has anyone upgraded their stereos?

[Golfer]

Welcome to VWwatercooled Kai. Nice to see more Qld dubbers joining us. And yeah, we're the friendly forum

I guess great taste in cars and being a friendly mob go hand in hand

Hot ride too...

Cheers!
John

[redpologti]

just wanted to know has anyone installed a set of front speakers themselves, having trouble taking the door trims off
thanks

[saba]

i've changed all the speakers apart from the tweeters in the airbag columns

the door trims at the front are a bit tricky...they are clip on and were the door handles are on the inside their is some nicely hidden screws behind the plastic bits. Once these screws come off you can basically unclip the whole panel...

As for the front speakers, the standard ones are riveted in so u need a drill to drill them out and put the new speakers in with some spacers

[SidGTi]

Thanks for the info about the front speakers! Wasn't sure if they were 6 inchers but now that you say they are that certainly takes the guess work out. I've currently got a Pioneer head unit installed, with a Crossfire 4 Ch Amp. I'm looking to buy a sub next. It's just a shame the boot is so small! I'm only going to settle for a 12 inch sub.

Edit: Saba what size are the rear speakers by the way? 6 inch also? Or 4 inch? Did you upgrade the rear tweeters also?

[saba]

i've got 2 12's sitting in the boot...fits no worries but just cant store anything else in their!

as for the rear speakers, i just put some 3 way 6 inch pioneer speakers and disconnected the tweeters

was a big job doing it all by ourselves, took us around 10 hrs (started 6pm finished 4am) but thats also because we had no idea about how the polo was setup ie door trims and were to pass thru the power cable from the amp to the battery in the engine bay...

[SidGTi]

Finally had the sub put in last saturday. Pretty happy with the setup already. The splits are still the stockies. They do a good job I must say. Might not even change them. Sounds fine. Changing the head unit and having it tuned made a big difference.

[kevvie]

So just confirming...are speakers 6 1/2 inch or 6 inch front and rear....??

[mdonohoe]

FYI - If your changing head unit I can provide pin-outs for the speakers.

Also, if you place your new head unit in the bottom DIN and use a $20.00 "Clip In DIN" from Supercheap(easily available) it will fit perfectly if you use Double Sided tape to "chock" up the back.

Cheap way to do it Looks factory.

Thanks
Matt

[Timbo]

Pics please

[mdonohoe]

Sub or my install?

[BL33SU]

i amp both front and rear stock speakers.. turned out prety nice, crisp sound and added a sub for bass..

[morbo2000]

How do you remove the stock HU?

How do you remove the stock head unit? I've read references to VW removal tools that slot into the 4 holes in the HU.

If you don't have to pull the dash apart to replace the HU how do you mount the new one in (considering it's a double-din hole and i have a single-din replacement to put in)? Are there mounting holes to screw into or do you use use the mounting bracket that comes with the new headunit (I have a Pioneer 5850MP with an iPod kit to put in). I want to put the HU in the top with the supercheap pocket (mentioned above) put in the bottom (only because i think it would look weird to me being the other way around as HU to top was how it was in my Magna).

mdonohoe would can I please get the speaker pin-outs from you? Thanks.

Are there any other electrical issues I need to be aware of when putting the new HU in? I've seen references to CAN-BUS wiring but i'm not sure if that applies to the polo. I grabbed a male ISO socket to bare wires adapter so I wouldn't have to solder into the factory wiring (hopefully male is the right one, i haven't pulled the stock hu out yet so i'm not sure if i have the right adapter).

Where do you run your power through the firewall for a sub?


Sorry for the long post, i'm a bit of a rambler.

[kevvie]

I put in a Clarion DXZ466MP single DIN and left the standard speakers on the advice of the stereo shop (Autobarn). Cost me $400 installed, of which $50 was the special VW antenna adapter. Sounds much much better than the standard unit but not as good as it did in the shop, and probably should have spent a little more. So hard to tell when one stereo shop says once you get two up from the base model all the units have the same sound quality and another guy says they are all different.

Apparently the most popular deck on the market is the Kenwood version with built in intertia meter to read 0-100km times Roughly $600.

May do the speakers but to improve on standard is about $300/pair, plus another couple of hundred to fit with sound deadening.

[shaneth]

cant stand kenwood personally. Clarion is much better imho.

[dodgeGTI]

I've got an amp and 10inch sub from an old car, is it possible to hook this up to the factory head unit?