Steering Wheel Control Adapters?

[ks08edge]

Hey gang,

 

First off, thanks for sharing a lot of good information out here, it has been quite informative reading. Now on to my situation ...

 

For starters, I made a huge mistake by letting the dealer pressure me into taking a vehicle from the lot , with the promise they would add a NAV system that was almost exactly like the factory one. Upon being promised everything would still be fully integrated and work seemlessly, I agreed to it. What they installed was a Pioneer AVIC-D3, which has no voice command support, so I complained and they upgraded it to the Z2, which does have voice commands, though I am still not convinced it is as robust as the factory Sync system.

 

After further complaint of having a brand new vehicle with a bunch of dead buttons on the steering wheel, they installed a PAC SWI-PS, which does activate most of the buttons. The main reason for my post is that this steering wheel control adapter does not provide support for the voice activation button, which conveniently has a nearly identical icon for the onscreen and steering wheel buttons. Anyone know of an adaptor that would provide full support of steering wheel controls?

 

This one is what I am tackling first, although others on the list include:

1) Finding a way to use the factory microphone in the rear view mirror, instead of the one they left hanging from the A pillar.

2) Relocating the satellite and NAV antennas from the awkward location at the upper, driver-side corner of the windshield when a factory antenna for Sirius was already installed in the rear.

3) Wiring the iPod cable that currently hangs loose in the glove box to the factory installed USB port in the console.

 

I am very happy with the vehicle, but very unhappy with myself for falling for a dealer selling products they know nothing about. To their credit, they have promised to handle the aesthetic issues next time I am in town, but I really don't trust them, and would just as soon handle it myself at this point. I have never really messed with car stereo installs before, but am a quick study at most things, so looks like a good time to learn!

 

Thanks for letting me vent and for any leads to the info I will need to get it all worked out.

[xplorgee]

I had a wire spliced to the factory sirius radio antenna for my AVIC D3 and sat receiver. The stock sirius receiver is in the back of the vehicle on the far back of the spare tire. It worked great. The nav gps antenna was put under the dash. Plastic/wood wont stop a gps signal and it worked great also. I had my ipod adapter in my glove comparment also. I guess u can drill a hole where the stock usb would be and put in the round connector first and fish it out. Good luck with microphone. My PESWIPS wheel controller woulnt work all the time for the vol up. Dont konw if it was a bad adapter but it would work only sometimes.

[ks08edge]

I had a wire spliced to the factory sirius radio antenna for my AVIC D3 and sat receiver. The stock sirius receiver is in the back of the vehicle on the far back of the spare tire. It worked great. The nav gps antenna was put under the dash. Plastic/wood wont stop a gps signal and it worked great also. I had my ipod adapter in my glove comparment also. I guess u can drill a hole where the stock usb would be and put in the round connector first and fish it out. Good luck with microphone. My PESWIPS wheel controller woulnt work all the time for the vol up. Dont konw if it was a bad adapter but it would work only sometimes.

 

Thanks for the info. It is nice to know I can place the GPS antenna under the dash, so there is one less thing to worry about concealing.

 

I have not torn into it yet, but looking through the install guide for the deck, it looks like the microphone uses a basic mini-plug, so it may be as simple as locating the wires for the factory one and splicing in a connector (will have to look into the specs on both mics to make sure, though).

 

For the iPod cable, I am hoping I can splice wires so the existing USB port is my connection, rather than drill through and use the Pioneer cable. I would then use a standard iPod cable to connect to the USB port when I want it.

 

For the satellite antenna, the unit they installed has XM built in for the NavTraffic (sp?) service, so my Sirius tuner is unused equipment at this point. Again, need a little more researh to see if there is any reason I can't just hook up the Sirius antenna and pull out the one they added.

 

As for the steering wheel controls, maybe I will get lucky and someone will introduce a more robust adapter, but it will still bug me to no end as long as I have dead buttons sitting there.

[freekyFX4]

It seems that you have answered my questions in another thread...Sync won't work with the Pioneer Avic Z2. Oh well...she will have to live with a TomTom hanging off the windshield.