Hi.

I have a 2001 Audi A8L with a completely aftermarket stereo, speakers and amps. Time to upgrade the head unit.

The A8 originally came with a rudimentary GPS (text only) system, which has since been removed, BUT, the original GPS antenna in the nice, stock, audi box is still mounted externally to the trunk. The cable terminates in the trunk.

I'm adding a D3, and would live to be able to use the existing GPS antenna setup.

Choices:

(1) splice/extend the original GPS wire to the front of the car and use the existing antenna

(2) remove the guts from the existing trunk mounted box, install the correct pioneer antenna in the box and run the wire to the front.

Also, the box also would make a great place for an XM antenna. It looks like both the GPS and XM will fit, but right next to each other (almost touching). Does anyone know if this will cause a problem?

Thanks,

- John

I have a F90BT (I know this is a D-seires thread) but I have wondered the same thing about my civic antenna. If I could use the civic antenna instead of the pioneer one I could go from their what 8ft cable to the civic 12 inch cable. That is getting rid of a lot of wire that I don't have to stuff somewhere. Talking to some custom install shops (not best buy) they won't touch the gps wire because they are so fine and are worried they will just ruin the wire. I have thought about buying an extra pioneer wire and just throwing caution to the wind and trying it. The shops also said the wires are sensitive enough that a kink in them can interfere with the signal.

Searching the internet I have seen some folks do it but mainly in marine applications. My thought is the wires need to be cut to make the antenna in the first place. Basically I haven't gotten the courage to try it on my system. If you go for it, I will be interested to see how it goes.

Good luck.

BTW, wow, what a great site.

You can always tell when you find a place like this, because 6 hours of reading later, you get that "...are you STILL tweaking on that car stereo site????? !!!! " speech from your wife.

Which I just got

Again, great site.

- John

It was just easier to install a new antenna. Mine in hidden in the dash above the speedo cluster - no metal above it. 8+ sats are usually available.