audi's official view on this?

 

[Cruiser89]

Audi's official view is that it's not possible to do. Technically any retrofit bar Cruise Control & Tow-Bar is unofficial due to the SVM codes that are available for it. They don't even see Bluetooth as official.

Yes you're right, a lot of work went into this retrofit as it's not as simple as plunging in and away you go. You have to pull parts of the car apart, integrate with electronics as well as updating software but if you've been working on cars and for main dealers then there is usually no problem especially when MD's ask us to retrofit this sort of stuff. We've been doing this sort of thing a long time and touch wood have never ever had a customer come back and say there is a problem with their warranty after working on their car. We always use genuine equipment direct from Germany based on a vehicle's chassis / vin where possible. This ensures that not only can we communicate with equipment but also Audi can when the vehicle goes into the workshop.

We always advise to tell Service that you have had something retrofitted so that it can be added to the vehicle notes so they don't accidentally overwrite any coding and they are usually fine with that.

For obvious reasons, Audi cannot offer warranty on the work that either we have done or you have done as they did not supply the car with that equipment, that warranty lies with us. Most dealers are pretty cool with it. If you encounter a problem with your gearbox they can't just turn around and say "sorry you've had a RVC fitted, we can't help". Porsche on the other hand aren't fans of retrofitted equipment.

Like anything, Audi could get really snotty about you doing a simple VCDS change, remap, engine, chassis, suspension upgrade but at the end of the day as long as the work is to a high standard, it doesn't affect the car or cause damage then they are pretty cool. If they had beef with anything it would be Remaps but look how popular Revo, GoAPR are etc.

As you can probably tell, Monopole was pretty in-depth to the quality of our work. We're not the cheapest guys around because we're good at what we do and have a ****** good reputation (Check out our Review Centre). We'd never want to be the cheapest. If you've paid in excess of £30k for a vehicle you want to ensure that anything added is done to the highest quality and standard.

Hope that helps,

 

[Johnjo]

Wow... What a write-up dude!!

So much appreciation for it. I know that it was a tough retrofit but we did it! Plus I believe you're the first 8V platform in the UK to have the Genuine Highline Camera retrofitted!

I do have to push over our thanks to monopole for coming down again yesterday, we were making plans to come and meet him up in his area but he was pretty keen to aid with the testing and the logic surrounding why we were having problems so we bucked trend and got ourselves geared for doing some work on a Saturday.

In short it was down to the 5F. Most 8V owners with VCDS know that it's a tough one as you just can't get in but with our three heads in the mix we did it.

When we first saw it pop up on the screen it really did catch us off guard as we had only gone for a quick spin to clear some fault codes out and weren't expecting the camera to come online!! Now to make sure we hadn't just done it by accident we checked our coding and activation and de-coded the system and re-coded it again.

Our YouTube account is now back online after being fixed by the guys at Google HQ in London (Who we're hopefully going up to see soon) so we'll be getting the video online asap

I agree with Monopole, it's a much cheaper option to have done at factory but at least we all now know it's possible!

If you want any more info then please check it out here - http://www.advanced-incar.co.uk/audi-retrofits/audi-a3-s3-8v-reversing-camera-retrofit

As always, much love!

 

[Johnjo]

Hi there!

I've got a question regarding the above retrofit. Is that camera system and the on screen reversing lines compatible with the A3 8V SD Nav system? And is it suitable for a car equipped with the rear parking sensors only?

Congratulations on such a fine job by the way. It looks really good!

 

[Schizophonic]

Hi there!

I've got a question regarding the above retrofit. Is that camera system and the on screen reversing lines compatible with the A3 8V SD Nav system? And is it suitable for a car equipped with the rear parking sensors only?

Congratulations on such a fine job by the way. It looks really good!

Yeah if you even got reverse parking sensor only and no sat nav it should still work. Doesn't say you need to have sat nav for rear view camera.

If you got the patients someone in America has done a retro fit on their saloon using non oem parts at a fraction of a price and all works as the genuine.

But to answer your question
Yes it works with sat nav system.