[angus]

Bought an ipod adapter (Xcarlink) on ebay £62 including posting (vw wanted £102 just for the part). Found how to remove the fascia and headunit (RCD500) from another forum, and connected the adapter which has the same functionality as the vw ipod. I threaded the cable to the glove box, and found loads of room to hide the ipod unit.
The unit works absolutely fine Only problem broke a couple of clips from the headunit plastic surround at removal, which I had to glue together.
It was so easy removing the head unit, I've been contemplating buying a sat nav unit.

 

[SoCalMan]

Wow...good work!

 

[nail-z-gull]

I was contemplating upgrading to the SatNav unit too, but was eventually put off. It's a lot of money to shell out without the confidence that it would work - and there are some dodgy units out there on ebay.

http://www.vweosclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=535

I did but the genuine VW iPod adapter from eBay though, for £80.

 

[angus]

Thanks for the warning. I think I'll stick with our portable sat nav. The reason why I didn't go for the vw ipod adapter was because you lose your cd changer. The Xcarlink has an adapter which plugs into the cd changer cable.
That is a good price for the vw ipod adapter.

 

[EosEnthusiastNB]

Also the SatNav version does not allow you to play MP3 Cds in the changer. I personally prefer my Garmin Nuvi. It was less expensive than the built in system, is stowable when I don't need it and it can go on a plane with me, play mp3s while I am flying, and get me where I need to go when I have to drive a crappy rental car. One thing I need to get for it is the sandbag type of dash kit and I will be totally happy. Also it plugs very nicely into the aux adapter in the glove box so I don't even need a stupid Ipod. It does a decent job of displaying song and artist and the "nuvi chick" (what my wife calls the voice) comes right over the stereo system when we listen to audio books or music from the nuvi. I much prefer burning MP3 cds for my car and playing those, I can hold around 15 albums in 1 disk (at 128kb) or around 10 with a higher bitrate. If the car gets too hot and the cd melts, big whoop, I just burn another. I don't keep any CDs in the car other than ones that I burned, so if they get stolen I can just make another one. The MP3 feature in the dash mounted CD system is one of the best features of the system in my opinion, and MP3s sound great with Dynaudio.

 

[schoolhousefred]

Hi EosEnthuiastNB,
Thanks for all your great input .... they mke great sense. Nice to have you around!
Cheers!