T5 Sound system upgrade - what are these wires?

[benny69]

Doing a head unit upgrade on my 08 T5. In the factory wiring, there are 2 quite small wires, one is orange with a brown stripe,the other is orange with a green stripe. They are wrapped with the blue active and brown neutral wires, so I'm thinking something to do with power? Is one the Acc switch wire and maybe one for illumination?. They are quite separate from the speaker wires. Any ideas on what these 2 orange wires are?

[benny69]

Hmm, decided to get the multi meter out - the orange with brown stripe wire goes from around 11.5 volts with the ignition off, to around 4.55 volts with the ignition on. (I have 12.5 volts on the active wire)

[benny69]

The orange with green stripe has 0.46 volts with ign off and 0.44 volts with ign on

[Sunny43.5]

As a guess I would suggest that they are can bus signals as the low voltage indicates that . Now are you replacing the old unit with a VW unit or something else .If fitted they could be the signals for steering wheel controls .

[Kombi]

Sunny you don’t maybe still have photos I send you when I replaced HU ? Might give a clue

[benny69]

I'm replacing the OEM unit with a Kenwood. There are no steering wheel controls on my van.

[Sunny43.5]

I would suggest you use your volt meter to connect the correct wires if the Kenwood did not come with an adaptor . All the units I have fitted are from China and they come with either a can bus adaptor or as they now do a perfect match plug so no need for the can bus adptor anymore . Just plug in and your done . The Kenwood would probably have 12v constant a switching 12v accessory maybe a12 v light signal earth wire and then speaker wires . Thats where it could get difficult unles someone has an original wiring diagram for the T5 model you have . Sorry Kombi I cant think where those photos are now .This might help .