OmegaRed1723

I have an aging AVIC-F90BT that I'm thinking of replacing with an AVIC-8000NEX.  Does anyone know whether the wiring harnesses for these units are the same?  It would be nice to simply unplug the F90BT, swap in the 8000NEX and not have to change out the harness.  

I used this forum a couple years ago to mod my US-spec F90BT and it was very helpful. Hopefully you all can assist me once more. I was running version 3.010100 on my F90BT, but wanted to update to 2011 maps. To make a long story short, I wanted to start fresh; however, I could not locate my backup disk. So I downloaded Alex's flash disk backup from page 40 of this thread in the hopes of restoring to his image. Upon doing so, my unit got stuck in the "System Startup in Progress" reboot loop. When I click the 'map' button on the unit, I will get a Windows CE error box that states: Fatal error: Initialization Error: LoadLanguage failed. Subsequent presses of the map button do nothing, and eventually the unit will reboot and start all over again.

I assume that there is a missing and/or corrupt language file somewhere, and I'm guessing it has something to do with the iGo navigation, because pressing that button brings up the error dialogue. But I've done as much Google-fu as I possibly can, and while this has been mentioned a couple times (even in this thread), no solution has been mentioned other than re-installing and writing over the My Flash Disk on the F90 (which I've done probably a dozen times now).

Bottom line, is there any way to isolate where this language file is located so I can attempt to fix the solution. Or, is there some other way to restore the unit to bone stock that I am unaware of? I greatly appreciate any assistance the community can provide.

Editing code is a bit above my pay grade but it's good to know that it could be fixed if I were so inclined. I do find it amusing that Pioneer/iGo managed to screw up the most basic component of a navigation system, i.e., the direction the vehicle is traveling. Thanks for the input Boris—as always you have an answer.

Yes, I'm aware that the red end is the directional indicator (I made sure to triple check that in the owner's manual before I went any further).

I pulled the unit out of the dash so I could get to the GPS antenna. I unplugged it, reconnected it, and placed it in a different area to see if this made a difference. No dice. I was traveling eastbound on the Massachusetts turnpike with the red arrow pointing west!! I then headed southbound on I-95 and the red arrow will point south; but if the road curves in a south-easterly direction, the red arrow will say I'm traveling southWEST. Again, north/south is correct but east/west is reversed. I even broke out a manual compass just to make sure I wasn't losing my mind. I have no idea what is causing this.

I have an F90BT, and I noticed that while in 3D mode the compass does not point in the correct direction while I'm driving. My VW GTI has an electronic compass so I've been able to check the F90 against the car's internal compass. North and South are correct, but East and West seem to be flipped. For example, if I'm heading SE the compass will point SW. It doesn't affect the actual navigation, but it's still pretty annoying to have the compass always pointed in the wrong direction.

I just upgraded to the 3.01 firmware today and was hoping the problem would be resolved; however, the issue persists (note: it is present in 3D mode as well as the new 2D rotating mode). Is there some calibration issue that I am unaware of? This seems extremely bizzare to me. Thanks for the help!

The most I've seen in weeks is 8%. I think Microsoft was trying to push their live.com service over the past couple of months, which is why they were offering such deep discounts. Maybe they were successful or they weren't; either way I think that promotional discount period is over for good.

BenF700BT—I didn't bother with the factory 10-speaker setup. My last car was an '08 Acura TL-S which had a really nice audio system, and after about a week in the VW I knew their "premium" stereo wasn't going to cut it. There is no reason, however, that you couldn't retain the factory speakers and only install the F700. You'll just need the PAC C2R-VW and the Metra 40-EU55 antenna adaptor.

the f900 still gives you nav while you're watching a movie, but the f90 doesn't

Not true. On my F90 I just had 'Stevie Ray Vaughn: Live at the El Mocambo' playing on DVD while the navigation was telling me how to get to my destination. The navi attenuates the DVD sound and speaks over it.

The complete parts list is as follows:

PAC# C2R-VW (OEM Wiring Interface)

PAC# SWI-PS (Steering Wheel Interface)

PAC# SWI-CAN (CAN BUS Interface)

Metra# 40-EU55 (Antenna Adapter)

American International# VW-K1017 (Dash Installation Kit)

I used all of these on my MkV GTI with zero issues. Everything is available on enfigcarstereo.com and they have extremely quick turnaround.

The mic wire was run up the passenger side A-pillar and across the headliner into place. There's plenty of length in the wire so it wasn't a huge deal.

The GPS antenna has excellent reception. That center vent grill is made of metal so we were concerned about interference, but it wasn't an issue at all.

We worked a couple hours a day for 3 Saturdays and then he took the car for 3 days to finish everything. I'd say there's probably 25 hours into the car, not including tuning.

For the MkV, you need the following adapters from PAC:

• C2R-VW
  SWI-CAN
  SWI-PS

This setup retains use of the volume +/- and the mute button on the left side of the steering wheel. You do lose all audio control on the right side of the steering wheel as well as radio information on the MFD.

No soldering was required to daisy chain these adapters.

I bought my F90 on the 'bay for $510 (after rebates) and it came totally sealed with all serial numbers intact. The unit displays a keycode that you enter into the MSN website to activate the service.

A nice thing I didn't realize is that you get 3 free months of MSN Direct—no credit cards or anything. That's plenty of time to see if the service is worth keeping or not.

Don't your amps build up a lot of heat covered like that ?

Next to none. There is actually quite a bit of airflow on the rear side of the amps right underneath the heatsink fins. I played the system for over an hour this afternoon at highway volume and they were barely warm to the touch afterward. VERY impressed with the heat dissipation.

I don't think the deck is geared towards audiophiles in the sense that it's lacking advanced EQ settings, time alignment, etc. My perception may also be a bit skewed because of the poor factory speaker locations in my car. There was only so much tuning we could do before saying, "It's not getting any better." For true SQ, the Eclipse AVN series is a better bet, but for the money the AVIC is above average.

I've never been a fan of rear fill, and since I drive by myself 90% of the time I don't foresee myself using the DVD function all that much. It's one of those toys you break out when you have friends in the car, and I could care less how they think it sounds....I'm the one who paid for it

Thanks! Yes, there's a bunch of Cascade V-Max underneath all that. Surprisingly, the car had fewer rattles than I would have guessed so there wasn't a need for overkill on the deadening. Of course, I haven't listened from the outside yet

The speaker wire was Stinger HPM 16ga. Since the fronts are 3-ways anything larger than 16 wouldn't have fit through the Molex in the doors.

Hi all! I thought I'd share my F90BT installation with everyone. Below is a list of my goals going into the project, with my overall reaction to the F90BT at the bottom. Thanks to my good friend Bill for installing this in 1/100th the time it would've taken me!

System Goals:

• [*:pgfa8vt1]Upgrade factory head unit with in-dash navigation/bluetooth/Ipod control[*:pgfa8vt1]Upgrade front soundstage utilizing factory speaker location[*:pgfa8vt1]Add an SQ subwoofer in the rear hatch[*:pgfa8vt1]Retain stock look and 100% functionality of hatch area

Here's the bill of goods going into the new system:

• [*:pgfa8vt1]Head Unit: Pioneer AVIC-F90BT[*:pgfa8vt1]Front Stage: Boston Acoustics Pro 6.53 three-way component speakers[*:pgfa8vt1]Rear Stage: Eliminated[*:pgfa8vt1]Subwoofer: JL Audio 13TW5-3[*:pgfa8vt1]Front Stage Amplification: JL Audio 300/2 v2[*:pgfa8vt1]Subwoofer Amplfication: JL Audio 500/1 v2[*:pgfa8vt1]Sound Dampening: Cascade Audio (various products)

Starting off in the front of the car.

2AWG power cable & fuse holder. Using stock battery for now:

Wiring speaker cable through te molex into the doors. Power wire was run on the driver's side of the car:

Sound deadening and speakers installed in/on doors:

Backside of door panel (deadening was installed here too):

Picture of dash vent (pic borrowed from vwvortex.com):

Dash vent removed for installation of GPS antenna. You can see the black antenna towards the center of the photo:

Whole mess of PAC adapters for steering wheel control, etc.:

Bluetooth mic installed in factory location (sounds great):

And finally, the deck permanently installed:

Now onto the rear of the car!

Here's the hatch with everything removed. Notice the gigantic hump VW decided to put in the middle of the spare tire well. This had a large impact over what I ended up using for the sub.

Creating the sub box, amp & crossover mounts, as well as the cover for all the equipment.

All the mounting platforms & sub box installed.

Pics of the mockup and installation of the components:

Finished hatch with cover installed:

And with the factory trunk liner on, it looks 100% stock!

Overall impressions/thoughts

The F90-BT is a pretty versatile unit. I'd consider it a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none. After installing the 2.0 update, removing key beeps, adding a nav mute button, and performing the hardware bypass I feel like the unit does everything I expected it to.

The iPod interface is excellent, and a MILLION times better than the standard VW interface. I've had no dropout issues so far. Bluetooth is also very good; my iPhone 3g synched up immediately and contact transfer was painless. My reception is very good as well.

AM/FM reception is also improved with this unit, and other inputs (CD, iPod) sound better than stock as well. Overall sound quality of the unit is decent, but not exceptional. I knew there would be a tradeoff getting so many features in one unit; in this case overall sound quality isn't as good as some audio-only decks I've used in the past. But the breadth of features outweighs the slight deficiency in audio performance.