Bluetooth FM transmitter thingy

[b0redom]

Hi All,
I've just bought a 2009 SLK for the summer. It all great, but the stereo in it is awful. Only FM and CD, no bluetooth, no satnav, no RDS, nothing. I've looked at replacing it with a double DIN head unit, but a local audio installer want £700+ to do it, and it seems a bit fiddly to do it myself.

I popped into Halfords who refused to touch it based on the fact that they think it has fibre optic interconnects (which it doesn't).

Does anyone have any experience of using those bluetooth - FM bridges? Are they all much of a muchness? There seem to be eleventy billion different models ranging from a couple of quid to nearly a hundred.

Ta....

b0redom

[b0redom]

~ £200 parts
~ £300 head unit
~ £200 labour

The ISO harness etc for an SLK is eyewatering £162.

I would also need to route and install a screen mounted RDS aeriel which would probably involve removing bits of trim.

[Percy1983]

As above, there is facsia adapters etc which shouldn't be too hard to fit and can be got cheap enough.

Of course the spec of what you want the new unit to do effects budget massively, what are your priorities.

[Jonj1611]

I had that bright idea for my Mini when I had it, until I saw the price of the fascia, like you it was in the hundreds then the iso harness. Gone are the days of some cheap Halfords job, because things like steering wheel controls and reverse sensors are all integrated you need a stupidly expensive iso cable.

I didn't mind doing the work myself but by the time I added it all up it was half the value of the car!

[badass]

Hi All,
I've just bought a 2009 SLK for the summer. It all great, but the stereo in it is awful. Only FM and CD, no bluetooth, no satnav, no RDS, nothing. I've looked at replacing it with a double DIN head unit, but a local audio installer want £700+ to do it, and it seems a bit fiddly to do it myself.

I popped into Halfords who refused to touch it based on the fact that they think it has fibre optic interconnects (which it doesn't).

Does anyone have any experience of using those bluetooth - FM bridges? Are they all much of a muchness? There seem to be eleventy billion different models ranging from a couple of quid to nearly a hundred.

Ta....

b0redom

Does it have an aux in? That's what I used on my 2008 A3 - a Bluetooth/Aux adapter and it was fine.

[Kanoe]

Does it have an aux in? That's what I used on my 2008 A3 - a Bluetooth/Aux adapter and it was fine.

Went the same on mine, you might get lucky if it has the old minijack aux in somewhere.

If it does look for BT receivers that can charge at the same time as being used, sounds basic but took a lot of researching to find one that did that for sure so I dont have to worry about keeping it charged and its just plugged into the cig lighter socket permanently.

[b0redom]

Sadly no aux in otherwise I’d be golden. Annoyingly it does have Bluetooth which connects perfectly to my phone, but only for calls. I’ve been googling for something which pretends a standard Bluetooth connection is a phone call, but no joy so far.

[Saracen999]

They're rubbish and have a shocking amount of distortion and hiss, exactly what you'd expect from Chinesium.

...

It was a long time ago, and they may have improved (so don't rely on my view) but .... what keef said. They're rubbish. Useless. Such experience as I have (not that much) they were worth neither the time nor cost. The shop, fair play to them, swapped the first one for a different brand, then swapped that for a third. Then, my mutual agreement, we gave up bothering.

[b0redom]

£200 Labour to remove bits of a trim and run wires and plug a harness adapter in and screw brackets into a headunit and click them into a frame then replace the trim/fascia. Ridiculous!

Just youtube it, it isn't hard, to the point that it's everyone's first ever modification when they get a car. If you can build a PC, this is childsplay compared. It'll cost you a £5 set of ebay trim removal plastic tools and an hour max of your time with youtube playing on your phone.

It blows my mind that people are whiling to pay someone to do this, let alone 2 hours worth, of which they'll knock it out in 15-30 minutes and charge you the rest for doing nothing!

Also who's told you it costs £200 for the parts...
£100 delivered for the fascia/brackets/harness/steering wheel controls here for a double din:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/270841201595
Or £20 if you just want a simple single din adapter kit which you can obviously have BT/USB/etc etc

Except that doesn’t include an rds aerial, doesn’t say it includes steering wheel controls, just steering wheel stalk controls and says nothing about the existing built in phone mic which I think I’d also need a cable for.

I have done a head unit swap before, but this one looks to be way more involved.

As to why I’d pay for it. Well I have a full time job and spend 3-4 hours / day doing the school run. I’m very time poor.

[b0redom]

Update: I've found what appears to be an AUX port. The access menu for it was buried in the CD menu.

@kanoe
@badass

Do you have links to the Bluetooth/Aux input you used? This might end up saving me several hundred quid!

[Percy1983]

Not sure how the aux connects, on my father in laws car (2009 Ford Cmax) we added a DAB radio/SD/BT device to the aux port, but rather than wiring to an aux port somewhere in the car we removed the cable from the back of the head unit and plugged straight into the head unit.

Was only about £50 with the device and all the wires.

[b0redom]

Mine appears to just be an AUX in the glovebox. I'm going to try and dig out a very old ipod and 3.5mm male to male cable to test.

It looks like there are eleventy billion different bluetooth to aux connectors too. Interestingly it looks like Alpine and Kenwood used to sell rebadged Pure Highway 400s which could have been ideal, giving bluetooth and DAB+ bridging through an AUX output. They have all been discontinued though.

[Percy1983]

Sounds like what I fitted could work for you.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hikity-Adap...WGPIO3A8Y&th=1

Can be had cheaper form aliexpress.

[Saracen999]

Sounds like what I fitted could work for you.


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hikity-Adap...WGPIO3A8Y&th=1

Can be had cheaper form aliexpress.

How long have you had it?

What makes me nervous is 13% of reviews being 1-star, the manufacturer beng China-based, and the frequency among those 1-stars of "died after x weeks" and "no warranty or support from manufacturer". That's always the thing with anything bought from outside the UK - enforcing a warranty if they don't honour their "2 year" clam is, essentially, a non-starter. Which makes the purchase, in my view, a £50 punt. Maybe it comes off, maybe it doesn't.

[Kanoe]

Update: I've found what appears to be an AUX port. The access menu for it was buried in the CD menu.

@kanoe
@badass

Do you have links to the Bluetooth/Aux input you used? This might end up saving me several hundred quid!

BlitzWolf bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter Receiver, 164ft Long Range bluetooth Receiver with 3.5mm Audio Adapter, Support aptX HD Low Latency.

Dont think they make it anymore though. Was only £20 and has been great.

[Percy1983]

How long have you had it?

What makes me nervous is 13% of reviews being 1-star, the manufacturer beng China-based, and the frequency among those 1-stars of "died after x weeks" and "no warranty or support from manufacturer". That's always the thing with anything bought from outside the UK - enforcing a warranty if they don't honour their "2 year" clam is, essentially, a non-starter. Which makes the purchase, in my view, a £50 punt. Maybe it comes off, maybe it doesn't.

In my father in laws car, been using it daily for about 3 months with no issues.