ZENEC ZE-NC2011D Naviceiver issues

[pjondeck]

Hi all
I just took the plunge and had fitted the ZENEC unit in my MY11 T5 Multivan.
The brochure makes note of the RDS tuner quote"with automatic station search, 30 station memory (18FM/12 AM) and best station memory. It simply doesn't work. the sensitivity of the AM receiver is crap also, perhaps this is the reason that the system is not grabbing the stations. I had the supplier give me all sorts of bull.... reasons but explained that I had spent my life in electronics, a lot of it radio. They eventually advised me that "because there is no AM in Europe, the function had been removed"!!! We tried another new unit with the same result so it does appear that the function just doesn't work on this model despite the claim. The stations have to be scanned in manually and saved. OK if you don't travel. I do a lot and the function gets a lot of use, or at least did. Another function that is claimed is the GPS turn info repeated on the MFD display in the centre of the gauge cluster. They tell me that in a few weeks they might have a patch to make that work, we'll see.
The distributor in Sydney told the supplier that if they got enough complaints about it (20 was mentioned) that they could go to the manufacturer and possibly get an "upgrade" to include the station search facility.
Just posted this in Multivan forum and realised it might be better here.
Any comments appreciated.
Peter

[DkN]

Hi all
I just took the plunge and had fitted the ZENEC unit in my MY11 T5 Multivan.
The brochure makes note of the RDS tuner quote"with automatic station search, 30 station memory (18FM/12 AM) and best station memory. It simply doesn't work. the sensitivity of the AM receiver is crap also, perhaps this is the reason that the system is not grabbing the stations. I had the supplier give me all sorts of bull.... reasons but explained that I had spent my life in electronics, a lot of it radio. They eventually advised me that "because there is no AM in Europe, the function had been removed"!!! We tried another new unit with the same result so it does appear that the function just doesn't work on this model despite the claim. The stations have to be scanned in manually and saved. OK if you don't travel. I do a lot and the function gets a lot of use, or at least did. Another function that is claimed is the GPS turn info repeated on the MFD display in the centre of the gauge cluster. They tell me that in a few weeks they might have a patch to make that work, we'll see.
The distributor in Sydney told the supplier that if they got enough complaints about it (20 was mentioned) that they could go to the manufacturer and possibly get an "upgrade" to include the station search facility.
Just posted this in Multivan forum and realised it might be better here.
Any comments appreciated.
Peter

Well that's a load of crap - see here for a map of European radio stations, some of which are clearly AM:

Radiomap.eu • European Radio Map, Radio stations in Europe

There's no excuse for bad signal with factory FAKRA connection on the radio - I do believe the Zenec has this, doesn't it?

Was also under the impression MFD navigation display was already working, if it wasn't I'm failing to see the justification for the Zenec price tag...

[readerr0r]

With the MFD issues I'm guessing its poorly installed and maybe it needs navigation to be enabled in VCDS or if yours is a highline the zenec may have some bugs with the colour tacho.

Personally I don't get the appeal of the Zenec when you can grab an RNS510 for ~$1200

[pjondeck]

Well thank you for pointing out my load of crap DkN. Forums are about learning and I'm learning.
Not sure what FAKRA is. I have been through and through the setup programming and aprt from the power enable to the antenna pre-amp haven't found anything that I think would be significant. I would welcome any enlightenment. The MFD nav display only gives the direction of and distance to the next turn. The dealers advise me that they will have a "patch" to fix this in a few weeks. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of any other options before I committed, didn't do my homework well enough! I would be most grateful for any guidance you may be able to offer. My vehicle is a 2011 Comfortline. VCDS? what is please?
regards
Peter

[DkN]

Well thank you for pointing out my load of crap DkN. Forums are about learning and I'm learning.
Not sure what FAKRA is. I have been through and through the setup programming and aprt from the power enable to the antenna pre-amp haven't found anything that I think would be significant. I would welcome any enlightenment. The MFD nav display only gives the direction of and distance to the next turn. The dealers advise me that they will have a "patch" to fix this in a few weeks. Unfortunately I wasn't aware of any other options before I committed, didn't do my homework well enough! I would be most grateful for any guidance you may be able to offer. My vehicle is a 2011 Comfortline. VCDS? what is please?
regards
Peter

I was talking about the load of crap that the dealer fed you regarding no AM stations in Europe. I'd go back and tell them if they have NFI then stop making up BS

FAKRA is the factory antenna connection system that VW uses. Reception issues are typical among aftermarket headunits because they use adapters that convert FAKRA to the more universal DIN antennas (quick google will give you a more visual explanation) - however I'm pretty sure Zenec maintains the factory FAKRA connection so without a conversion process there's no excuse for poor signal.

As for VCDS... you have a long road of learning ahead of you start here:

http://www.vwwatercooled.com/forums/f153/welcome-vcds-forum-57677.html

Quick explanation is that for a FACTORY satnav (RNS-510) to work properly and communicate with the MFD, the car needs specific programming to enable it. The same concept applies to many things like factory Bluetooth modules, reverse cameras etc. These are pre-programmed if the accessories came with the car, but if they are dealer fitted the dealer needs to program them. VCDS cable is an aftermarket tool that can do most of the dealer level coding / monitoring etc in your VW.

Your Zenec is aftermarket, but because it communicates with the MFD it is POSSIBLE that it may also need coding to function properly. I say possible because many aftermarket headunits can do this without coding, but none so far other than Zenec has navigation directions in the MFD.

So does your MFD show directions at the moment or not? I'm not sure what you're trying to say is missing.

It always pays to research before buying...

[pjondeck]

Thank you for your help. The Zenec blurb shows on the MFD info in the centre of the gauge cluster in front of the driver, an arrow showing the next GPS turn and the distance to it. The Zenec dealer said that they will have a fix to make that happen in the next few weeks.
Apart from that everything seems to work OK except for the "AS" scan function. I was suspecting that the radio sensitivity was down but today I drove from Canberra to Gundagai, with the original system fitted I was losing the signal for a particular Canberra AM station well before I reaced Gundagai so was surprised to find that today I was still listening to that station at Gundagai so my thought that the AS function might not be working because of poor AM signal doesn't gel! Back to the drawing board. There is an issue with two of the reversing/parking sensors that are permanently indicating and definitely weren't when the vehicle went in for the Zenec fitment. Bloody annoying, all the installers could say was as expected "we didn't touch that, tell the dealer", yet I know that the situation occured while they had the vehicle. Do you think that it might be something that the dealer can reset perhaps?
Once again, thank you for your help.
Peter

[daveaus]

Hi Peter,

Did you buy the unit locally? I am interested in one of these units but cringe at the local mark up.

Thanks

[pjondeck]

Hi Daveaus
Sorry to take so long in replying, just got back from a few weeks in Tassie with the newly fitted ZENEC. Yes I did buy it locally. The VW dealer here who is fed up with complaints about not being able to read the screen on the factory unit are sending buyers to have the ZENEC fitted at the dealers cost. The unit takes a long time to boot up and you have to actually start the engine and wait about a minute before you can get the rear camera or GPS operating, frustrating! The GPS is good. The biggest frustration is that the radio is useless! If you drive to another town you can forget auto scan and store of AM and FM is not much better, it saves white RF noise as stations and assigns buttons for it. It's not even consistent, sometimes it picks up a station or two and next scan a different station or two. It's like the system was released here without being properly set up for the conditions. In the setup choices for the RDS receiver it gives Latin America/USA or Europe, no mention of Australasia and in the manual no suggestion as to which one to use!
DkN was right, should have done more homework before taking the leap.
The sage continues when I visit the installer on Tuesday, wish me luck.
If we could get enough owners of the ZENEC, preferably still within the 2 year warranty period to threaten to return the unit under warranty as it simply doesn't meet their advertised spec, it might motivate ZENEC to do something about the software, I'd bet that's all it needs. The ZENEC has a selection in setup to turn on the antenna amp but it seems to make no difference and the dealer tells me that if the amp is not powered there will be zero reception. I have found it makes no difference. The ZENEC uses the FAKRA connection mentioned by DkN so there should I understand be power to the antenna.
thanks
Peter