i know this has to have been done. I have one simple question for anyone with nav who has swapped out their HU for a different one.

Did you lose the Nav voice? if not was there anything special that you had to do or that was required? (wiring harnesses/wiring, etc.)

I'm still waitin on my MINI, but I will be swapping the HU for an Alpine 9857 and my stereo guy told me that I would lose the NAV voice. I don't wanna lose that.

 

Note:
If you have the H/K upgrade, you have to do a lot more than simply replace the HU, even before you start worrying about whether or not the NAV voice will still work ...
http://www.gbmini.net/mtblog/archive...g_harmon.shtml

As for the NAV voice, I believe it is a signal fed into the back of the HU so you'd need a similar facility in the aftermarket HU, or you could look at something like this from NewMINIstuff:
http://www.newministuff.com/new/shop...ductshow&id=51

Note that NewMINIstuff are also the only company that sell the HKenabler, which solves the H/K amp issues mentioned in my link above:
http://www.newministuff.com/new/shop...uctshow&id=116

 

Thanks GBMINI. On Newministuff it says that the navigation interface will not work with the HK enabler. Is there a way that it will work that you know of?

I am of course trying to do this the easiest way possible.

 

I'd suggest sending an email to Mike Wildman at NewMINIstuff - or to member MikeyTheMINI here (same person!)

I think he might have addressed the NAV / HKenabler issue - I remember him asking me about it. Something to do with higher volume levels.

 

Cool Thanks Ian!

 

Here's a thought maybe. The nav integrator says it has to splice two wires. My guess is the actual speaker wire and a power wire that have to be spliced. If so could it be spliced between the hk amp and the speaker?

Then the hk enabler would still be able to be used.

 

That's what I thought too ... the normal option "takes over" the driver speaker when NAV voice in needed. I thought the only NAV / HKenabler issue was that the same wiring scheme gave a too loud voice, because of the H/K amplification. But I might be incorrect!

 

The problem with the enabler & the nav interface is that the nav voice comes out VERY loud.
An alternative option is to cut the speaker wire coming from the drivers door under the dash & splice in the nav interface there. ( I have done this on a couple of phone installs when a HK enabler is used in the past few weeks)
Also I have heard a rumour that alpine do some kind of nav interface but I have not seen it ( I am not an alpine dealer)

 

Thanks for the thoughts. I will research a little further to see what kind of compatiblity the Alpine HU has with the nav interface.