sacha35
17-12-2012, 02:05 AM
Having seen many tackle this retrofit I thought this wouldbe a great addition to my car, I did not want to go for an aftermarket kit asit would look just like one, I wanted the full factory kit that looks oncefitted like it came out of the factory as standard fit. Well looking at allpossible ways to go about this I soon found that this was going to be quite abig job, but being handy with the spanners it did not put me off.
Having investigated all avenues I found that the parts wherenot to cheap, yes I could spend some time looking on flee bay for second handparts or the odd breakers yard, but did not want to put something on the carthat may result in a broken park that did not work and then spend more time andmoney sourcing a replacement.
So started looking on line and came across kufatec, yes verygood company and retrofit parts but the price was way too expensive and I haveheard rumours that some of the cables are a bit short, which makes fitting difficultin some of the areas you have to get into. There were a few other sites that I won’tmention that also offer aftermarket kits, but not too sure how well they would performand if the integration with the MMI would work that well.
Well I came across a guy called DavidB8 who I am sure youhave all heard of, he is very well known and respected within the retrofit community,I got chatting to him and asked a few questions about the Audi A4 B8 Parkingaid plus kit and he was most helpful, and to top it all his kit came in a hellof a lot cheaper than other companies I had found. Well I placed my order alittle over two weeks ago and on Friday just gone all my new shiny kit arrived.
DavidB8 had spent a bit of time getting the kit ready, itwas all labelled up with what goes where and complete with instructions on howto fit the parts, also all the parts were new which I was very happy about.
Day one 3 hours’ work:Anyway got to work on the car Friday afternoon about 1pm, itwould not give me much time to work on the car as it gets dark now around 4pmso though I would tackle the wiring first inside the car as it was alsoraining.
I Removed the lower rear seat and off side inner boot s panelFixed the control module and rear Buzzer, then ran cables from control moduleand connected up the earth cable and power cable to the fuse box, next was torun the cables from the control module to the rear buzzer and make connection,once this was done I ran the cables along the route of existing cables thoughthe trunking that was already there and across to the near side, then to the frontpassenger side of the car.
By this time it was about 3:45 it was staring to get dark soput the rear lower seat back in and fixed the rear offside panels back intoplace and called it a night.
Day two 6 hours’ work.Being Saturday I had a bit more time on the car, and the weatherwas kinder to me as well.
Leaving off from where I started, I had to get the cablesrun to the new parking switch and front buzzer and make connections to the CanBus, this job was quite start forward, removed glove box and pulled out CDchanger from the dash, fitted new parking switch and made the two cable connectionto the existing block and refitted the cd changer, next up was fitting thebuzzer, this was not easy but with a bit of patents and a bit of swearing gotit fitted in the correct location and plugged the cable in to it, next was connectingthe two cables to the Can Bus, the number labels that David had put on these didnot tally up with my existing Can Buss cables so sent him a mail just to makesure where these should go as I did not want to do any damage, within an houror so he quickly replied and told me this was not a problem and to use the existingslot available.
Well having connected the cables to the Can bus the nextstep was to get the remain cable to the front of the car for the front parkingsensors, again not to bad a job, there is a side grommet with existing cablethat pass though it so used this route and clipped the cable to the existing alongthis route to the front of the car.
The next job which I found the hardest was removing thefront bumper, anyway front bumper removed and cleaned, then using the markingson the rear of the front bumper drilled the 18mm holes and fitted the twobrackets and parking sensors, next fitted the grill brackets and sensors then clippedthe cable and fitted the front bumper back onto the car lining up everything asit was originally, next was to put the cables into the connecting block, againall these were perfectly labelled up and was a five minuet job to do, once donesimply connected the front bumper parking sensor cable to the main cable run. Itwas staring to get dark again by this time, so called it a day.
Day Three 2 hours’ work.
Well only having the rear bumper to sort I knew this wasgoing to be an easy day for me; again the weather was kind to me today. And withthe rear bumper removed which was quite a simple job I cleaned it and drilledthe four holes then fitted the parking sensor brackets and then clipped theparking sensors into the brackets, ran and clipped the cable to the sensors andfitted rear bumper back onto the car. The next step was to program some of thebits up telling the car it now had Parking Aid plus fitted, well I did this andall seemed to work, but I then decided to run a scan on the cars system to makesure there was no fault codes and it came up with two faults, what had I done wrong?Well I could not work it out so sent another mail to David and straight away hereplied with the answer which was a mistake I had done with the programing,once this was sorted all worked correctly with no faults on the car at all.
All in all the job has taken me on my own 11 hours to dofrom start to finish, and considering this was my first go at doing this sortof thing I don’t think it took too long to accomplish the job in hand.
It goes without saying though, all this would not have beenpossible for me to do without the help and support of DavidB8, from Day one hesorted all the parts I needed and made a detailed list and numbered everythingup for me, he even enclosed drawings to make my life easier, and most of allwas on hand when I needed his help. I think this part is the most important, it’snot a matter of getting the parts to do a job it the after sales that goes along way in my book, so a big thanks to David for all your help and support, Iwill defiantly be coming back for more in my next retrofit.
Anyway I am sure I have bored you all to death by now withthis post, but just wanted to let you all know how easy this job was to do, Iwill post up some images as soon as I can.
DavidB8 can be found at this address: http://www.audienthusiasts.com/index.html (http://www.audienthusiasts.com/index.html)
Thanks again for all your help DavidB8.
Having investigated all avenues I found that the parts wherenot to cheap, yes I could spend some time looking on flee bay for second handparts or the odd breakers yard, but did not want to put something on the carthat may result in a broken park that did not work and then spend more time andmoney sourcing a replacement.
So started looking on line and came across kufatec, yes verygood company and retrofit parts but the price was way too expensive and I haveheard rumours that some of the cables are a bit short, which makes fitting difficultin some of the areas you have to get into. There were a few other sites that I won’tmention that also offer aftermarket kits, but not too sure how well they would performand if the integration with the MMI would work that well.
Well I came across a guy called DavidB8 who I am sure youhave all heard of, he is very well known and respected within the retrofit community,I got chatting to him and asked a few questions about the Audi A4 B8 Parkingaid plus kit and he was most helpful, and to top it all his kit came in a hellof a lot cheaper than other companies I had found. Well I placed my order alittle over two weeks ago and on Friday just gone all my new shiny kit arrived.
DavidB8 had spent a bit of time getting the kit ready, itwas all labelled up with what goes where and complete with instructions on howto fit the parts, also all the parts were new which I was very happy about.
Day one 3 hours’ work:Anyway got to work on the car Friday afternoon about 1pm, itwould not give me much time to work on the car as it gets dark now around 4pmso though I would tackle the wiring first inside the car as it was alsoraining.
I Removed the lower rear seat and off side inner boot s panelFixed the control module and rear Buzzer, then ran cables from control moduleand connected up the earth cable and power cable to the fuse box, next was torun the cables from the control module to the rear buzzer and make connection,once this was done I ran the cables along the route of existing cables thoughthe trunking that was already there and across to the near side, then to the frontpassenger side of the car.
By this time it was about 3:45 it was staring to get dark soput the rear lower seat back in and fixed the rear offside panels back intoplace and called it a night.
Day two 6 hours’ work.Being Saturday I had a bit more time on the car, and the weatherwas kinder to me as well.
Leaving off from where I started, I had to get the cablesrun to the new parking switch and front buzzer and make connections to the CanBus, this job was quite start forward, removed glove box and pulled out CDchanger from the dash, fitted new parking switch and made the two cable connectionto the existing block and refitted the cd changer, next up was fitting thebuzzer, this was not easy but with a bit of patents and a bit of swearing gotit fitted in the correct location and plugged the cable in to it, next was connectingthe two cables to the Can Bus, the number labels that David had put on these didnot tally up with my existing Can Buss cables so sent him a mail just to makesure where these should go as I did not want to do any damage, within an houror so he quickly replied and told me this was not a problem and to use the existingslot available.
Well having connected the cables to the Can bus the nextstep was to get the remain cable to the front of the car for the front parkingsensors, again not to bad a job, there is a side grommet with existing cablethat pass though it so used this route and clipped the cable to the existing alongthis route to the front of the car.
The next job which I found the hardest was removing thefront bumper, anyway front bumper removed and cleaned, then using the markingson the rear of the front bumper drilled the 18mm holes and fitted the twobrackets and parking sensors, next fitted the grill brackets and sensors then clippedthe cable and fitted the front bumper back onto the car lining up everything asit was originally, next was to put the cables into the connecting block, againall these were perfectly labelled up and was a five minuet job to do, once donesimply connected the front bumper parking sensor cable to the main cable run. Itwas staring to get dark again by this time, so called it a day.
Day Three 2 hours’ work.
Well only having the rear bumper to sort I knew this wasgoing to be an easy day for me; again the weather was kind to me today. And withthe rear bumper removed which was quite a simple job I cleaned it and drilledthe four holes then fitted the parking sensor brackets and then clipped theparking sensors into the brackets, ran and clipped the cable to the sensors andfitted rear bumper back onto the car. The next step was to program some of thebits up telling the car it now had Parking Aid plus fitted, well I did this andall seemed to work, but I then decided to run a scan on the cars system to makesure there was no fault codes and it came up with two faults, what had I done wrong?Well I could not work it out so sent another mail to David and straight away hereplied with the answer which was a mistake I had done with the programing,once this was sorted all worked correctly with no faults on the car at all.
All in all the job has taken me on my own 11 hours to dofrom start to finish, and considering this was my first go at doing this sortof thing I don’t think it took too long to accomplish the job in hand.
It goes without saying though, all this would not have beenpossible for me to do without the help and support of DavidB8, from Day one hesorted all the parts I needed and made a detailed list and numbered everythingup for me, he even enclosed drawings to make my life easier, and most of allwas on hand when I needed his help. I think this part is the most important, it’snot a matter of getting the parts to do a job it the after sales that goes along way in my book, so a big thanks to David for all your help and support, Iwill defiantly be coming back for more in my next retrofit.
Anyway I am sure I have bored you all to death by now withthis post, but just wanted to let you all know how easy this job was to do, Iwill post up some images as soon as I can.
DavidB8 can be found at this address: http://www.audienthusiasts.com/index.html (http://www.audienthusiasts.com/index.html)
Thanks again for all your help DavidB8.