Time really does speed along and I must admit, I have been less inclined to post because the Bentley has been running extremely well with only the two known issues being ever present (noisy fan and noisy rear brake). The rear brake though is manageable with careful bending of the back plate which implies that a new one of those will be a requirement next time around. For now, the grinding has it's own decibelist (new word, you read it here first) sort of charm.
Now, the update. The in car entertainment, or for me more a lack of sat nag, has been bothering me for a while. I did upgrade the stereo shortly after I bought the Arnage but to be honest I have never been that impressed with the Alpine UTE200BT unit. One thing it had a tendency to do is to skip when playing Spotify when it's first switched on, settling down after a dozen or so Norman Collier moments (young people, look him up).
Another thing it did, which I found very weird is that occasionally the music would speed up ever so slightly. I thought this we me at first, and I found it worrying. As a bass player, if I suddenly detected music speeding up it could be musical carnage at the next gig I play at. After a while though it really was the unit, probably not taking signals fast enough and buffering quickly or some such technological guff to explain it.
Anyway, after some serious consideration which included marvelling at a solution that updated the pop up display of old with a button panel in place of the DIN radio, I settled on either an expensive Sony unit (XAV8050D) or an even more expensive Alpine unit. The only advantage I could see with the Alpine unit (for my uses at least) was that it would operate Carplay(TM) wirelessly. The Sony unit relies on you plugging your phone in to access such things as Waze and Spotify et al.
I went for the Sony unit after looking at pictures on various Facebook groups, so what follows is a basic "how to" pictorial guide. It's very straightforward. One word of warning though, you loose the ability to close the radio panel over as the screen is permanently stuck out. This was not a problem for me as before I bought the car, the panel had disappeared - I found out whilst installing that it was probably due to the fitting being broken on one side. Sadly, the panel itself is long gone.
So this is the box that turned up via Halfords. You will see various prices on the web but at the time of writing there are a lot of supply problems for technical equipment due to lack of silicon chip supply. However, Halfords have them for delivery at less that the RRP (£480) delivered to the local store for collection in a few days. Plus I get a discount at Halfords, so all good.
Shiny, shiny, spangly tech...
I remember years ago, when fitting a stereo, you had to be a wiring expert with cars, even the same model of car sometimes, having different wiring colours or even, back then - no wiring at all! Now with the joys of the ISO fittings, there is no need to get flustered. It's unplug and plug in, as you will see...
Depending on your Arnage and what has gone on in that little aperture in the past, getting the radio out should be the work of a few radio "keys", supplied with the radio and which are pretty universal, and then sliding the unit out. I didn't need the keys - more on that later.
As I have explained, I fitted the current radio to upgrade to Bluetooth, from the original Alpine single DIN unit - a radio that to be very honest has no place in being put in a £150,000 car in the year 2000. Frankly, it smacks of cheapness and I believe it was the original radio too. If I had been buying this car new, I would have been having words with whomever passes for the audio manager at Bentley, if that's you and you're reading this, have a word with yourself.
Because of the previous fitment, I knew that the radio would just pull out - the surround having been previously broken by some ham fisted dumb-arse. It does take a good tug though so reasonably safe.
Step 1 - Remove the existing radio
Be careful, you're pulling wires out too, you don't want to disconnect anything by accident and then wonder where it plugged in. Whilst it's all straightforward the sub woofer plugs can get confusing.
Step 2 - Remove the wires after noting their locations.
You will notice the connectors 1, 2 and 3 which are the ISO connectors, a 2 into 1 set. These are keyed, so you cannot get these plugged in wrong. Remove these.
Now, you will notice the red and black jack leads going in the back of the unit. These are the sub woofer leads. Make a note which is where (the back of the radio should be marked), use tape or something to differentiate the leads, on mine the wires all the same grey.
On my radio there is also a small black wire (immediately to the left of the two black sub leads). This is the microphone for the blue tooth phone calls. May not be on yours.
Finally there is an aerial cable to remove which is the only one left.
Also, in the picture above you will notice a grey connector block (middle of the pic). This is something I used to splice in wires to the radio as a convenient power source for my dashcam. I will transfer these across to the new cabling as I go but it's just a simple splice with good quality connectors/connector block that's needed.
Once done you'll have a fewer wires and you may find a grey plastic box (below) wired in to the yellow wire (continuous power feed). I spent several minutes trying to figure out what it was. In the end it looks like it was/is a suppressor. I took it out with no issues.
Step 3 - build the unit, or not...
After splicing my dashcam back in to the power it's to to attach the screen to the base which is simple and needs just a small/medium cross head screwdriver. It shows the unit built before inserting into the car but because of the need to check clearances I left it as is to gauge which settings. The unit allows Vertical, +10 degrees or -10 degrees for the display (+10 is the one I set it to, tilted up). And I found that the attachment of the screen has three depths that can be used. Middle one is the one I went with. Once done you can complete the build of the unit, or at least put the screen on, there's other parts to come yet.
I put the unit in first, all good (above) and then offered the screen to it to check clearances (below).
Note the black plate (central hole directly in the middle where it connects. This is a finishing cover and slides all the way in the unit so that it is kept out of the way whilst tightening screws.
Once I was happy with how it fit, I connected the new cables to the unit, which is simply putting the ISO cable supplied in the right sockets - again, you can't mix this up - followed by the sub-woofer connections which are easy to locate, plus the microphone.
Note, I placed the mic on the right next to the base unit using the peg from the closing lid to hook the bracket on. It works fine and is out of the way. No need to try and route cables up into the head lining.
Building the unit is via four screws...
...into four holes. Hole 4 is just out of view. The middle hole between 2 and 3 is to secure the plastic cover with a supplied screw.
Another tip - don't forget to put the surround trim on before final connection, like I didn't
It is worth noting too, that the floating height of the screen is adjustable. You need to set the height to the right setting so that all instruments are observable and the climate controls buttons are not blocked. I was lucky, the unit was set at the right height by default.
Above shows screws for height adjustment (left most two), angle adjustment (middle one) and depth adjustment. I put mine on two but might try it on 3 if I need to make adjustments.
Step 4 - Connection...
Connecting the cables straight forward as I said, three main connectors for the ISO cable. There are also two wires provided, one for the parking brake and one for a reversing camera.
One connector
Two connector
The third connector is into the unit. Then you need to make sure you have plugged the sub connectors in and the aerial.
Above shows it being offered up to the aperture whilst forgetting to connect the cable ends in view - Doh!
Once connected you need to CAREFULLY push the wires in whilst sliding the unit into place. Be careful only because there are other wires behind and whilst it's not the tightest space I have put a radio in, you don't want to knock a wire out of sight and find you fuel gauge/oil pressure/ejector seat is not working.
Once it is in place, throw the ignition with gay abandon (can you use that term anymore?) and after an initial pause, the unit should light up the buttons followed almost immediately with the boot up screen.
If this happens, your aerial gets turned on and becomes erect, then all should be good. You might want to tune some music in and ensure that the sub cable have been put in the right place. For me, the sound was a vast improvement on the Alpine unit, which might be because of cost and better pre-amp or other stuff I have no idea about.
Step 5 - Decide on what USB cable you want.
In order to use Apple Car Play (and probably the Android equivalent) you need to insert the supplied USB cable into the screen (vertically on the right of the screen - a little fiddly but not that hard). There are two cables supplied, one short, one long. I ended up using the long one for reasons which will become clear as you read on.
Operating Car Play wirelessly is possible only on units design with this in mind and which are several hundred pounds more expensive. Therefore you need to decide if you want to connect your phone and use these features or just use the screen for blue tooth which will give you calls and music but not else.
For those new to all this (as was I not long ago), Car Play allows you access to Waze, Spotify and other apps. I would suggest that if you are doing this install then you want to upgrade the defunct sat nag. Therefore, read on.
You can connect any phone cable to the USB port directly, if you wish. The USB cable supplied is an extension cable so that you can run the cable somewhere away from the centre of the car. You could rig it so that the phone gets connected in the glove box or is just sat on the dash above the unit, so a short cable is required. I decided that seeing my Arnage had a CD changer in the centre cubby box, which was removed during my previous upgrade, I would put the cable to there.
The Snag is running the cable will mean the removal of centre switches and possibly the climate control panel and I didn't have time for that.
This is where my photos break down but I removed the centre console wood and this allowed me to run the cable from the cubby box, through the hole to the transmission tunnel where the CD cable ran but then up next to the gear selector, across and then up the side of the centre, on the left before coming out where the unit is.
It was a bit fiddly but took maybe 30 minutes extra. Most of this 30 minutes was grabbing the cable to bring it up from the cubby box and then getting the wood to seat back properly by pushing the cable into the gap that is *just* big enough to take the cable. Once back together you can't tell.
Note that removal of the wood from the centre box, up to the Stereo slot take about 2 minutes to remove and put back, only a cross head screw driver required for two screws. The hardest thing is unscrewing the bezels that surround the window adjusters.
Once all this is done, connect your phone inside the cubby box, and watch in amazement as Car Play or the Android equivalent boot up giving you access you your apps on the screen. This also has the advantage in that the phone charges whilst plugged in and is out of the way so no one can accuse you using your phone whilst driving - not directly, anyway.
Step 5 - The finished article...
Once everything is more or less in place, there are finishing panels to slot in place which cover bare metal bits. Easy to do, they just clip in place.
Switched on and working
In conclusion.
So what can I say, a total of about 80 minutes which I think is probably slow, but I don't do this for a living.
I think I may just see if there's enough room on the adjustment to push the screen back a little more. I don't think there is, but might be worth a try if I ever decide, or need, to remove the unit again. Like when I put the DIN surround trim on which I forgot about. Although you can't really see much anyway.
For now, that's it, apart from I changed a few instrument bulbs but forgot to take pictures - I will sort that out ASAP.
Disclaimer - I did this job myself. I am not a mechanic. Do not take everything I say as gospel. I can accept no liability if you f**k up.