[RBLocke19]

Hello, I am trying to replace the factory head unit on the 2005 VW Touareg and found out through trial and error that it does not play well with the "crutchfield" harnesses. I can see from searching that this is a common issue for this vehicle (digital factory amp). I can't find any solutions for this replacement. Has anyone successfully replaced the head unit and still maintained the 11 speaker sound system in the Treg? If so, I would be very interested in purchasing the same setup. Any help would be appreciated. My main goal is to have a bluetooth streaming setup in the radio, and would love to have hands free calling.

 

[eyelise]

Hello, I am trying to replace the factory head unit on the 2005 VW Touareg and found out through trial and error that it does not play well with the "crutchfield" harnesses. I can see from searching that this is a common issue for this vehicle (digital factory amp). I can't find any solutions for this replacement. Has anyone successfully replaced the head unit and still maintained the 11 speaker sound system in the Treg? If so, I would be very interested in purchasing the same setup. Any help would be appreciated. My main goal is to have a bluetooth streaming setup in the radio, and would love to have hands free calling.

Navall3 at tregradios.com

 

[zerodb]

Does tregradios.com or anyone else sell just the digital amplifier interface by itself? I'm stuck with a 2004 on the CD Nav system also and would love to have a little more flexibility in replacing the head unit without buying into the whole Navall system (I'm thrilled they've done the work, but they're selling the android head units for hundreds more than anyone else even BEFORE you buy the adapter).

 

[steckrca]

I'm in the middle of my install for the Navall 3 in my 2004 with CD Navigation. It's been a little bit of a headache, not to mention that I don't even have sound yet. The DSP converter showed up and it has a coaxial connection coming out of it, yet the amp doesn't have a coaxial connection in--neither at the dash or the amp. I received an email back from Sean this morning and he said that I would have to chop off the coaxial end and splice it in somewhere. Where, he didn't say.

Has anyone installed one of these into a Touareg with CD Nav? Or am I the first? The orignial CD Nav unit has a pinout printed on the top, and presumaby the "LO-R" and "LO-L" are the line outs, but I don't think those are the ones that I need to run from the converter. There's "EA-G" and "EA-L", those look more like what i'm looking for. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Edit: Scratch the EA-G and EA-L, those go with EA-R, and are for aux input.

 

[zerodb]

It was my understanding that the coaxial input is on the amplifier in the trunk where the cd changer plugs in; it shouldn't have anything to do with what you're looking at on the factory head unit. But I was about to buy one of these so I'm anxious to see how this works out for you.

 

[steckrca]

There's no coaxial connection at the amp. I'm starting to wonder if this amp is digital at all. I know that's all I read about it, but I don't see anything in that pinout that implies that it is digital.

LO-R = Line Out Right
LO-L = Line Out Left
Line Ground = Line Ground

EA-R = External Audio Right
EA-L = External Audio Left
EA-G = External Audio Ground

A digital signal would be two contacts, I'm thinking like from TV to receiver with RCA type plug. I don't see anything that implies a digital output from the head unit.

 

[steckrca]

Ok doing a bit more reading here. Found a document at the location below that shows the pin connections to the amp. It does list the 12-channel amp as a digital amp. Pages 60 through 62 show the pinout for the connections at the amp. A few suspects for the inputs, A10, A11, A13, A14, A17. A10, A11, and A13 seem to correlate to the LO-L/R/G pins at the head unit, but look analog with L/R/G, sort of like a tip-ring-sleeve connection would be. A14 and A17 look simply like they make up a one channel input, but could also be digital.

http://vwts.ru/electro/touareg/tou_91_eng.pdf

I'm completely lost.

 

[compu_85]

Even if you get the audio outputs for the amp working you'll still need another adapter because the amp gets turned on and off over the CAN bus by the radio.

-J

 

[steckrca]

The can bus functions of the head unit may take care of that, but of course I can't be sure.

 

[compu_85]

I know that when I had the CD nav in ours coded improperly (the VCDS coding suggestion is wrong) the amp would not turn on (or off if you kicked it on with an output test).

-J

 

[steckrca]

Well crap. In other news, I've managed to get android auto running on the head unit. There's an app on XDA that is a reverse engineered host version of android auto.

Is it possible that the audio input to the amp also runs over the can bus?

 

[compu_85]

The audio input to the amp is the three EA wires. I don't know how they work specifically.

If you do an output test on the amp using vcds it will leave the amp running. That will at least let you have sound, but it will kill the battery since it won't shut off.

-J

 

[steckrca]

Out of curiosity, what coding did you change that left the amp on all the time? I'm also wondering if the amp is addressable without the headunit installed. I haven't hooked up to it since I pulled the CD Nav out.

 

[compu_85]

I changed the "sound system" tuning bit on the CD Nav from 7 to IIRC 4 (which is supposed to be "Touareg"). The coding I'm using now for our CD nav is 0035077.

The Amp is on address 47. You can talk to it without the head unit, it is it's own node on the infotainment CAN bus.

-J

 

[steckrca]

I'm beginning to lose hope in utilizing the factory amp. And after a quick googling I find that a BMW E46 amp is basically what we need here. Its a 10-channel amp with low/mid/high at the front, and low/mid at the rear. Accepts four analog inputs and outputs to 10 channels with six at front and four at rear. $49 on ebay. Someone has done a full breakdown of the outputs and inputs. Its not can bus controlled, so could easily be wired to a keyed circuit. Active crossovers and all that jazz, almost looks like it was designed to work with the touaregs system. Here's a link to the breakdown:

https://www.bmwgm5.com/Stereo_Amp.htm

And the item on eBay:

http://pages.ebay.com/motors/link/?nav=item.view&id=301196060499&alt=web

I don't want to get too excited without doing more research but this may be a magic bullet in this situation given that we have four line level outputs from the head unit and clearly trying to work with the factory amp will be nothing more than a headache. This also means that we can get any Chinese head unit outfitted to the touareg and just send line level inputs to a different amp. Will keep everyone posted, but I think I'm gonna pull the trigger on one of these amps.

 

[steckrca]

Those pigtails, they get me every time... Found one on eBay priced low and WITH a pigtail for easy wiring. Let's see how it goes.

http://pages.ebay.com/motors/link/?nav=item.view&id=331353766447&alt=web

Edit: I won't have this amp until the 18th of March so unfortunately the testing will take some time. But I'm very optimistic!!!

 

[compu_85]

Nice find!

After you remove the factory amp remember to do a recode on the CAN gateway so it can forget the amp and stop throwing fault codes. (Similar to removing TPMS)

-J

 

[steckrca]

So I've tapped into everything, using the CD changer wiring for rear inputs to the amp, and the ones labeled left and right audio input for the fronts. I had power at one point but now I don't. Can anyone recommend a keyed power source at the rear by the amp? I'm going to try an output test next to see if I can get some power back here.

 

[steckrca]

All hooked up. I didn't need to run any new wires from front to back, just tapped into some existing unused wiring. The wiring diagram I used labeled the remote turn-on wire for the BMW amp as "Antenna", so I didn't hook it up. After figuring out that this is the remote wire, I wired it up and wham bam, I have sound.

The amp isn't nearly powerful enough to drive the stock speakers. So unfortunately after all this work, it's a bust. The amp I used was out of an E46, but not the same as the one ordered from eBay. Fortunately, though, the wiring is the same. I should be able to unplug the amp I got from the junkyard and just plug in the eBay one. From what I read, it should be more powerful.

 

[zerodb]

The amp isn't nearly powerful enough to drive the stock speakers. So unfortunately after all this work, it's a bust. The amp I used was out of an E46, but not the same as the one ordered from eBay. Fortunately, though, the wiring is the same. I should be able to unplug the amp I got from the junkyard and just plug in the eBay one. From what I read, it should be more powerful.

There's a chance it's just an input level mismatch... You could try getting a line level booster on the preamp outputs and see if it gets louder. It really doesn't take much actual power to do this...