ami retrofit

[oldgrowler]

hi, i have just had the ami retrofitted to my 2005 a8 and would like to know if anyone else has one if the ipod should shut down when you switch everything off as my ipod stays live with audi sign and ok to disconnect on screen, should this not turn ipod off once powered down?:confused:

[Bacon]

Hi
Same with mine, it seems to stay on all the time even with the car powered off. The most time I have left it is 7 Days, and the battery was still fine.
Bacon

[Gerbil]

hi, i have just had the ami retrofitted to my 2005 a8 and would like to know if anyone else has one if the ipod should shut down when you switch everything off as my ipod stays live with audi sign and ok to disconnect on screen, should this not turn ipod off once powered down?:confused:

Can I ask what the ami retro fit did?

I spoke to my dealer about having this done at my last service so that I could connect my iphone to the A8. He said it was fairly straightforward, but I would lose the CD player. That seemed too high a price to pay.

I find it hard to believe that Audi would make the CD changer redundant in exchange for mp3 connectivity.

What is the impact of the upgrade?
How much did it cost (main dealer?)?
Does it sound any good?

Cheers

[Bacon]

Gerbil

I bought a kit through Audi main dealer, cost £200+ and change the kit comes from http://www.dension.com/. It plugs inline with the CD changer so you keep the CD.

Bacon

[Gerbil]

Can I ask what the ami retro fit did?



What is the impact of the upgrade?
How much did it cost (main dealer?)?
Does it sound any good?

Cheers

Bacon / Growler,

do you end up with full MMI control of the ipod / iphone?

And what is the sound like?

I was in a Jag XKR at the weekend which had an iphone plugged in - tracks and playlists came up on the MMI and the sound was pretty good.

If the retro fit gives a good sound and has full handling of the ipod then I think £200 is a good deal - just wondered what you guys felt of the sound quality and control options?

Cheers

Gerbil

[Bacon]

Gerbil

The AMI retrofit much better than I ever expected, I used an FM transmitter before fitting it. The only thing it highlights are albums or story books that are recorded at a low bit rate, they might sound OK in headphones but with a couple of albums I have had to re-record at higher than 128bit rate to raise the quality.
I bought the Dension 500 from an Audi main dealer in Crawley, the cheapest I could find, for £260.
It took me about 3 hours to fit and involved taking the glove box out.
It fits alongside the CD player, so when you go to the CD/TV section you end up with 12 CD's to choose from i.e

CD1 - IPOD Albums
CD2 - IPOD Artists
CD3 - IPOD playlists ......

CD6 - CD Changer CD1
CD7 - CD Changer CD2.....

It take a bit of getting used to, and if you have a lot of albums it's a bit of a chore getting to the album you want but well worth it.

I can't comment about the iPhone as I have a Ipod classic, but it sits in the glove box so you can't see it.

One last thing, when you switch off the car the ipod stays on, and chargeing, so if you leave it for a long time you may have battery problems.

Hope that helps.

regards

Bacon

[oldgrowler]

probably a few years too late but somehow i never got the reply to this post.

had my local dealer fit official Audi ami and it works much better than after market as you get track names and scrolling through genres, playlists etc. plus you get to keep your cd player too. paid around 400 pounds which included fitting and coding all done by Audi just in case any problems arose.



Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk HD

[JulianHicks]

As above - probably too late also but my summary of various comments above, in case anyone is still thinking about it on 'D3' cars:

1: Stays on - probably by design. The load of an iPod/iPhone is trivial compared to the capacity of the battery.
2: Lose CD player - not true. It uses the 'second slot' to the right of the CD player. Trivial to replace the blanking plate on most cars but apparently early [before MY2005] cars didn't have the blanking plate so they apparently needed 'destructive modification'. [Read as "needed a hole punched through". :D
3: Sound is great - true. As always dependent on source.
4: Greater than 128bit MP3 files - maybe. IMHO 128bit Variable bit rate [VBR] files are always the best option for iPod files - lots of quality when you need it, hardly any when you don't!

AMI needs specific levels of MMI code; not sure which level but most A8s should be at 5570 now anyway on 'D3' cars. [Interestingly,my dealer said he couldn't install it, without checking the car. Suspect he didn't want the pain of an MMI upgrade]. As it turned out, CraigyB did mine in less that 10 minutes, including adaption with VAG-COM.

Julian