Pioneer Avic D3 to Pioneer AVIC-X920BT

[JohnnyDepp]

 

Friggin' Pioneer...sometimes, I REALLY hate those guys...

why, Every single brand i have ever used or sold has periodically changes their harnesses, not just a pioneer thing

 

Hmm...not to be rude, but just because a few other companies change their products enough to make a simple plug-and-play upgrade impossible doesn't make it right...in fact, it's plain dumb business...especially since Pioneer forces their customer base to buy entirely new units to fix the mistakes of their past ones. Any marketing person worth his pay will tell you that it's ALWAYS better to make it easy for customers to replace an old unit with a new one. So the old "but mom, my best FRIEND also jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge" defense really doesn't work.

 

So...other reasons I'm miffed at them? Well, since you ask...

 

- Harness Changes: The harness change we just discussed...

 

- Really Poor Past Bluetooth:

 

Pioneer techs admitted many times to many people on this forum that they made a number of errors programming the Bluetooth stack on the BTB200, which made all the older units totally nonfunctional with a TON of phones, and prevented phones that USED to have excellent voice-dialing capabilities (e.g., the 2004 Motorola RAZR) from working properly. Instead of bothering to fix it and adhere to the Bluetooth HFP and HSP protocols and standards by offering a replacement unit (e.g., a BTB201?) they just said "tough...we always said we can't guarantee your phone will work with this unit"....this despite HEAVILY advertising the hands-free and telephony capabilities of those older units.

 

Often, they told people "well...buy the new units with better Bluetooth"...thanks...instead of offering a Bluetooth accessory to fix their past mistakes, they use forced obsolescence, viewing existing customers as a forced-upgrade pool.

 

In contrast, Kenwood's units use Parrot bluetooth, which is far superior and whose programmers adhere to the relevant Bluetooth standards and properly programs their bluetooth profiles.

 

- Soon-Obsolete Traffic and Live Data:

 

Everybody's Z-, F-, and X-series units that rely on MSN for traffic and other live data will all go obsolete, losing these functions in a year...Pioneer refuses to develop a replacement FM-TDS add-on as well as live internet add-on to replace the functionality everyone is going to use....once again, forcing customers to buy $1000+ units instead of a simple $100 replacement add-on. Tom Toms and Garmins costing $200 use FM-TDS, and Pioneer could EASILY help out tens of thousands of their existing customers by offering add-ons to replace what they'll all be losing in Jan 2012.

 

And of course, they made the new X-series units incompatible with the XM NavTraffic feature on the older XM receiver...probably because they made some sort of deal with Microsoft and MSN. Thanks, Pioneer....for making new units incompatible with the NavTraffic features of your older XM units. Idiots.

 

- Navigation: Pioneer went with inferior iGo on the earlier units...and Pioneer-proprietary navigation on the newer ones. In contrast, Kenwood was smart enough to go with Garmin navigation, which works better and allows ANYONE to borrow a car and know how to use the nav system, since Garmin is so common.

 

- Habit of Ridiculous Bugs: Until recently, if one acknowledged the map warnings at the wrong time, VR cataloging wouldn't work and people couldn't use the units by voice. And some techs told members of this forum that it was "a feature"...LOL. Are you @*#&$$$ kidding me, Pioneer? And let's not get into the dozens of other comical bugs that everyone on here has been complaining about for years (especially on the F-series units)....we could spend days going through those (e.g., mispellings, vehicle arrows not pointing in the correct direction, VR cataloging not working, slow boots and lock-ups, and the really comical bugs in all the F-series units).

 

- Rebates to Move Large Numbers of Old Product *JUST* before Releasing Previously-Secret New Units: Yes, some other brands use rebates to clear old inventory, but not with the large rebates Pioneer used...and not RIGHT before a near-zero-notice release of new units that many folks would've preferred to wait for had they known they were coming. In fact, that's why I think an expensive replacement for the X920BT is probably on the horizon...a mysterious rebate has appeared.

 

- Inferior Manuals: Some of the Japanese-to-english translation in all the Pioneer navigation unit manuals is really comically bad. In contrast, Kenwoods are pretty decent...and Tom Tom, Garmin, Magellan, etc. are all owned by western countries and have flawless technical guides.

[1loudls]

and since its a free market system, you can either bitch about it and do nothing like most people like to do, or if there are so many problems you can actually do something about it and get a better brand, instead of following all the other sheep and just buying another unit from the same company you just told me how bad they where.

 

did you ever stop to think that the reason that they change stuff like the harnesses might just have to do with something like the suppliers that provide all the accessories(because pioneer doesn't have the time or desire to mess around with building all the small mics and ant if they could just have them made by a company for less then what it would cost them) might have made changes to their products and pioneer has to design around it. or do you just think that these companies just spend countless dollars wasted on redesigning parts that they already had just because they feel like wasting money.

 

also if you think that they care enough about making the swap easy for you to do as their primary purpose in designing the units, your completely wrong, its all going to come down to what they can get from their suppliers and how much its gonna cost, because if rewiring a harness or replacing a different GPS ant is too difficult for you, then you have absolutely no business behind the dash. period.

 

and of course every company in the world will discount all of the old stock, to make room for all the new stuff. if all the stores still had tons of stock of older units then none of the shops would buy any of the new products, if nobody bought any of the new models then they would have to stop making new models and then every body would have a old POS. and you as a customer should know if a unit has a huge rebate on it after it has been around for a while then there is probably something new right around the corner. that has been how its done for a long time bud, might as well get used to it, if they told you some thing was coming out real soon then nobody would buy a old model no matter how cheap it was, that's what the marketing staff is paid to do, move units

 

just because something doesn't make sense from a marketing stand point, doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense from an engineering standpoint, sure the marketers tell the engineers what they want, but it is the engineers job to deliver it as realistically as possible and as cheaply as possible.

[JohnnyDepp]

LOL...just what I expected from the unapologetic fanboys on this site. Pioneer can do no wrong, according to you guys.

 

I notice you didn't have much of a defense for the MSN-only live data, live-POI, and traffic information issue that's going to render nearly the entire Pioneer F-, X-, and Z-series obsolete in a year....lol. To which Pioneer's answer to everyone has been "Oh well...at least your stuff will work until Jan 2011...nope, we don't plan any particular replacement capability for our existing units...good luck, customers!"

[1loudls]

LOL...just what I expected from the unapologetic fanboys on this site. Pioneer can do no wrong, according to you guys.

well thank you for showing your ignorance, because im am anything but a pioneer fanboy, i really dont care for pioneer at all, and am usually the first to tell you whats wrong with them, pioneer can and has done plenty wrong, but you are the person that despite all the bitching and moaning, is contemplating buying another poorly designed, and inferior unit instead of looking elsewhere

 

also why should i have to apologize for anything that pioneer did?

 

 

I notice you didn't have much of a defense for the MSN-only live data, live-POI, and traffic information issue

your actually right for once, that was a bad idea, totally. there is no argument for that. however i knew all about that before i made my F-series purchase, so that really doesn't effect me

 

that's going to render nearly the entire Pioneer F-, X-, and Z-series obsolete in a year

so while there will be new advances made i guess its going to come down to which definition of obsolete you want to use

 

–adjective

1.

no longer in general use; fallen into disuse: an obsolete expression.

 

well the units will still have maps, and will be able to tell you how to get places, and the radio, ipod, XM, SD, CD, DVD, and USB players will still work fine, so then that is not an accurate statement, because the lack of traffic info wont stop me from using this unit everyday

 

or we can go with

 

–verb (used with object)

6.

to make obsolete by replacing with something newer or better;

 

which this would be dead on accurate with these radios, however, it would also accurately describe every piece of electronics ever built in the history of mankind

 

 

To which Pioneer's answer to everyone has been "Oh well...at least your stuff will work until Jan 2011...nope, we don't plan any particular replacement capability for our existing units...good luck, customers!"

so then please remind me why exactly you would even be considering buying ANOTHER unit from any company if you truly believed what you where saying. that makes no sense what so ever.

 

i guess i'm the only intelligent one here, because the only reason i bought the unit that i did, was because of the price. i did all my research and knew of every problem long before i bought my radio, and i definitely knew that there was new models about to come out and thats why i got my unit new in the box for less than half price, which for what i got makes this radio the best VALUE out there, and long from the BEST unit out there, for $500, no brand would have offered everything that i got for anywhere near the price.

 

if your so damn butt hurt over pioneer giving you the shaft, then man up and switch brands, instead of complaining about everything and doing nothing.

[BorisM]

- Pioneer went with inferior iGo on the earlier units...

 

Sorry. iGO is the most powerful and full-featured navigation software on the market. Not that you could see it with Pioneer's custom skin on top of it, but this is easily fixed.

 

Garmins are perfectly fine basic navigators, but no more than that.

[JohnnyDepp]

Hey Everybody:

 

I just successfully upgraded a buddy's D3 to the X920BT.

 

I wanted to let you know you all missed ANOTHER important difference in the harnesses.

 

Specifically, there is a blue/white wire on the D3's white RCA harness for "system control terminal of the power amp." There is ALSO a different pure blue wire on the D3's black power harness for "antenna relay control." They are different, and the D3's install instructions specifically say to keep them separate.

 

However, on the X920BT, both of these appear to have been combined on a single blue/white wire on the X920BT black power harness.

 

In our install, we had to move what we had connected to the D3's blue/white RCA wire over to the black harness. In our case, the rear speakers wouldn't work until we hooked it up because of the details of how his D3 install was done. So now, we've got his Audi's antenna control relay AND a power/amp or real speaker line BOTH connected to the same (blue) wire leftover from the old D3 power harness. If we had used the new X920BT harness, then we'd have them BOTH on the new blue/white wire.

 

- JD

[Erich55016]

I have the Pioneer Avic D3 installed in my vehicle and I am intrested in purchasing the Pioneer AVIC-X920BT. Am I able to just unplug the connections on the Avic D3 and just plug into the new unit? Or are there different wires that need to be ran?

Thanks.

 

Are you getting rid of your D3?