So, this was never going to be a easy job now was it ! I got a old Parrot bluetooth kit that I wanted to install into the Skoda, now having done this a few times before on different cars i kind of had a clue that this was going to take a little longer than normal.
Job Requirements To Buy ISO to Skoda Cable Mini blade fuse bypass holder Mini blade fuses
First of all you need to buy the converter cable, make sure that it will work with Parrot kits, as you can see on the right is the big Skoda connectors and on the left is the Parrot ones, and the red loose cable also, we will come to that later.
Now once you have this cable you can start the job, no you dont need to buy keys to remove the radio ! just a set of Torx screwdrivers. Best to unclip the pannel that goes around the radio, its just clips, to do this i used a small screwdriver and a computer blank plate. Then in each corner of the radio you will see a plastic plate that covers the screw holes so with a small screwdriver flick them out, you will now see the Trox screws, so un screw the four screws and your almost ready to remove the radio. If you pull it forward it should now come out on its own, well so far anyway, pull out slow as the connector is in the back plus the aerial cable. Once you have slid it out disconnect the aerial cable at rear (right) you can then disconnect the main connector rear (left) this is a bit tricky to do and you might need a small screwdriver to flick the clip on the bottom of the connector to get it out. Once you removed the connector you can remove the radio. Don’t worry it wont loose the stations or ask for a code. Mine didn’t and it was disconnected for a good few hours.
So now you have the radio out you will notice a issue, well you might not straight away but trust me you will see what i mean.You cant fit the bluetooth unit behind the radio it just wont fit at all. So I fitted mine to the side of the ashtracy just behind the gearbox, as you can see the blue unit in the image below. I put a cable tie around it to hold it in place so it does not move around. To do this you need to open the ashtracy unscrew the two torx screws at the front slide it out, disconnect the light (remember to reconnect later when you put it back) you can now unclip the gearbox cover also, just a few clips comes off dead easy. You now have easy access. I have left this on a connector block for a reason, later on I want to change the cigarette lighter to ignition live as its a permanent live, so behind the ashtray is easy access to do this job another day.
Now back to the problem, as you can see in the image below the inside left and right is plastic with cut outs, the cut outs are not big enough to fit the cables threw and you cant push the radio fully back with the extra cables. What I did was to get a hacksaw blade and cut some of them out as you can see below on the left where the cables come up from, lucky for me there was nothing at the back of this so it was time consuming and I did a neat job as best I could and now all the cables will feed up there and tuck nice down the side as the radio is slid back into place once its all done.
So another issue is the fact that the radio on newer Skoda’s does not have a true ignition live, I wont go into how it works but its kind of cleaver and computer controlled live on the radio feed. Now you need a ignition live for the bluetooth otherwise it will stay on ! and you don’t want that do you ? The only way to do it is to get a feed direct from the fuse box, oh no you cry not another pain, well its easy really when you know how. If you look on eBay for “piggy back mini blade fuse” you should find the item shown below (right) it allows you to plug a fuse into it and plug in an spare fuse slot and away you go ! dead easy, you just need to buy some mini fuses, this I forgot when on eBay so had to go to the local car parts shop and pay double the price £2 for a pack rather than the 99p ones on eBay, oh well. So find an ignition live in fuse box, I think 7 and 10 are free and ignition live, as shown below (left) just plug in and connect a cable to it and run it back to the rear of the radio and connect the RED wire that is on the adaptor kit to this. Its not to hard to get the cable to the radio as you can tuck it under the carpet where it joins the dashboard, just watch out for the heater vents!. Oh and use the correct fuse, I put a 5amp in that’s more than enough.
So, it should now power up correctly. You can now hang the radio in loose and give it a try. Double check that it only powers up when the engine ignition is on, if not double check your wires, you may need to swap on the Parrot, i think its red and orange off top of my head but don’t quote me look it up. Its the two with fuse holders. All done I thought, went to slide the radio back in and spotted this (image below) hang loose in there, I’m sure it wasn’t there before, turns out its one of two sensors that are in the heating just above the radio, must have come loose, you need to look up and you can see a hold it goes in and pushes and twists to go in, don’t know how it dropped out it was a pain to get back in !.
The last bit is to decide where to put the microphone, I went for the mirror and fed the cable inside the roof and down the pannel at side, it clips off quite easy, down to the floor, up to where to carpet joins the glove box and along, again watch out for the heaters, and behind the carpet into the bluetooth controller. The last bit is where to mount the outside unit with the dial and hang up and volume control, I went for centre dash as i could easy lift the frame up where the heaters were with out doing any damage and the cable can drop down behind the radio and get to the controller easy enough. See image below.
