After discovering that our '11 JSW could use a Mk5 Jetta Homelink sunvisor, I decided to give this go, given that all of our Audi A4s have had built in Homelink units. I started by searching car-parts.com for a driver side sunvisor in pearl grey back in early December. My goal with the project was to limit total cost of the retrofit to about $50, which ruled out many of the visors from salvage yards listed on car-parts.com, many of which charged more for shipping than the visor itself.
I ended up finding a decent visor from a '12 CC (PN 1K0-857-551-S-2F4) at lkqonline.com for a fair price (and free UPS shipping). The color (pearl gray) is a close match to our interior, although the mirror doesn't line up with the vanity light and the visor had a couple of flaws that needed to be fixed before moving forward with retrofit.
First, button 1 of the Homelink unit didn't feel right when depressed. Removing the Homelink facia is a simple matter; it's held on to the Homelink unit installed in the visor by four clips. Once removed, I found the plastic weld holding button 1 to the facia had come undone. I used a dab of Loctite Go2 Gel all purpose glue to re-attach the button to the facia.
Homelink unit with facia plate removed:
The other problem was the green (switched ground) wire from the visor had been cut when the visor was removed from the salvage car. A short bit of tinned stranded wire and heat shrink tubing solved this issue. Removing the terminal from the connector housing is relatively easy: first, open the secondary lock on the connector body, then depress the locking tab on the terminal with a (very) small flat screw driver or pick tool -- no special terminal extraction tool needed on this connector.
Switched ground wire repaired:
Before starting on the wiring harness adapter, I verified the Homelink unit worked by making a short wiring pigtail from the bit of flat moulded harness that was attached to the visor connector. Terminal 1 (black) on the three pin connector is ground, pin 3 (red) is 12VDC for the Homelink unit. Connecting these to a 12VDC supply confirmed the Homelink device worked properly.
Test pigtail made from female connector and moulded harness "cable":
Next on to fabricating a proper wiring harness adapter. For this, I sourced both connectors with attached pigtails from a vendor on aliexpress.com for about $10. Connectors were ordered on 22 Dec and arrived on 9 Jan.
The two pin male connector (1J0973332) w/pigtail: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000212454014.html
The three pin female connector (1C0973119B) w/pigtail: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000860145890.html
Three pin female, left; two pin male, right:
Full length wiring harness adapter with cloth tape wrap:
To get at into the headliner/roof space, remove the left side roof grab handle, the A pillar cover, and the visor clip (right side).
I think a shorter adapter harness here is reasonable; in my case the longer harness just got tucked into the headliner/roof space. To ease installation of the harness to visor connection, route the 12VDC/power wire through the channel that the existing flat cable is routed, then over to the A-pillar. I found that keeping the bulk (diameter) down on this part of the adapter harness eased passing the visor connector and attached cable up and into the headliner/roof space.
Finally, the power wire was routed down the A-pillar and connected to an existing switched add-a-fuse circuit in fuse panel C.
Retrofit visor with Homelink installed:
LED vanity light works when mirror cover opens:
I used cloth tape to wrap the wires of this harness adapter. The trouble I found with cloth tape is that it tends to get caught on sharp edges of the metal piece above the visor mount tab when the connector and cable gets pushed up into that space.
If I were to do this retrofit again, I would (1) keep the wiring between the two connectors as short as feasible and (2) use a length of plastic heat shrink tube to protect the harness adapter wires between the two connectors by removing the pins from the flat three-pin connector (as noted above, they don't require a terminal removal tool, while the two-pin male connector does need a special terminal removal tool).
Since I got two of each connector (just in case, and they were relatively inexpensive), I went ahead and made a spare adapter, like this:
Finally, a PDF of the original VW Homelink instruction manual is here: https://www.vwvortex.com/attachments/homelink_instructions_2005-pdf.1962/
I ended up finding a decent visor from a '12 CC (PN 1K0-857-551-S-2F4) at lkqonline.com for a fair price (and free UPS shipping). The color (pearl gray) is a close match to our interior, although the mirror doesn't line up with the vanity light and the visor had a couple of flaws that needed to be fixed before moving forward with retrofit.
First, button 1 of the Homelink unit didn't feel right when depressed. Removing the Homelink facia is a simple matter; it's held on to the Homelink unit installed in the visor by four clips. Once removed, I found the plastic weld holding button 1 to the facia had come undone. I used a dab of Loctite Go2 Gel all purpose glue to re-attach the button to the facia.
Homelink unit with facia plate removed:
The other problem was the green (switched ground) wire from the visor had been cut when the visor was removed from the salvage car. A short bit of tinned stranded wire and heat shrink tubing solved this issue. Removing the terminal from the connector housing is relatively easy: first, open the secondary lock on the connector body, then depress the locking tab on the terminal with a (very) small flat screw driver or pick tool -- no special terminal extraction tool needed on this connector.
Switched ground wire repaired:
Before starting on the wiring harness adapter, I verified the Homelink unit worked by making a short wiring pigtail from the bit of flat moulded harness that was attached to the visor connector. Terminal 1 (black) on the three pin connector is ground, pin 3 (red) is 12VDC for the Homelink unit. Connecting these to a 12VDC supply confirmed the Homelink device worked properly.
Test pigtail made from female connector and moulded harness "cable":
Next on to fabricating a proper wiring harness adapter. For this, I sourced both connectors with attached pigtails from a vendor on aliexpress.com for about $10. Connectors were ordered on 22 Dec and arrived on 9 Jan.
The two pin male connector (1J0973332) w/pigtail: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000212454014.html
The three pin female connector (1C0973119B) w/pigtail: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000860145890.html
Three pin female, left; two pin male, right:
Full length wiring harness adapter with cloth tape wrap:
To get at into the headliner/roof space, remove the left side roof grab handle, the A pillar cover, and the visor clip (right side).
I think a shorter adapter harness here is reasonable; in my case the longer harness just got tucked into the headliner/roof space. To ease installation of the harness to visor connection, route the 12VDC/power wire through the channel that the existing flat cable is routed, then over to the A-pillar. I found that keeping the bulk (diameter) down on this part of the adapter harness eased passing the visor connector and attached cable up and into the headliner/roof space.
Finally, the power wire was routed down the A-pillar and connected to an existing switched add-a-fuse circuit in fuse panel C.
Retrofit visor with Homelink installed:
LED vanity light works when mirror cover opens:
I used cloth tape to wrap the wires of this harness adapter. The trouble I found with cloth tape is that it tends to get caught on sharp edges of the metal piece above the visor mount tab when the connector and cable gets pushed up into that space.
If I were to do this retrofit again, I would (1) keep the wiring between the two connectors as short as feasible and (2) use a length of plastic heat shrink tube to protect the harness adapter wires between the two connectors by removing the pins from the flat three-pin connector (as noted above, they don't require a terminal removal tool, while the two-pin male connector does need a special terminal removal tool).
Since I got two of each connector (just in case, and they were relatively inexpensive), I went ahead and made a spare adapter, like this:
Finally, a PDF of the original VW Homelink instruction manual is here: https://www.vwvortex.com/attachments/homelink_instructions_2005-pdf.1962/
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