RNS510 replacement. Looking for latest info.

Mixchump

Member
Joined
Jul 4, 2012
Location
Stratford, ON Canada
TDI
2003 Jetta Wagon 1.9L TDI - 5-Spd Manual, 2015 Passat 2L TDI 6-spd Manual
Why didn't you look at the RCD 330 if you only needed carplay and backup camera etc? It would have been a lock for me but no Sirius. Doesn't look like the Kenwood has it either.
Well, first and foremost, for me, the whole point of doing this is #1, sound quality, and #2, adding real navigation (not just data-dependent Waze / Google / Apple Maps, etc.).

The audio quality coming from anything to do with VW OEM, is immediately off the table. I'm sure RCD-330 is likely fine for a good many people, but I'm very dubious.

The Kenwood stuff is Sirrius/XM ready, and only needs the external tuner module (not too much $$), so I'm going that way.

I'll really miss the factory look and feel, but I'll let y'all know how I make out on this...
 

rustycat

Veteran Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2012
Location
seattle
TDI
2015 passat sel
VERY SLOW. My '13 Jetta was much faster. I estimate a minimum of 60 seconds. The head unit is about the worse part of the car, IMHO. The fact that I will be two minutes down the road before I can change the input from radio or media or another setting, is unacceptable in my book. The only way I can find to bypass any of this is unlock the car as soon as it is in range of my fob. From what I can tell, it starts the "warm up" process as soon as the doors are unlocked. It really is pathetic but, as I said, the only drawback of the car, as far as I'm concern.
It might have to do with the fact I have NAV in mine. My Jetta did not.
Drive safe.
So, just to make sure: we are talking about the 15 SEL.
And, it is taking 60 seconds after the transmission is placed in reverse for the backup camera to function?

I have to comment that is clearly a problem with the unit and or software.
I'd demo it to the Dealer and if they blew you off, I'd contact another Dealer and if they also blow you off I'd start seriously talking with VW about a replacement.
How many miles on the car?
 

j2112morris

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Joined
Oct 3, 2013
Location
Chicago Suburbs
TDI
2014 Audi Q5 Premium Plus TDI (sold)
So, just to make sure: we are talking about the 15 SEL.
And, it is taking 60 seconds after the transmission is placed in reverse for the backup camera to function?
I have to comment that is clearly a problem with the unit and or software.
I'd demo it to the Dealer and if they blew you off, I'd contact another Dealer and if they also blow you off I'd start seriously talking with VW about a replacement.
How many miles on the car?
I tried to get the head unit replaced under warrantee before it was out. I have over 65K now. It truly is ridiculous but so many other RNS510 owners tell me it is on par.

It just bugs me. After the "warm up" it works as I think it should, it is just the initial lag. I'm talking to a few eBay sellers about the 330 Plus unit now. I'm trying to find out if it will support the Fender option I have. Honestly, I'd forgotten I had a NAV unit because it, too, is subpar, IMHO.

Drive safe.
 

tadawson

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Joined
Jun 14, 2013
Location
Lewisville, TX
TDI
2013 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Passat TDI SEL
Timed mine yesterday . . . from the press of 'Start', in gear, and camera on was 7 seconds . . . . This after sitting 2 days, iirc . . . . Your unit is not working correctly, or you are doing something that drives it nuts . . . . The only thing I changed on mine was an upgrade to the latest firmware available for the 2013 . . . .
 

Devious

Veteran Member
Joined
Jul 5, 1999
Location
Milton, ON
TDI
2010 Jetta TDI (White)
The guy isn't crazy.. sometimes it is 7 seconds, sometimes it gets hung up and takes 30-45.

Some people have discussed tips to reduce the time, but generally the RNS-510 is a slow slow slow device. Maybe its a 286... lol

If you open using the keyfob vs. the door handle, there is a better chance of success. If I car to make sure my RVC is working when I need it, I open the car with the fob, I start the car, then I put my seatbelt on and by then most times it is ready or in a few seconds.

The NAV is so bad I hardly use it. Entering in addressees is just faster using Waze.
 

tadawson

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Joined
Jun 14, 2013
Location
Lewisville, TX
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2013 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Passat TDI SEL
I think the part that you are refusing to hear, is that when the unit it working correctly, it isn't variable . . . (well, at least both ours aren't . . .). Walk out, touch door handle to unlock, get in, seatbelt on, hit start button, when running, immed. into reverse. 2 seconds to audio, 7 seconds to camera. *ALWAYS* . . .

Myself, I use the nav most of the time, having never found a phone app that just didn't suck too hard to be tolerable. I like my Garmin's route engine better, but the lack of integration with the car makes it #2 at best. Route entry is a PITA, but that's such a trivial portion of the time to run a route, that I just can't seem to manage to care . . . For me, the key to a good nav is getting to the destination with accurate guidance and rerouting around traffic issues, and the RNS does this flawlessly (but, as for any device, you need to keep it current).

On most disk based devices (SSD or spinning) the only time anything gets that slow is if there is a disk check/scan going on, which would be triggered by a crash, bad shutdown, or an error . . . IE, a problem unit . . .

There was a map update from VW to help NAV performance, and a couple of FW upgrades . . . I have both. Hence, I ask if those complaining are running "Jurassic code" or current . .

I'll time it again today I have not driven it for 2 days . . .
 
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j2112morris

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 3, 2013
Location
Chicago Suburbs
TDI
2014 Audi Q5 Premium Plus TDI (sold)
I think the part that you are refusing to hear, is that when the unit it working correctly, it isn't variable . . . (well, at lease both ours aren't . . .). Walk out, touch door handle to unlock, get in, seatbelt on, hit start button, when running, immed. into reverse. 2 seconds to audio, 7 seconds to camera. *ALWAYS* . . .

Myself, I use the nav most of the time, having never found a phone app that just didn't suck too hard to be tolerable. I like my Garmin's route engine better, but the lack of integration with the car makes it #2 at best. Route entry is a PITA, but that's such a trivial portion of the time to run a route, that I just can't seem to manage to care . . . For me, the key to a good nav is getting to the destination with accurate guidance and rerouting around traffic issues, and the RNS does this flawlessly (but, as for any device, you need to keep it current).

On most disk based devices (SSD or spinning) the only time anything gets that slow is if there is a disk check/scan going on, which would be triggered by a crash, bad shutdown, or an error . . . IE, a problem unit . . .

There was a map update from VW to help NAV performance, and a couple of FW upgrades . . . I have both. Hence, I ask if those complaining are running "Jurassic code" or current . .

I'll time it again today I have not driven it for 2 days . . .
While I appreciate your input, you are comparing apple to oranges. My '13 Jetta had the response your '13 does. I loved it. My wife's '14 had the same quick response. My '15 does not. My wife's new '17 has a similar response time to the '13 and '14. I don't know what VW did with the '15 model year but they really goofed up something that was not broken.

I do use the key fob trick. It works as fine. I would buy a new head unit but it is hard for me to justify replacing a working unit, even with the slow response. Some times I just get frustrated and need to gripe about it.

Drive safe.
 

Locoelectrician

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Jan 10, 2015
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Ohio
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2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Well, due to financial reasons (emerald ash borer deciding to ruin all of my trees and a bill of 7k to have a bunch of them removed) and lack of patience, I have abandoned this project for now. The radio I bought is still in Poland awaiting me to pay in advance for the mods before it is shipped back. While I don’t necessarily think anything shady is going on, I really can’t justify the money at this point for an experimental project. Curious about the RCD swap at this point as I have unlimited data and that would solve the Sirius problem. If it’s plug and play and gives me CarPlay, I’m in. My only real issue with the RNS is the nav, which is basically worthless. It works OK once it’s set up, but entering a destination is incredibly frustrating. Maybe the discovery media retrofit will become more commonplace, at which point I’ll revisit it.
 

Locoelectrician

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Ohio
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2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Ok, so pretty exciting update in my opinion. I bought a RCD330 plus off of eBay for 235 bucks delivered. Installed it for proof of concept and knew right off the bat that I couldn’t stand the front panel USB input. Anyways, plugged it in and it worked! Of course, every error light possible on the dash lit up but I didn’t care. Sounds great, and is lightning fast. The radio is playing before the seatbelt dinger even gets a chance to complain.

Grabbed another blue moon, my laptop, and did an autoscan with VCDS. So many errors on a car with 7k miles it was nearly funny. Most of them revolves around it looking for the RNS510 and not being able to find it. I tried to calmly explain that it was laying in the back seat, but it didn’t seem to listen. Coded out nav and most of them went away. Battery was unhooked so I still have tpms errors as well as abs errors. Oh, and an airbag error because believe it or not, if you have the trim removed and the passengers airbag light is disconnected, it errors out and turns the airbag light on.

Backup camera is an issue. The seller sold me an adapter for the video feed but I think it’s faulty. We plugged a Nintendo GameCube into the input and when the car is in reverse, the GameCube shows up on the screen perfectly fine. I will sort this out with the seller.

Most people doing this report that RDS does not work. No idea why, but mine works fine. Tuned into a local station and the station name along with the current song show up just fine.

Siri glitch. There is a well known glitch that after you use Siri, the volume you had it at before doubles. Mine does this as well. Hopefully there is a firmware update to address this in the future.

Front USB. I hate the sight of wires, so after proving that the thing actually worked, I tore it completely apart. I found the back of the factory USB plug and soldered a new female USB plug to it. Now I have rear USB that I can run anywhere I want. Quite an interesting process with only one eye. (I used to be quite the electronics nerd and able to solder anything to anything, but a recent health issue has destroyed the optic nerve in my dominant eye. Good times).

Phone. Haven’t tried this yet as I’ve had quite a few beers and refuse to drive.

I might try to upload some pictures if I can remember my photobucket password.
 

Locoelectrician

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 10, 2015
Location
Ohio
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Ok, so photobucket doesn’t work with ios11. Maybe it’s time to step out of the 90s and get something new. Open to suggestions.
 

Jb22

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 27, 2014
Location
Syracuse, NY
TDI
2015 Passat DSG
Ok, so pretty exciting update in my opinion. I bought a RCD330 plus off of eBay for 235 bucks delivered. Installed it for proof of concept and knew right off the bat that I couldn’t stand the front panel USB input. Anyways, plugged it in and it worked! Of course, every error light possible on the dash lit up but I didn’t care. Sounds great, and is lightning fast. The radio is playing before the seatbelt dinger even gets a chance to complain.

Grabbed another blue moon, my laptop, and did an autoscan with VCDS. So many errors on a car with 7k miles it was nearly funny. Most of them revolves around it looking for the RNS510 and not being able to find it. I tried to calmly explain that it was laying in the back seat, but it didn’t seem to listen. Coded out nav and most of them went away. Battery was unhooked so I still have tpms errors as well as abs errors. Oh, and an airbag error because believe it or not, if you have the trim removed and the passengers airbag light is disconnected, it errors out and turns the airbag light on.

Backup camera is an issue. The seller sold me an adapter for the video feed but I think it’s faulty. We plugged a Nintendo GameCube into the input and when the car is in reverse, the GameCube shows up on the screen perfectly fine. I will sort this out with the seller.

Most people doing this report that RDS does not work. No idea why, but mine works fine. Tuned into a local station and the station name along with the current song show up just fine.

Siri glitch. There is a well known glitch that after you use Siri, the volume you had it at before doubles. Mine does this as well. Hopefully there is a firmware update to address this in the future.

Front USB. I hate the sight of wires, so after proving that the thing actually worked, I tore it completely apart. I found the back of the factory USB plug and soldered a new female USB plug to it. Now I have rear USB that I can run anywhere I want. Quite an interesting process with only one eye. (I used to be quite the electronics nerd and able to solder anything to anything, but a recent health issue has destroyed the optic nerve in my dominant eye. Good times).

Phone. Haven’t tried this yet as I’ve had quite a few beers and refuse to drive.

I might try to upload some pictures if I can remember my photobucket password.

Just plug and play? No adapters? BTW - how did the rear camera issue find resolution?
 

251

TDI Owner/Operator
Joined
May 11, 2002
Location
NW IN
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SEL
For those considering replacing their RNS-510 ECS Tuning just announced what looks like a good alternative solution:

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-bremmen-parts/9-android-multimedia-system/021488brp06~brp/

Be interested to see how good/bad this unit is for install, operation and sound quality. It does have some limitations which are noted plus lacks built-in navigation so it isn't a direct replacement for a RNS-510's many features. I'm sure someone here will try one sooner or later - hopefully they can post feedback on same...
 

Locoelectrician

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Joined
Jan 10, 2015
Location
Ohio
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Just plug and play? No adapters? BTW - how did the rear camera issue find resolution?
No adapters other than the RVC which I am still working on. Other than that, 100% plug and play.
 

Locoelectrician

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Joined
Jan 10, 2015
Location
Ohio
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
RVC has been resolved. Tested it and it works fine. Just need to get my tech to wire it up permenantly for me.
 

Locoelectrician

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Joined
Jan 10, 2015
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Ohio
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Bought an adapter off of ali express. The original one from Avin didn't work.
 

15 TDI

New member
Joined
Oct 24, 2017
Location
ohio
TDI
Passat
15-TDI
Replaced my RNS-510, with a pioneer Avi unit. and the Idatalink Maestro really happy with the head unit this was 5 months ago car was 2 days old..
Now the remote start will not work and the dealer is blaming the radio change...
Has anyone heard of this ?
 

Locoelectrician

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Jan 10, 2015
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Ohio
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2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Well I’m switching gears again. I just bought the Alpine ILX-107 which has wireless CarPlay. It will be here Friday.
 

Locoelectrician

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Jan 10, 2015
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Ohio
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2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Well, The installation was a success, all 7342 wires and plugs are hooked up. Overall, I’m not as impressed as I was hoping to be. Wireless CarPlay is awesome, and works absolutely perfectly, but the rest of the experience is somewhat glitchy. Granted, I was in and out of menus a bunch of times playing, but I was able to lock the entire unit up about 4 times requiring a power cycle. Sound is fantastic compared to the RCD330. I forgot this car has decent bass, lol. The biggest letdown is the display. It’s grainy and pixelated up close. The RCD330 looks as sharp as my iPad and just as bright, the alpine has let me down in the screen department. I’ll keep posting as I have more time with it. It’s a keeper, for the wireless CarPlay alone, but the RCD330 is faster, and looks much better. Too bad they quit supporting it and releasing firmware updates, as it is an awesome system with just a few too many glitches to live with every day.
 

Locoelectrician

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Jan 10, 2015
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Ohio
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2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Well it’s been quite the frustrating day. After install, the system sounded awesome and everything was working. Get up this morning and the audio sounds flat and compressed, along with the sub not working. Tried everything including tests of speakers in VCDS and the sub was completely unresponsive. Ripped it all out and put the RNS back in. Sound was great again. Pulled the RNS, reflashed the maestro, and reinstalled the alpine. Awesome sound, sub working great, happy times. Went in the house for an hour or so and when I went back out, no sub and crappy compressed audio. Apparently when the electronics go to “sleep”, and then wake back up, everything goes to crap. Also, last night the factory mic worked for calls and Siri, today, dead as a door nail. When I put the RNS back in the factory mic works fine. Quite frustrated at this point and guess I need to either call crutchfield or maestro.
 

Locoelectrician

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Jan 10, 2015
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Ohio
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2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
Still on the fence but have enjoyed (and dismayed) by your posts loco :)

What do you guys think of this option... its $$$ but it is kind of the expensive way to do what he was trying to do..

https://eurozonetuning.com/products/vw-discover-media-plus-mib2-pq-retrofit-kit-w-apple-carplay
I would see if they sell it cheaper without nav. Nav is pretty useless when you have carplay. I'm currently back with the RNS510. The alpine went back to crutchfield a while ago. Either it or the Maestro hated my car and never did work right. Their support team never could figure it out so i gave up. I would do the rcd330 again in a heartbeat if someone could figure out how to get it to play nice with Fender. I thought about getting another one and soldering in resistors to attenuate the output but it seems like more work than i want to do right now.
 

Jb22

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 27, 2014
Location
Syracuse, NY
TDI
2015 Passat DSG
Loco, in your experiments, did you notice the VW bluetooth still being active when you changed receivers? I added a Sony head unit, which is sweet, but it seems like my RNS 315 had an external BT module somewhere, because it's still trying to connect to my phone. I can't make it go away in the MFD, so I guess I need to deal with it. BTW, Metra now sells a VW RVC adapter for aftermarket head units.
 

Fixmy59bug

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Joined
Aug 1, 2009
Location
Las Vegas, NV
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SE
Jb,

Your bluetooth module will be in one of two places.

If you have the MDI port in the center console, it is built into there. Pull off the back panel on the back of the center console (the piece with the rear air vents) and unplug the module. Problem solved.

If you do not have the MDI port, your module is under the passenger seat. Unplug that module. Problem solved.

You should also go into the CAN gateway and code out the Bluetooth (and digital media if applicable) that way you don't have errors for "No Communication". Not completely necessary, though.
 

Locoelectrician

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Jan 10, 2015
Location
Ohio
TDI
2015 Passat TDI SEL, 2015 Golf SEL Sportwagen, 2005 Jetta TDI, John Deere 355D
I tried many variations of unplugging and coding out modules and no matter what, the entire can bus filled with errors causing numerous other problems. At one point the windows wouldn't auto roll up or down do to errors. I'm still not convinced i didn't have a faulty Maestro module, but what a disappointing mess that entire experiment was. As to the question above, what I found that worked best was just deleting your phone from the car through the MFD. Crutchfield claimed (and still does) that you could use factory bluetooth but with carplay, it is impossible as carplay will take priority every time and cause the factory bluetooth to crash. I got Crutchfield and Maestro both to agree with me but neither seems to want to put the real info out as far as what will and will not work.
 
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