RNS-E and unsuspected TV Tuner removal advice

[Rob C]

Sorry for the long post but I have tried to be thorough so it is easy for people to understand.

I’ve not had my S3 long and I recently did a scan with VCDS and it found faults with my aerial and TV Tuner (Which I shouldn’t have). More details here: TV Tuner and Aerial Faults

I was more than happy to code the car with VCDS so it doesn’t think it has a TV Tuner any more. That was until I was searching around on this forum and stumbled across this: Help with Coding i have a few things show up malfunction in VCDS (Posts 1 and 8)

Sure enough Yonner has similar aerials stuck to the wind screen as I do and he also had similar fault codes.

So last night I decided to take the cover off under the steering wheel and guess what I found, a TV Tuner…

It appears this is the setup I have: Ampire DVBT400-3G + IMA Multimedia Adapter - w/o OEM Control

As the language is in German and I don’t have the remote control for the unit it makes it redundant as none of the controls on the RNS-E seem to work with it.

I was going to rip it all out (as I don’t really want it anyway) until I removed the RNS-E to find that the wiring for the TV Tuner unit has been cut into the wiring that goes into the quadlock connector for the RNS-E.

Below are photos and description of the wiring at the quadlock connector.

1. This wire seems to be cut into an orange and purple wire than goes to pin D9 on the quadlock. Wire 1 joins a loom that plugs into the back of the RNS-E and goes to a Kufatec Multimedia Adaptor.
2. This wire seems to be cut into a blue and green wire than goes to pin D13 on the quadlock. Wire 2 seems to run back down to the TV Tuner unit under the steering wheel.
3. This wire seems to be cut into an orange and brown wire than goes to pin D10 on the quadlock. Wire 3 joins a loom that plugs into the back of the RNS-E and goes to a Kufatec Multimedia Adaptor.
4. This wire is joined with wire 5 and then comes out as two red and white wires which go into the quadlock connector. One wire shares Pin D15 with an existing red and white wire that comes from the quadlock loom and the other goes into Pin D16. Wire 4 seems to run back down to the TV Tuner unit under the steering wheel.
5. This wire is joined with wire 4 and then comes out as two red and white wires which go into the quadlock connector. One wire shares Pin D15 with an existing red and white wire that comes from the quadlock loom and the other goes into Pin D16. Wire 5 joins a loom that plugs into the back of the RNS-E and goes to a Kufatec Multimedia Adaptor.

Additional TV Tuner wires labelled

View attachment 23462

Pins labelled

View attachment 23463

SO…

All I really want to know is can I cut and tape up / remove the additional wiring without it causing issues / faults? (And code accordingly with VCDS)

• I’m guessing wires 1, 2 & 3 can just be cut and taped?
• I’m more concerned about wires 4 & 5. Can these just be removed from the quadlock connector as they seem to be additional wires?

Also at a later date I want to replace the RNS-E I have with a MkII RNS-E and then install an AMI unit, is this still going to be possible?

Hope this makes sense

Thanks