MY11 T5 - I found the antennas

[IN2VWS]

I was on a job this morning, when I had finished I returned to my van, to find that some ☀àśśȟòĺé☀ in a truck had ripped my drivers side mirror of the van.

I bought a new assembly from VW. When I removed the rear cover, I found out where the radio and GPS antennas are. They are located in the mirror, Which makes it a bit fiddley to fit the new one.

Here is a pic of the mirror with the cover removed.

[mikinoz]

Nice find! I'd have not thought of that place for the antenna.

Do you have lane guidance?

[IN2VWS]

Nice find! I'd have not thought of that place for the antenna.

Do you have lane guidance?

Not genuine VW lane guidance.....only mental lane guidance.

I believe the RNS510 uses the mirror housing, not sure about other models.

[mikinoz]

I just drilled through the roof on my 2005 T5 to put a sharkfin in, this would have been a damn sight safer!

I use the indicate twice and merge lane change method in the T5, most things are smaller and move for me...

[buzuki]

you'll find your other mirror also has an aerial in it FM1/GPS/FM2/AM and GSM should be floating around there too i think

[IN2VWS]

you'll find your other mirror also has an aerial in it FM1/GPS/FM2/AM and GSM should be floating around there too i think

Really????? How many antennas do these vans have? There was 3 in the drivers side mirror. So are you saying there is another 3 in the other mirror?

[question?]

Yeah.. maybe three atenaes but Radio reception is still bad in mine when trying to get BNE stations, compared to when I get Courtesy VWs from the dealer.

[IN2VWS]

What van do you have?
If it is the current series, have you checked the antenna connections behind the door trim?
From the mirror, the antennas all have connections behind the door trim, and from there, they join the main loom back into the cabin from the door.
There is also the earth connections behind the door trim that go to the antennas in the mirror.

[buzuki]

yeah, there is like an anteena earth on the doors, other place to check is where the wiring goes from door to body.

[The_Hawk]

Our reception (2010 T5.2) is pretty ordinary with the Pioneer AVIC we have installed

(Although I have noticed that if I'm parked it gets better or worse depending on how close I am to the mirror...)

[IN2VWS]

I had a Pioneer AVIC installed in my 2007 T5.
How do you find the bluetooth connectivity? Mine was a PITA. Sometimes it would connect to my phone, other times it wouldn't, it was hit and miss.
The other thing I didn't like on the AVIC compared to a RNS510, is when you are on a call on the RNS510, the music you are listening to on a cd, hdd or SD will pause until the end of the call. But on the AVIC, it will keep playing, so when you are finished on a call, you could have missed 3 or 4 songs.
Also on a sunny day, the screen was imposible to see.

[question?]

What van do you have?
If it is the current series, have you checked the antenna connections behind the door trim?
From the mirror, the antennas all have connections behind the door trim, and from there, they join the main loom back into the cabin from the door.
There is also the earth connections behind the door trim that go to the antennas in the mirror.

MY11 Caravelle... will take a look or more the dealer can perhaps.... it has just never been good. But I did check out another one in the lot one day (they ordered in the same colour as ours but non painted bumpers) to see if it was the same... and appeared to be so. Just weird that I can grab a smaller car like a passat etc and reception is heaps better. Better head unit in them too I guess.

[Sunny43.5]

Yes I can agree different head units have better tuners than others , our original head units in both our T5,s were Blaupunkt and yes they were made in China ???? both units were removed as they had limited play options [ the one in our family van the front panel which tilted down broke off in the first couple of months VW claimed we must have been to rough on it Bull so I bought a better unit from China with GPS built in/ reversing camera/ SD card slot/ iPOd connection/ bluetooth for phone and music streaming/ Digital TV /Am Fm radio plays DVD,s Mp3,s AVI files and many others along with touch screen and revolving menus for the pricey sum of $360 delivered . Now the radio tuners are pretty good maybe not as strong as some better brand names but as I rarely listen to radio these days it was not a priority .Now as for all the antennaes in the mirrors etc I would hate to think how much one of these suckers would cost if the whole unit was damaged beyond repair , as our older T5,s have had the odd broken mirror and standard they are not cheap just the glass mirror was over $120 not including any surrounds etc. And what peed me off was I bought one and the price was much higher than the one before as it had the heater element built in which we don,t even have !!!! I complained and got a reduction Howard

[IN2VWS]

Price?
The assembly (less glass) cost me $275.

[The_Hawk]

The AVIC is ... interesting... I don't know that I would buy another one, but for the money it's got Bluetooth, iPod connectivity & RVC all for much less than the dealers price for a RNS unit.

You're right on the screen, in bright light it sucks, the angle of the unit in the T5 doesn't help either. Bluetooth always seemed to work fine for me, although the wife tells she has issues with it not connecting sometimes. Maybe my lack of issues stem from the fact I have to manually switch from her phone to mine when I want to use it so force the connection... (It doesn't seem to have the smarts to just detect what's nearby, you have to TELL it what to connect to (even though they are both pre-authorised and connected).

The music thing doesn't bother me so much, although I have noticed the lack of pause.

The nav itself seems a bit wacky. I can't work out why, but it seems to plot strange routes down little back streets quite often. It's always got us there, but I can't figure out it's rationale when working out how.

The AVIC supports speed cameras which is awesome, but it beeps if one is NEAR you (even if it's on a side road). It's the proximity system used way back when POI's were new rather than a route aware warning. To be very fair it's much better than the non existent system on the RNS, but still a little strange.

On the interface side, it's a bit of a mixed bag of scroll bars which you can drag and buttons you have to press to scroll. You get used to which parts you can do what in, but it's very strange and feels like more of a beta than a final release SW.

On the plus side, it plays video from the iPod if you like It shows the posted speed for the current road (if it's listed in the mapping data) which is nice as well as tracking every journey you make on an SD card which you can download and play back later if you like. In our case I'm a hoarder and have saved pretty much every trip the van has ever made onto my computer... It's come in handy one time when we got a speeding ticket I didn't believe... till I looked up the history and it turns out we really were there when it said we were
Mrs_Hawk adds that it's *very* easy to use as a bonus too.

What I want... TomTom to partner up with VW and make the next gen RNS... that would be awesome.