Hi fellow XFire owners:

I am about to buy a new Alpine 9856 head Unit. I really do not like the stock unit, cannot connect my IPod easily and I do not find the Infinity unit to be user-friendly. I also hate the fact that CD's skip when I go over gentle bumps. And where the heck do you sore extra CD's? I do not have the changer/Nav version.

I have also purchased a Sony Ericsson Hands free bluetooth unit which has a nice display screen so I don't have to fiddle with damn reading glasses when the phone rings. The Alpine Bluetooth adaptor is not available in Canada yet.

I will bring the car and new hardware to a reputable installer but I was wondering if there are any cautions or concerns I should be aware of - I do not want to mess up what I consider to be an acceptable speaker system.

I have read most of the posts here and know there are some very knowledgeable owners lurking. Any suggestions would be most welcome.

Cathie
'05 Limited Roadster

 

Hi Cathie...welcome to the forum. Can't help you much with head swap and ipod stuff, but if you are having an installer do all of that for you, be sure to have them put the capacitors on the door speakers as covered in another post. It will definitely make those acceptable speakers even more acceptable. Good luck with the swap.

 

I just installed the Alpine 9857 with the iPod adapter a few days ago (they are very similar head units). There are a few things to note. The instructions on the wiring harness are a bit misleading, because they weren't written for the Crossfire. Match all the color coded wires from the VW harness to the Alpine harness except for the red and yellow power wires. In our car, red goes to yellow and yellow goes to red. Also, make sure the blue/white wire from the Alpine goes to the Pink wire on the VW wiring harness. That is the Amp power wire and when I installed mine, there were no instructions for what to do with those wires, so I didn't connect them and thus got no sound at all from my speakers. I've been very happy with the Alpine over the stock head unit. Actually, the stock head unit is pretty crappy compared to it.

Good luck!
Michael

 

Thanks guys!

I will print out these words of caution and advice and give them to my installers. I brought the car to them first before I booked an appointment to see if they could handle it and when asked what kind of car I drove, before I could finish my sentence, they were out of the shop to take a look at it. Crossfires are a rare sight in Ottawa.

I am greatly reassured by your comments Michael. I was worried about making the change but I am a long time Alpine user and like their controls.

I will upload a picture when the job is done.

Cathie

 

I had real problems getting the Motorola unit working with the original becker unit so I went for the Pioneer Bluetooth unit - the installer made a wiring loom so that i can plug the old becker back in future - not that the car is going. The sound is fantastic, and the phone function is great - i have the mike installed just above the steering wheel so the wind noise with the top down is okay.
The Ipod function is great.

I just want to put some two 6 inch speakers in the bulk head behind the seat - i need to see how much room there is.

Cheers