rcd300 to rcd310 retro fit

[karlos28]

hi all,

not posted on here for a long time now!! but im wondering if i can pick the brains of some head unit pro's..

my dad has a mk5 with (what i think is) the rcd300 head unit. now hes got some kinda box that removes the cd changer and allows him to play his ipod. but he really wants to see the track names ect and control the ipod using the head unit.

now from what digging around i have done it seems that the rcd310 will work with a MDI which will allow this...

then i read people talking about gateway or something??  anyone got any advice on doing such a retrofit?

cheers all!

[J400uk]

So you'll need the CAN Gateway updating if the car is pre-2008MY. This is indicated by either the 10th digit of the VIN (should be 8 or above) or the part number of the existing gateway. When you add the price of that (circa £90) to the price of the MDI (£100?) plus the head unit itself the retrofit starts to look quite expensive.

You might get better value jumping to an RCD 510 which also adds a 6.5" Touch Screen, built in 6-CD Changer and SD card reader. If you got one of those he could instead copy his music to SD card and then play through the unit that way and not bother with the MDI.

Alternatively if you can live without RDS (displays station names on the screen) then you can get Chinese market RCD 510s for well under £100 e.g. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OEM-RCD510-Car-Radio-6CD-USB-Reverse-image-VW-Code-OPS-ipod-bluetooth-SD-MP3-/191155072434?clk_rvr_id=629191333824 . These are still made by VW just they weren't originally intended for the UK market. Advantage is they are not only very cheap but also have built in USB/ iPod support (EU models lack this)

[karlos28]

very interesting... so those Chinese ones will still work on uk radio stations, just wont display 'radio 1' ect...

will he still need to do this gateway malarkey? is that a physical thing or is it software?

cheers for the reply!

[J400uk]

Yeah it will just display 98.8Mhz instead of Radio 1. You'd still need a CAN Gateway either way as its a physical item that needs upgrading to a newer one.

[karlos28]

Cheers for that mate. So will he need a specific gateway? Of just one that works with the head unit?

Cheers!

[J400uk]

Just a newer gateway of the right revision to support the 3rd generation radios, will be the same for most the new head units

[karlos28]

Cheers fella, I think hes going to go down the Chinese route! So just need to sort a correct gateway. 

Is this correct?
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=251529024590&alt=web

cheers!

[J400uk]

No worries. That gateway looks a bit old, you need a new one really like this - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/OEM-CAN-BUS-GATEWAY-CONTROL-UNIT-VW-RNS310-RCD510-RNS510-RNS315-7N0907530AJ-/191085346455 . He'll need access to VCDS to have the software coded, otherwise you can pay a bit more for a precoded one - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VW-CAN-Gateway-CAN-BUS-Precoded-RNS510-RCD-Skoda-Columbus-Bolero-Golf-Mk5-Gti-/131172237258 

[karlos28]

Hefty price difference!  Can you get them coded somewhere or something?