Z140BH Install and review

[jbirdlebough@msn.com]

It finally arrived. You have to add:

Pioneer ND-BC5, Pioneer GEX-P920XM, Sirius SCC1, Pioneer CD-SB10, Pioneer AVIC-Z140BH, Scosche GM1590AB, Scosche MDA1B, Metra ASWC, PAC OS-2C-BOSE

 

You will need lots of barrel connectors and taps to attached to your rig, dash panel tools to remove all the bits, wide colleciton of tools.

 

First do a bench test by quickly connecting everything. This will save you a lot of time later. Next get your Sirius and XM accounts running on the radio, next setup ASWC its a very picky interface, the trick is power up radio, hit the reset button notice the fast blink, press and release volume up, the Pink wire goes to the Purple/White wire on A1, the 3.5mm jack goes in the WR jack on the back of the radio (its AVICs version of SWC), as soon as you see the light go out STOP pushing the volume up button and wait about 3 min until the light stays on. Thats when your done.

 

Now that you have it working put the S/XM radios in your console or under your seat so you have enough room in the dash. You most likely will have to cut the mounts where your old radio was to get this one to fit. Pioneer should have supplied a 2' long wire harness which would have put the bundle of barrel connectors away from the back of the radio. Very poor design here.

 

Lessons learned:

• Don't buy the chime option sounds like shit and drives you crazy.
  
• Ground the backup signal. Then everything works.
  
• Mute seems to work fine on this harness if you take the time to locate the correct pin on your car's harness assuming it has one.
  
• Make sure you have written down both your Sirius and Xm serial numbers you need to register twice because Pioneer did a very poor job working with Siruis/XM people. And you get charged DOUBLE when Edge customers who have the same dual service pay once. So 2X $238 per year. BIG RIP OFF.
  
• Cut excess wiring except signal lines and antennas, do not cut them.
  
• Use high quality barrel or better connectors.
  
• Use plastic flexible shields for all exposed wiring especially outside for three antennas and cameras.
  
• Split off the power lead from the LAN cable with single power lead, and wire the XM box directly to power on its connector.
  
• Neatly coil excess cables and use cable ties to secure them.
  
• use heavy 3/8" wire ties where cables run down your car frame, and put those cables in plastic shield before running them.
  
• Plan on 10hrs to install this thing, get a helper to hold things
  

Radio Review:

• Very good audio
  
• BC5 is an outstanding camera, used with the split rear veiw and GPS is a great safety enhancement.
  
• Almost worthless GPS, does not have sat terrian, very low details in maps, slow, pain in the ass to use, both my $120 GPS's work better even with VSpeed correctly connected.
  
• Voice recognition and speech (coach voice) is very bad, misses many commands, cuts off its own voice, this is a major disaster for this radio and that was what I bought it for the VC.
  
• Cell and calling, works very well
  
• Xoom, perfect, but would like hands on and audio, wierd thing is both work independently what were you thinking Pioneer?
  
• Sat, once correctly setup excellent
  
• HD superb
  
• Internet radio is great with Palm 2 cell or Xoom
  
• Video clear crisp, good user interface, excellent sound
  
• GUI, quite limited, should have all parameters accessable from ADV SETUP menu to turn off annoying constant warning, and tweek any parameter in the unit.
  
• APP side, this is a app radio where are the apps?
  
• USB and SD work well but needs Laptop USB-USB link support so you can directly hook your laptop via USB to work on the radio
  
• Still not sure how large SD or USB will run in this radio, testing 32GB and 64GB next.
  
• Have not seen development kit, this is definately needed to clean up the mess Pioneer made of the GUI. Some one does not understand 3 click paradigms and effective embedded system design. D- HS kids write better code than this.
  
• Once this radio is fully hacked the platform has lot of possibilities.
  

Overall Rating C+:

Pioneer did just OK, the extreme amount of extra equipment and cost, very poorly though out integration, lack of cable kits to simply plug and play and very poor technical documentation required lot of extra time to research and debug.

 

If a solid collection of accurate technical data had been available this would have still been a very painful install. Dealers wanted $500 to install and that is probably a bargain. Add $500 to $1980 worth of parts, then 2x $238 for Sat, more for traffic, your quickly at $3000 and this is just not worth it. And you still have no speakers or amps. (fortuantely had Bose system which worked well with this radio and on star which also works)

 

So buyer and dealer beware. Very expensive and time consuming.

 

The Cloudfather, Chief Engineer, TS Research Labs

[AMG-Pilot]

I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I happen to like the new NAV system in the Z140BH. It is very fast and, for me, very easy to use.

[naughtyca]

Can i get an update on the video of the sd card, is still painful in formatting the videos? my 120bt had to be formatted perfectly to work on the sd card, but any format will work on the cd or dvd side on avi files

[aquill1]

 

more for traffic

 

So buyer and dealer beware. Very expensive and time consuming.

 

The Cloudfather, Chief Engineer, TS Research Labs

 

Directly from Pioneer's website:

"There is no subscription cost and no annoying on-screen advertisements."

 

Any explanation?

[Grimlock]

Directly from Pioneer's website:

"There is no subscription cost and no annoying on-screen advertisements."

 

Any explanation?

 

Not sure what you are asking exactly, but the Z140 does come with traffic updates for free. As you drive around a message will pop us saying something like "There is traffic on your current route, would you like to try a faster route?" It will then give you a couple of routes to pick from and you go. I guess with other navigation units you either need to subscribe to a service for this, or have pop up advertisements on your screen. None of this stuff on the Z140.

[JasonH]

Why would you buy both the XM and Sirius tuners? The channels are basically the same.

[LS3 MN6]

Why would you buy both the XM and Sirius tuners? The channels are basically the same.

 

There are some channels that are on one and not the other.

 

But with Pioneer I'd go XM and forget about it.

[spender]

I just bought the Z140BH as a replacement/upgrade for my AVIC Z2 (running Z3 firmware) which had developed a connection problem with my iPod module, and which I'll admit I was too lazy to try to diagnose.

 

Anyway, I have to say - beyond visuals, not really much of an upgrade in a lot of ways, as per the following:

 

1. l don't get why they eliminated the IR remote eye on the front of the unit - I don't have steering wheel controls on my car, and the CDSR1 worked perfectly with my Z2. So my shop had to install that PAC remote unit, but I find the response time much slower, and some features don't work as well.

 

2. The voice of the "Pioneer lady" is more robotic and less polished than the voice on the Z2 - and yes, I've tried both English voices.

 

3. If I'm reading things correclty, the "AppRadio 2" compatiblity with Android that was just announced is not available for this radio. From what I've read about AppRadio, it does not seem that it would have been that hard for Pioneer to integrate it into what is supposed to be its flagship receiver. I hope they add this via firmware upgrades.

 

Anyway, I've only had the radio for a day now, but unfortunately I feel that I can honestly say that if you have a Z2 or Z3 and it is working for you, this is not a worthwhile upgrade. Why is it that car stereo companies can't get this stuff right, even in 2012? And it was expensive. Spend your money on speakers instead.

 

I agree with the C+ mark, from the first poster, but will update it if my opinion changes.

[szalkerous]

I feel I need to point out a couple things to those who may not know already...

 

A lot of the list in the original post is relevant for THAT vehicle, but may not be necessary for yours. For example, the BOSE adapter, chime module, etc. are not relevant for my 1999 Chevrolet Camaro, but would be necessary for my 2004 Chevrolet Silverado. Remember to do your individual research on what's needed for your specific vehicle.

 

(Sorry for interrupting!)

 

Edit: I saw this... "Have not seen development kit, this is definately needed to clean up the mess Pioneer made of the GUI. Some one does not understand 3 click paradigms and effective embedded system design. D- HS kids write better code than this."

 

Is there a development kit for any of the AVIC units?! Certainly not my older D2.

[VBLUE42]

Is there a development kit for any of the AVIC units?! Certainly not my older D2.

 

No.